Have I failed?
I refused to believe it. I vowed not to let Roderik make any other Omega suffer ever again, but a sense of helplessness wound over me as my legs refused to obey me.
“Mina!” I screamed as he kicked her legs open.
He was going to knot her.
He was going to claim a mated Omega and rip her from her mate-circle by the sheer force of his will.
Was he a god? Had he become something so powerful that no one could hope to stop him?
He slid his fingers through her hair, securing her and exposing her neck. “Mine,” he growled, then tried to bite.
A flash of bright red fire shot a blast of heat over my face, sending my hair flinging back from my shoulders.
Mina held Roderik back with wide eyes as fire licked over her fingers.
What’s this?
The power I’d given her blazed with fury. My soul with Rowan’s magic burned through her and glowed in her eyes until it consumed her completely.
Roderik roared as blisters formed everywhere he touched Mina. Including his cock that had been rubbing up against her thigh.
“Fuck!” he shouted.
A barely audible chuckle caught my attention and I spotted Amell observing with a sense of curiosity lifting his lips.
He was just standing there watching this unfold, as if it was just another experiment.
It probably was. All of this had been carefully orchestrated.
The timing of Mina and me being summoned to the Collegium wasn’t a coincidence.
Neither was the fact that I’d returned to Rowan securing a new piece of my soul, and in effect, he’d given me a portion of his new powers.
Then there was Axel, writhing on the floor, broken but furious.
All of this had been planned.
Not by Roderik, but by an Elder who worked like a puppeteer playing us through the strings of the Web.
Roderik’s chest heaved as fury clouded his features. His catlike eyes shrank to daggers as he scoured the room for a new victim.
His cock throbbed and spilled Dust onto the floor. He was descending into a Rut, and he couldn’t claim Mina. He also knew I was off-limits. If he tried to take me, it might kill him.
That was my only protection until he took enough Omegas to have the strength to overpower me.
He turned on the crowd of terrified women. They had been watching with interest, but now they finally had fear in their eyes.
Because Roderik was in no mood to gently take them to the afterlife. He was going to fuck them all and rip into their throats, coating the Collegium with blood.
The visions of their deaths made the Web snap like teeth. They gnashed with the agony of so many cut timelines and the explosion of Dust that would follow.
No.
Axel’s touch startled me. I hadn’t even realized he’d crawled all the way across the floor and closed the distance between us.
“Drink,” he ground out. He bled from everywhere, but I needed an untainted source.