Page 44 of Lifeblood

“Watch out!” Mordred yelled.

Too late. The wraith’s claw tore into the flesh of my shoulder. I cried out as a searing agony bloomed across my skin and bone. A splash of silver blood scattered along the ground. I clamped my hand to my shoulder and backed away a few steps. Stared down the wraith. Its skeletal form hovered in the air. If it had lips, I was more than sure it’d be licking them at the sight of my divine blood.

I screamed as I launched myself forward, ready to burn the wraith into the afterlife, but my scream was overtaken by a roar not unlike a dragon’s. Gareth soared past me on a near-horizontal column of fire like a jetpack and burned rightthroughthe wraith. Only when it’d been reduced to ash did he turn back to me.

“How bad is it?” Concern wrinkled his brows, but his eyes were on fire. Angry. Bursting with rage.

My healing magic was already on my fingertips, soothing the angry skin and stitching shut the wound. “It’ll heal. I’ll—”

A shock of magic fired by a mage came soaring toward us. I went to push Gareth out of the way, but Tristan appeared, holding a bright green and gray energy between it and him. A literal shield. Shadows then wrapped around the mage and hauled her to the ground, where plants swarmed and pulled her down into the dirt.

The demon kings surrounded me again. All four of them.

“We need to end this,” Tristan said. “Arthur won’t stop.Shewon’t stop until this place is burned to the ground.”

“And I’m hers,” I said.

Four chorused and possessive growls filled the air around me.

“No,” Mordred said.

The men agreed and then delved into some sort of argument, but I was lost to it the moment something snapped taught inside me. A knowing. A… feeling. With magic flying around here, with all four of the kings this close to me, the mate bond was starting to take over my mind. Making it fuzzy. Or maybe that was the exhaustion.

And then one very clear thought came through:Connect.

It was the mate bond. All five strings.Thatwas what was snapping taut inside me. Calling me to connect.

To join with the kings. Not just sexually, but magically.

I grabbed Tristan’s hands. His shock over the touch dissipated quickly as my magic reached out to his.

“Ava?”

I nodded toward the wraiths. “Call them back to the spirit world. With my help.”

Tristan looked confused but closed his eyes anyway. Presumably worked his magic. It wasn’t a very visible process until the wraiths literally stopped moving. As if they were listening and waiting for further instruction.

I grabbed Gareth’s hand next and squeezed tightly. “Help me burn them.”

Gareth looked about as convinced as Tristan had but nodded anyway. In our combined hands, light and fire mixed as one, and when we fired it toward the wraiths, they disintegrated to ash.

Mordred came to my side and placed a hand on one shoulder. His shadow magic mixed with my light, both of them seemingly swallowing one another before coexisting peacefully.

“Grab him,” I said to Mordred.

The only acknowledgment I had that he’d heard me was seeing shadow tendrils race along the ground toward the undead Arthur Pendragon.

“Lance,” was all I had to say before Lance joined us. Plants and rainbow magic both filled the space. Plants that carried pure sunlight from me along their leaves and vines, blinding our more humanoid foes and leaving them susceptible to all attacks from the demon kings and me.

Within moments of joining together, all of our enemies were gone.

Except one.

I pulled on the mate bond to keep them all here, with me, instead of falling for Morgan’s tricks. “You said it yourself, Tristan. Thatcannotbe him. Even if it’s his body, it’s not your Arthur.”

Arthur kept walking toward us, his sword drawn. Magic dripped off it now—rainbow and sunlight, shadow and fire. And all around him, green energy crackled like a cloak.

“But what can we do?” Tristan asked. “There’s nothing I can do and I’m a necromancer.” Which implied he’d beentryingto send Arthur back to the spirit world. How the hell had Morgan done this?

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