Page 143 of Owned By the Fae
My heart twists as Lia pleads for my life. I don’t deserve her kindness after everything. He's going to kill us anyway, I think as I slowly slump forward.
My eyes are still open when I reach the floor, but all I can do is lie there impotently, watching the scene unfold, trying to make my magick heal me before it’s too late.
I see the beast launch itself out of a dark corner, and it lunges for Varrik, but the fae lord seems to have decided he’s on his own now and that he must fight. Grey gets a hair’s breadth from his throat, but he’s thrown across the room. He hits the wall with a sickening thud and falls to the floor.
The room is silent, and all I can hear is the hammering of my own heart and my harsh breaths as I beg the gods to save Lia, if no one else.
Varrik’s grunt of pain has me looking at him again, and I see a knife protruding from his back.
Kallum.
Varrik ignores the knife that he can’t reach himself and instead lashes out with a conjure. I hear a thump, and Kal materializes a moment later, not five paces from me. He's not moving.
I force myself to my feet, and I roar through the pain, getting ready to throw everything I have left at him. I will die, but I can't let Varrik take everyone I care about from me. He’s stolen enough!
But I freeze because Lia is grinning, and when Varrik sees it, he hesitates as well, his brow furrowing.
‘You're too late,’ she snarls. ‘You should have stayed in your fold, Varrik!’
‘What have you done?’ I whisper, at the same time as Varrik asks the same.
All the doors to the room bang open, the windows shattering assomethingsweeps into the room.
‘You've killed us all!’ he shrieks.
Everyone left standing cowers in the presence of it. There are screams and yells of terror—all but Lia, who’s smiling wide, her eyes not leaving Varrik.
And it comes to me.
Varrik isn't protected in the Underhill.
The invisible force whirls around Varrik, turning black and enveloping him completely. His screams echo through the room, and I see the crackle of magick as he tries to save himself.
But despite his power, he's no match for the Dark Realms itself.
When it recedes only a moment later, there's nothing left of Varrik but his clothes.
It's done. It's finished.
I fall to my knees, my body trying to heal itself but failing. This is the end.
Chapter Eighteen
Lia
Irun to Dane first. His blood is everywhere, and I don’t know what to do. The Harbinger lingers, watching and feeling as useless as I do as I watch him dying before me.
But then Isbeth is there next to me, her eyes closed as she whispers words in a language the Harbinger remembers.
‘She draws from the Underhill itself,’ it says.
Dane’s blood flows back into him, and the color returns to his flesh. He takes a breath and then another, his arms reaching for me.
I hold him to me.
‘It’s all right,’ he murmurs. ‘Protect the babe.’
‘You aren’t going to die,’ Isbeth says almost fondly as she looks down at us.
