Page 104 of Curse of Darkness
“He won’t kill her.” The words blurt from my mouth, but they’re no reassurance. And the pain is almost all-consuming now. One knee goes out from under me.
Malakhai needs the last two pieces of Death’s soul. And what better way to incapacitate Thiago than to put a knife to her throat. He won’t kill her. Not until Thiago arrives. She has to be safe.
But the part of me that knows that little girl is mine knows that sometimes fate isn’t that kind….
Shoving to my feet, I ignore the glacial creep through my veins and the way I sway. I don’t have time to feel it.
My daughter is up there.
Alone.
Frightened.
Hunted by the creature that sired my husband.
And my husband is flying directly into the trap he just set.
I don’t fear Death.
But as I summon my thorns, one of them circling my waist, I can’t help thinking: Maybe he should fear me.
22
THIAGO
Malakhai awaits me as I land neatly on the walkway.
“Ah, true love,” he mocks. “You managed to save her just in time.”
Fury pulses deep within me as I draw my sword. I can’t stop seeing Vi falling….
“Or did you?” he purrs.
“What does that mean?”
A sword materializes in his hand. One as black as night—blacker even. It’s so dark, you can barely see the blade, as if it’s forged from nothing. A void of light. A void oflife.
“She’s dying, you little bastard.” The smile turns into a sneer. “She just hasn’t realized it yet.”
And then he attacks.
I throw everything I have into parrying that blow. Muscle flexes in his shoulder, a faintest hint of his next move, and I shift to counter that too. Sparks flare off my sword every time they meet, and the impact ricochets down my arms.
This bastard raped my mother.
Every day of my life I’ve felt him out there, hunting for me, looking for the fragment of Death within me.
And now he’s attacked both Vi and Amaya.
Malakhai grunts as I counter him again and swings so widely I barely have time to deflect the next blow.
Metal screams. There’s a moment where my sword holds, but smoke curls off his blade and then—
It shears straight through my steel.
I’m left with nothing more than a foot-long length of blade in my hand as the obsidian sword swipes past my chest.
“Darkyn steel,” he says with a laugh as I retreat. “Forged from Death itself. Invincible. Now you’re mine.”
