Page 110 of A Legacy of Poison and Lies

Holt had already healed himself, moving her behind him as he pushed to his feet. Vines snapped behind them, and they both turned to see Jesper breaking free of his restraints.

They shared a look, barely the span of an intake of breath. But it was enough. Neither Jesper nor Marcus knew the compulsion had been lifted. They still believed Holt couldn’t harm Marcus, that he would simply hand Zylah over for whatever game Aurelia was playing.

They were wrong.

Holt moved for Marcus at the same time Zylah lunged for Jesper, her dagger slashing out as she slid through the dirt at the vampire’s feet.

Jesper laughed, but it sounded hollow, empty, as he pressed a hand to the wound and peered at his blood-soaked fingers. “Playing dirty? I knew you were a fighter. I can still remember the way you felt squirming beneath me back in Virian.”

Zylah huffed a laugh of her own in bitter amusement that she had ever considered herself a monster after what he’d tried to do to her. But she wasn’t that defenceless human anymore.

Lightning cracked and struck earth behind her, followed by a groan from Marcus as Holt deflected the attack.

Make him suffer,she told her mate as she moved around Jesper. Her eyes darted to the fires around them, searching for ways she could trap the vampire in the flames just as two wildcats crept towards him, bodies pressed low to the ground, fangs bared, silver-grey eyes reflecting the flicker of flames. Rin and Kej. And they were pushing him back, forcing him into the fire whilst Zylah blocked his only other way out.

“Play nice, kitties,” Jesper purred. And then he lunged. Zylah didn’t know which of the twins it was, Rin or Kej, but as fangs sank into fur and flesh, dark shadows swirled at Jesper’s throat, ripping him away.

Daizin slid to the earth beside the wildcat, one hand pressed to the wound. “He’ll be okay with me, I’ll have Enalla take us back. Don’t let the prince get away,” he told Zylah as Rin joined him, licking at Kej’s wound.

Zylah didn’t need to be told twice. Jesper was faster than the other vampires, but he was sloppy with his sword, she could see it clearly now her skills had improved.

And with evanescing as her advantage, Zylah moved around him, faster and faster, slicing at flesh, knocking his sword from his grasp and narrowly missing the scrape of fangs as he reached for her.

Take what you need,Holt told her, as her chest heaved and sweat soaked her clothes, the air still filled with the sounds of clashing swords and cries. But apprehension twisted in Zylah’s stomach.

The well is bigger now,Holt reassured her.

She spared a glance over her shoulder to see Holt and Marcus circling each other, swords drawn, and she knew he was waiting for the moment he could release the surge of power she’d only felt tremors of in the past.

Her look cost her. Jesper collapsed onto her, rolling them head over foot across the compacted earth. There was no time to think; Zylah evanesced them both high above the lake, so high they reappeared amongst the clouds, using Jesper’s moment of panic to climb onto his back, spinning and tumbling and falling with him so fast she couldn’t make up from down.

Jesper roared as he tried to peel her off him, but his movements were panicked, frenzied and it gave her a smug sense of satisfaction knowing that his last moments would be full of fear. Here was the monster who had started all of this; Zylah knew she was just one of many, that his other victims would not have been as lucky as she had been to escape his clutches. The fear he felt wouldn’t have been even a fraction of what he’d inflicted.

His arms reached back to scratch and claw at her, but she held fast as they plummeted through the clouds, even when his head slammed back to crack against her own. She focused on her fingertips, on all the times she’d watched Holt summon flames, let herself be consumed by the feel of her magic, ofhis, and then she tugged, gently, pulled on that part of him that could create a single ember.

And watched in fascination as her fingers sparked against Jesper’s clothes.

She’d killed Jesper once. This time, there would be no coming back for him. This time, a single ember was all she needed.

They breached the clouds, plumes of smoke drifting up from the shattered mine, Jesper’s keening scream fading away into the wind. She moved her hands to the sides of his face, pressing and pushing her fingers into his flesh until the embers spread, using her healing magic to soothe her own skin where it seared against his, preventing the fire from consuming her.

Jesper’s fate would not be painless. She held tight, screaming against the discomfort until she could hold on no longer, evanescing back to the shore in time to see him smash into the surface of the lake, a ball of flames consumed by an explosion of water. If the fire hadn’t already taken him, the fall would.

Zylah doubled over, exhaustion gripping her as she healed the last of the burns on her hands, ruined flesh repairing itself as the water subsided, all traces of Jesper gone. Relief washed over her at the sight. Jesper had been the one to start all of this, but she’d been the one to end it, and yet the victory felt hollow. His was another death in a long list of many, and Zylah was tired of it.

A spike of pain pressed into her heart, forcing the air from her lungs. Zylah almost lost her footing as a shockwave of magic rattled the earth.

Holt had unleashed his magic. And he was injured.

She looked up in time to see power surging from him and taking out everything in its path, her mate staggering forwards a step.

She sucked in a breath as Marcus fell, evanescing to Holt’s side and lacing her fingers through his. “Is he…?”

Holt didn’t speak. But she knew the answer. Marcus was dead. Yet unlike the hollowness of Jesper’s death, Zylah choked back a sob at the site of the Fae who had caused her mate so much harm, who had been the one responsible for so much pain.

But it wasn’t just Marcus that Holt’s power had obliterated. It was the thralls behind him, the remaining vampires, even the priestesses and the acolytes that had chosen to stay, each of them thrown back with the force of Holt’s blast, an eerie quiet following in its wake.

Healing magic bled from her fingertips into his as she took in the lifeless bodies scattered around them in a semi-circle, her breath catching in her throat at the sight. But Holt didn’t react, his chest heaving, his lips pressed into a firm line. Zylah followed his gaze, her attention falling on the cluster of soldiers he’d taken out with his magic by mistake.

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