Page 144 of Her Blood Revenge

‘We help.’

Archie shifts.

I withdraw my sword.

And together, we attack side by side with Neve.

I can’t see Athir’s nightmares. I’m unsure what a god would even fear.

But I have to do something. Restrain her. Try to get through to her. Anything!

‘NO!’ Neve screams, slamming us with a solid flow of blood and hurling us both back. ‘I will get him out,’ she insists. ‘She is mine to save!’

Her words take me aback. Not only that, but the emotion she says them. Like she cares. As if she were actually afraid for her child.

From the treeline, unseelie slowly emerges, watching with salivating lips and bared teeth. Talons dig into thedarkened grass. Horns point to the sky. Beady eyes watch. Scales shimmer. They stand ready to attack us if we try to intervene, and the remaining coven is no help, fleeing into the trees to save their arses.

As Neve attacks Athir, with every blow she lands with that strange spear, the trees wither and die. The leaves turn black and wilt. The bark rots and crumbles. Tree after tree falls, and their attack on the witches with poison and thorns ends.

But Athir soon gets the upper hand and slams his fist into Neve’s face. Dark vines grow from Pixie’s skin and quickly wrap around Neve’s throat, squeezing and squeezing until her eyes bulge. Where the vines touch, her skin turns black. Poison seeps into her pores.

‘If the plague of man is to end, it will end at my hand. With the earth soaking up the blood, bile and bonemarrow from all who dared destroy my forests! A debt is owed. A debt of blood. And they will pay. You will all pay.’ Pixie’s skin darkens even more. ‘This land is mine! It is mine to control. Mine to rule! Hel will stay where she is. She will-’

Neve shoves her fingers into Pixie’s mouth and roars. Blood pours down her throat and streams from her nose and ear. As Pixie screams, she drops Neve. And with a mighty swipe, Neve slices Pixie straight across her chest with that glistening spear.

Time slows as I watch it cut from her hip to her shoulder. As her body slices open, black blood spurts out, coating Neve in its wetness.

‘Fuck…’ I whisper, grabbing onto Archie, who stumbles beside me. We both look on in horror.

Pixie staggers and blinks before looking down at her body.

Neve laughs as Pixie falls to her knees, and with the tip of her god-killing spear, she tilts up Pixi’s chin so she can look into Athir’s eyes.

‘This child is mine, Athir. I made her for my ends. Not for yours.’

‘You swore to let me have her,’ Athir groans. ‘So I could return and end my enemies. You promised me a child.’

‘No,’ Neve laughs. ‘I needed a powerful witch with the blood of a god running through her veins so I could return you to this world and do precisely what I have done. Because to break my goddess free of her final manacle, I need to kill a god. And you are by far the weakest of them all.’

I yell as Neve buries the spear clean through Pixie’s neck.

When she withdraws it, the purple light in her eyes flickers out. Her skin becomes pink once more.

And she is herself.

Pixie falls back. Her eyes close. Her body is limp as she groans in pain.

All the dark earth magic dies in that second, and the ground is as it was.

Before I can breathe a sigh of relief that she is now free of the vengeful witch god, a terrible rumble shakes the world. The sky darkens in an instant as black clouds blot out the sun. Neve laughs, watching the churning sky. Then blood starts to rain down on us. Neve’s arms open wide as she relishes in her win.

She has killed a god.

And the last of Hel’s manacles has been broken.

And Pixie… she groans and rolls over on her side, her lashes fluttering as she tries so hard to open them.

Neve faces us, her bloodstream dancing warningly in the air between us.

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