Page 51 of Spellbound
I stared at the smoking pistol. Even I couldn’t quite believe it.
“We should go.” Maddox grabbed my hand, tightening his fingers around mine. As he pulled me forward, I dropped the now-useless pistol. It had only had one shot in it, as I’d stupidly not reloaded it the last time I’d used it.
“Where’s Viktor?” he asked as we fled for the front door. I couldn’t even get intothatwhole mess right now.
“Atrium. I—” A loud boom silenced me.
Maddox speared through air, flung from me, and landed against a wall. His head crunched when it hit the baseboard. My hand muffled my scream as my eyes widened, and a sob climbed up my throat from my sinking heart.
“Maddox!” I cried when Freya grabbed me by the throat and lifted me from the ground. Was he dead?
“Say good-bye.”
Viktor came from behind and pulled her from me. With a hand around her neck, he slammed her into the ground, cracking the floorboards to splinters.
I shimmied my way to Maddox’s side, holding his limp hand. Freya pulled herself from the dip in the floorboards at dizzying speed.
She picked shreds of wood out of her bloodied skin, then tilted her head. “That was mean.”
She whipped her head around to look at the front door, wide-eyed. Viktor hurried to Maddox’s side, despite the bits of brick embedded in his arm from where he’d hit the wall. Freya ran out the door, and I let out a sob.
“Get away from us,” I croaked as Viktor placed his hand over the bruise forming on Maddox’s head.
“He’ll be fine. He’s breathing, Elle. It looks worse than it is. He’s just unconscious.”
“You’re a monster. You’re like her... a—”
“Freya ran because she heard them coming. The council. Elle, they’re about to enter. Do not tell them what happened.”
I didn’t even want to imagine what he would do if I did say anything. “I shot Alexander, her boyfriend or whatever, in the shoulder.”
“He’s gone. I heard him go out the back. She would have gone to him.”
“How?” My eyebrows furrowed.
The front door creaked open, and three members of the council stood, slack-jawed. “What happened here?” asked the first.
Viktor spoke first. “Intruders trying to steal things from the vaults.”
It was half-true.
“The floor,” said a man in his seventies as he stood in front of the massive dip in the ground.
“They used dark magic. A curse hit the floor. Our friend here needs to go to the infirmary.”
The man looked at me. “Are you okay, miss?”
I looked at Viktor, whose glare sent a shiver down my spine, then I gulped. “Yes. Fine.”
***
Thunder rumbled throughthe gray-purple sky. Thin dark clouds stretched to the horizon, where the sun hid behind the storm. Rain splashed mud around my ankles, releasing a rich, earthy scent. Tall trees dizzied up, their bare branches holding no shelter from the thick droplets hammering down. I appreciated the rain more than ever, as it shielded the tears that trickled down my face. Breathless, I closed my eyes, finding steadiness.
The first chance I got, I’d hightailed it out of there and down to the woods. The murderer was Freya all along, and she was gone now—probably far away, as the council had come to Deadwood. It was nice being back between the trees, even if the flashbacks of finding Bryan’s body forced their way into my mind.
How could I have been so blind? The Lor. His incredible skills with weapons. The knowledge. The way he seamlessly blended into our society after supposedly coming from Salvius. He was a god. A ruthless, vengeful god who sacrificed people and had planned on killing me.
Edmund was on his way home with Dora and Alma after getting a magic quill about what had happened. Fortunately, whatever was in those vaults she or they were after was still there. Maddox was staying overnight in the infirmary but would be okay. He only knew about Alexander. He didn’t know anything about Freya or Viktor and had been unconscious during the fight.
