“Don’t worry,hot boy.” Another twitch of her mouth that reaches her eyes this time. “That’s what they call you at the bar, right? I don’t have any use for the princess.”
Her fingers brush along the table edge, tapping the beakers with the deliberate precision of someone choosing a specific wine pairing.
She leans in. The stench of mage blood slams into me. Not one kind—allkinds.
I clench my fists against the chains. “How many mages did you have to feed on before you developed their powers?”
She tilts her head in a measured acknowledgement. “More than even I cared to stomach. Especially when there are so manylevel ones and twos running around, but so few higher-powered treats for me to suck on. But it’s worth it.” She raises a hand and a ball of purple energy appears in her palm, roiling, glowing and shifting. “For the power.” Closing her hand, the energy ball snuffs out. Based on what she’s done to Aurora, I know she can do a lot more than a light show in her hand.
The memory of Aurora telling me the vampires seemed like they were coming for me rises in my mind. I hadn’t paid the theory much attention then, but now I realize she was probably right.
“What do you want with me? Why do you have my scale?” I jerk my chin toward the petri dish.
Mal pulls up a stool with a terrible screech before she hops up onto it.
“I want you to help me finish what I’ve started.”
“Cursing babies and throwing a fit?” I suggest. It’s almost as if I’ve absorbed some of that Lost Girl sass...for better or worse.
Her eyes darken, and I feel a thickening of power in the room. “Admittedly, leveraging the princess did not go quite to plan.”
“If you don’t need her, why did you come to Poison Apple the other night? Why did you expose her like that in front of everyone?”
Mal calmly folds her hands. Every sedate, controlled motion is at odds with the chaotic powers flaring from and around her. “I had no intention of outing Aurora, and I had just learned that you were the answer.” She gestures to the scale on the makeshift laboratory table. “I wanted to come see how she turned out. When I cursed her all those years ago, I anticipated that she would be burned at the stake or at the very least, cast out of her father’s kingdom, hopefully breaking Roland’s heart.” The first flash of emotion goes through her eyes. But as quickly as itshows, it disappears. “And I also expected her to come into her full power by now.”
Full power? What does that mean?
“I’d been warning my...lackeys,” she says with some disdain, “to watch out for her when trying to get to you. When they told me she had no concept, no grasp of what she could fully do, I had to see for myself.”
“What are you talking about?” I openly sneer at her. “Are you saying the curse was a gift?”
She shakes her head. “Oh no,” she says loftily, pushing her hair back with one hand. “But I figured she’d come into the full powers of a Succubus if she’d stayed alive for this long. I was quite surprised when I found her so restrained, so pent up even as she degraded herself, dancing atop that bar.” She gives me a bemused smirk of superiority. “And when she saw me, that power tried to bloom, tried to grow the way I expected it to years ago. Of course,” she interlaces her fingers again, “when she tried to use her power on the person who cast the curse, it obviously backfired with critical results.” She cocks her head to the side. “But boy, have you done a good job cleaning that mess up. It’s a pity all these years you’ve been used as some kind of servant,” her nose wrinkles as she spits the word, “to the Rosari’s. When you aresomuch more.”
My insides coil with trepidation.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” I say plainly.
Mal hops down from the stool, approaching me slowly, craning her neck up to meet my eyes. Her irises are dark—almost black—but shimmer when she moves. Like the magic inside her can’t stop writhing.
“You are one of the few Dragons left in this Realm. You are resistant to the influence of others, even my own Vampire thrall. No Rosari can feed on your energy. You are powerful, strong,with independent will, wings, andfire.” As she describes my qualities, her eyes turn glassy with...lust.
My jaw tenses. My gaze flits to the barely breathing bodies in the corner as I realize why I’m here.
She grins now, a smile that still doesn’t reach her eyes but shows off the gleaming vampire fangs. “And I would very much like a taste.”
Chapter 35
Finding the Power and the Villain
AURORA
They took him.
Mal took the man I love from me.
All logic, all fear has burned away. What’s left is singular and sharp, a diamond-hard truth I can’t escape. He ismine. And I won’t burn the world to get him back.
I will devour it.
