Page 54 of A Bloodline Redeemed

“Fuck,” I muttered, elbowing another zombie in the face when it tried to use my moment of distraction to chew on my neck.The thing stumbled back, and Cloe’s back hooves hit it in the chest, crushing bones and sending it hurtling across the square to smash into another zombie.A kick from a centaur was no laughing matter.

Taking a hint from my attacker, I spun and threw a vial of potion at a cluster of cultists who weren’t paying attention.The vial shattered and a cloud of forever sleep put them on the ground.They wouldn’t wake until I commanded it.IfI commanded it.I was sure someone, at some point, would need to question cultists and write up reports or something.But right now, I was more focused on surviving.And on making sure my lifemates survived along with me.

“What’s going on over there?”I shouted to Amethyst, who had a better vantage point where she was perched atop a car roof, lobbing spells and arrows as the enemy.

“Some kind of standoff with between the Lovell group and the cult leader,” my fae-crossed lover bit out, pausing to loose an arrow at a cultist who thought they were stealthily sneaking away.

I opened my mouth to reply, but was struck by a sudden shockwave of dark magic.Gasping, I fell to one knee, then struggled back to my feet, my sword and a fire spell held in my hands.“Back!”I yelled, my heart pounding with fear and shock.“Get back here now!Behind the barrier!Full shields up!”

My team and the other loyal SA agents I had recruited all scrambled to get closer, those with the strongest magic bolstering the shield that protected us and the cowering group of people we had saved from the cult.

Then I felt it.Lovell magic.It was back.Oleander Lovell wasn’t dead, as I assumed she had been.And not only that… the power coming off her wasimmense,a looming, threatening giant that had not existed before she suddenly went offline and came back on again.It was as if an entire coven of ancient Lovell witches had just appeared where only one had stood before.

And it wasn’t just her.It was all of them.Somehow the magics of Oleander andallof her weird group of powerful people were combined and multiplied, the magic twisting through the area like the questing fingers of some massive, god-like entity.

I shuddered.The involuntary urge to kneel, to cower, or run and hide was suddenly so strong I almost broke.But there were others to think of.“No!”I barked out, halting several of my group from bolting like frightened rabbits.“Stay inside the shields!”

Oleander Lovell had never turned out to be the great evil the SA higher-ups always insisted she was.She hadn’t followed in her family’s legacy.I had grown to actuallylikethe bold, irreverent, and impossible Lovell witch.I’dalmostgrown to trust her and her people—though her sister, Bella, still gave me pause.But now… Now I knew I was smart to hang on to what few reservations I’d had.The power rolling off her was dangerous.Wild and dominating.The kind of power that people only dreamed up in stories or nightmare “what-if” training scenarios.

It was the kind of power that could be absolutely devastating to everything and everyone around it.Exactly the kind of power that the cult had been seeking, and that the smarter of the SA agents had been trying to prevent from existing.

We were all about to witness Oleander Lovell’s true nature.

“It’s impossible,” Trenton breathed at my side.“That kind of power.Has she enslaved them all after all?Some kind of soul magic that allows her to tap them like batteries?”

I shook my head slowly as I stared out at the scene playing out across the square.I watched as Oleander Lovell ended the cult’s leader with a single flick of her fingers, no weapon in sight, no surge of energy to indicate she had used a spell.The O’Leary bitch deserved to die.And it wasn’t like I could do anything to stop it, even if I’d wanted to.

The body crumpled to the ground and Oleander turned to walk away, pausing to speak to a few of her lovers along the way.I simply watched, my entire body tense, all my magical awareness focused on the strange witch and the area around her.My mind raced as I tried to think of a way to get me and my people out of this alive.

I’d never felt anything like the magic rising around us.The overwhelming power of the Lovell magic was joined by a surge of dark, cold necromantic energy that caused every corpse to rise, and every zombie to turn toward the call of the man who called death to heel like a well-trained pet.

Fire roared to life here and there in brilliant bursts, the heat of the jinn flames burning cultists to ash in seconds before disappearing, only to erupt somewhere else.A cloud of terror threaded through the air, blocking out the sun and drawing every fear I had ever had to the surface of my being.I shook, and tears poured down my cheeks.But I knew I was only feeling the tiniest hint of what the cultists felt, as the boogeyman fed from the dark recesses of their souls.

Trenton and Cloe crowded closer, Amethyst at my back.One of the recruits behind me whispered, “We’re all going to die,” then burst into tears.

And still I waited, and watched.And hoped against all logical reason that maybe, justmaybewe’d survive.Maybe the monsters before us would recall that we were supposed to be allies.

The angels came to ground nearby, the warm ethereal glow from the branches of energy that made up their wings the only thing that gave any color to a rapidly graying world.“Shall we head back to the angelic to report?”one of them asked.And fuck, that was just what we didn’t need, the host of heavenly justice descending on the area to put down the feral Lovell and save the day.The angels would use it as an excuse to take over governance of Magea.

But then again, I thought as I watched Oleander slowly walk toward me, maybe that would be preferable to whatever world-ending power this fight had just unleashed on our realm.

“No,” the angels’ leader said firmly.I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Andy long enough to confirm, but I’d bet his gaze was just as focused as mine, on the potential threat.“Give her time.I want to see how this plays out.”

There was a sense of… pride, almost, in his voice.A smugness that conveyed a big ol’ “I told you so.”

All around us, cultists dropped like flies, felled by fire, nightmares, undead soldiers, or simple claws, teeth, or fae blades.And Oleander Lovell slowly walked through it all like she was taking a leisurely stroll through the park on a sunny weekend, with nothing to do but soak up the sunshine and bird song, untouched by a single spell or mundane weapon.

I blinked rapidly when I realized that everywhere she stepped she left behind a footprint of plant life that cracked through the pavement and rapidly unfurled toward the sun.An earth goddess wrapped in a cloak of darkness.

She stopped several feet from where I stood, on the other side of a protective shield that I was pretty sure she could shatter with a thought, judging from the magic that was absolutelydrippingfrom her aura.It was like someone had decided to make all magic into a person, and she was it—the physical manifestation of all that gave us life and death in the magical realms.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Lovell?”I bit out, my voice somehow firm, when it should be shaking.Fake it ‘til you make it.It was one of my favorite trainers’ best pieces of advice when I was at academy.

Oleander looked me over, her gray eyes glittering like stars, and her dark green hair moving on its own, reminding me of a nest of sentient vines.“Hello, Jacki.”

I had the urge to cross my arms over my chest and act tough.But I still held a blood-stained sword in one hand, and the other hand hovered by the vials and pre-loaded spells that were tucked into my belt.“I think the cult got the message,” I told her flatly.“You can tone it down now.”

She turned her head to look around, as if surprised.“Oh.”

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