Lightning exploded from him in retaliation. A blinding, blistering arc of power slammed into me before I could recover. My body flew through the air, smashed into a wall, and cracked it down the middle. The breath was torn from me as I crumpled to the dirt, blood pouring from my mouth, my side screaming with pain.
Bones. Bruised. Maybe broken. I couldn’t tell.
Everything hurt.
But I looked up. I had to.
Vael appeared like a nightmare dressed in pale skin and burning light.
“Elira, Elira,” he crooned, voice almost tender, “why must you keep fighting me?”
He tilted his head, inspecting the spike still lodged in his shoulder with a sigh, as if I’d disappointed him. “I don’t enjoy hurting you, you know. I never did. But you—” his gaze sharpened, “—you never learned any other way.”
“You’ll never have me,” I gasped. My ribs stabbed with each breath. “I’ll die here first.”
He knelt beside me like a lover, not a monster, and brushed blood-matted hair from my face with mock affection.
“You are still so beautiful,” he whispered. “The blood purifies you, my love. Through pain we find devotion. Through suffering, strength. The gods chose us for this. You and me.”
A tear slid down my cheek. Just one. But I let it fall.
“No,” I breathed. “Never. I won’t touch you. I won’t be yours. You disgust me. You always did.”
His expression darkened. The softness snapped.
He grabbed my throat again—faster this time, crueller—and lifted me off the ground like I weighed nothing. My feet kicked, scraped against stone, then dangled. I clawed at his hand, but my strength was fading. My lungs burned. Stars bloomed at the edges of my vision.
He slammed me into the wall. My skull cracked against stone. I saw white.
“I’m going to take you home. And we will be married. And then I will fuck you until you bleed.” He leaned in, his lips ghosting the shell of my ear. His breath was warm and wrong and soaked in power.
“You’ll bleed, Elira,” he said, his red eyes devouring me. “And you’re going to love every. Single. Part of it.”
No.
I wanted to scream, but there was no air left to give it sound.
But then—something moved behind him.
A shimmer. A curl of green. A quiet, deadly slither.
The vine.
He didn’t see it. He didn’t even feel it until it wrapped around his neck and yanked.
He choked, stumbling backward in shock.
His grip on me broke—and I fell, coughing and gasping as I collapsed to the ground.
My shadows fell with me, heavy and spent.
From behind him, a voice rang out—fierce, female, and furious:
“Hands off my friend, motherfucker.”
Maddie stepped from the smoke, her eyes blazing. The vine around his throat tightened, glowing with her magic, every thorn biting deep.
She wrenched her hand and the vine whipped Vael back, dragging him from me like a puppet with snapped strings.
