The power keeps pouring out of me, wild and uncontrollable, tearing through the clearing and beyond. The trees are obliterated, reduced to charred stumps, and the ground cracks and heaves as the force of my magic tears it apart. Branches fly, the world disintegrates, and up becomes down as the rules of physics abandon all reason and chaos rules supreme.
Kade screams at me, and I push on, obliterating anything and everything except the warlock I’m tethered to by a bond I don’t want. I’m vengeance and its fury. I’m wrath and it’s ultimatum. I’m insatiable and it’s only when exhaustion hits that I pull back, letting my magic return to wherever it came from.
There’s nothing left.
The clearing is a smoking wasteland, the air thick with the smell of burned wood and flesh. The only sound is the faint crackle of dying flames and the only light is the spark in Kade’s eyes.
I collapse to my knees, trembling with exhaustion. My hands are stained with blood, and I don’t know if it’s mine or theirs. I gasp and my chest heaves as I struggle to breathe, and my body crumples to the floor as my muscles can’t hold my core upright anymore.
I stare up at Kade, and he’s staring back at me.
He’s not triumphant.
He’s not even angry.
He’s horrified.
“What the fuck are you, Zara?” he whispers, his voicebarely audible over the ringing in my ears.
I don’t have an answer.
All I know is that something inside me has shifted, irrevocably, and the way Kade recoils tells me he recognizes it too. He isn’t looking at me like a witch anymore—he’s looking at me like I’m a curse, a blight, a monster. He’s staring at me like I’m his undoing, and he’ll do whatever it takes to be rid of me.
