Just a few more seconds. Just long enough to?—
Keira screams.
The sound rips through me like someone trying to steal all the air from my lungs.
The Phantom King laughs, the sound low and triumphant, and my control shatters.
Fuck my plan.
Fuck Nicolae.
Fuck the alliance.
Fuck everything.
I charge in, bursting from the shadows like death not caring that I’m going to loose the Phantom King.
My first shot takes out the closest robed figure and I turn and shoot the one next to him as he reaches for a blade.
The room erupts in chaos.
Chanting turns into shouting. One of them rushes me, and I drive my boot into his knee, twist him around, and shoot him in the back.
Another swings, his blade slicing my arm.
I yell and slam the butt of my gun into the side of his face and he falls to the ground.
I look at Keira; her eyes lock with mine, wide with shock, tears streaming down her face.
"Octavian!" she sobs.
"I'm here," I growl, trying to rush toward her.
But another man lunges at me, blocking my path. I slam my elbow into his throat and shoot him as he falls.
I finally get close to Keira and I see it.
Her forearm is bleeding, the skin carved open in a deliberate shape.
An M.
The Morrígan's mark.
Everything inside me goes cold.
Then it ignites as more men rush me and pull me away from her.
I fire. Again. And again.
Each shot finds a target. Chest. Head. Throat.
Bodies fall around me, their screams blending together and falling on deaf ears.
Another robed coward comes at me with a knife and I catch his wrist, twist hard and break his arm. His friend behind him takes a bullet to the chest before someone knocks the gun out of my hand.
I turn to the man's broken arm I'm still holding, yank the knife from him, and slam it right into his eye socket.
At the same time I feel a gash above my right shoulder blade. I turn and see a man swinging a knife at me.
