She couldn’t trust her Empyreal to protect her anymore, and it fractured a kernel of something crucial inside.
It was this or nothing.
Because despite the core of immortal power inside her, she was still just a young woman who loved her family and would do anything to protect them.
Nicole started into the warm, almost hot water, trying not to think about Bells’ gentle crying and her muffled words – like some kind of prayer. Her sister’s eyes darkened with pulsing veins like she was trying to force herself to See something.
A thud sounded from the left: the other black glass wall running parallel to the pool.
Then a splintering lashed across it.
Nicole paused waist-deep. Did they have some kind of beast half restrained in there? Something Aífe might let loose on Bells and her father?
As hairline fractures went through the glass, the dark effect turned clear, revealing Kyan on the other side, fighting off what looked like half a dozen Empyreals. He was feral, almost glowing with rage.
His eyes locked on hers amid the fray, and his roar shook the glass.
A tremor of relief, of fear, shook the very core of her.
‘Change of plans,’ Aífe said, snapping her fingers at Alexander, who turned her bleeding father around slightly.
‘No! Wait!’ Nicole threw herself deeper into the water. It swallowed up her legs, hips, and waist with warmth, but pushing through it in her tonic-weakened state had her legs shaking. The strange water doused her with soothing heat, sinking into her bones and cloaking her in sudden lethargy.
Fighting it, Nicole tried to run, slipping on the slick stone base of the pool. For a moment, water smothered her, rushing into her mouth, up her nose and closing over her head.
She burst back out, coughing, to find her father kneeling before Aífe, his left side facing Nicole.
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ Aífe said, her gaze flicking up to where Kyan slammed an Empyreal against the wall.
If he made it through, he’d kill her, and she knew it.
That made her even more dangerous.
A deep, all-encompassing terror spiked through Nicole. She needed tostop everything.Fix everything. It was going to kill her, this need, this desperate feeling. It was going to warp something essential inside, and she could feel it happening like the twist of a dark knife.
‘Stop!’ she shouted. ‘We had a deal!’
But Aífe didn’t stop.
‘Say hello to Freya for me,’ she said, the glint of her knife emerging. The snarl on her face incandescent with hatred.
In the next second, her father’s eyes shot to Nicole.
And she knew.
Sheknewthat this was it, because the bone-deep horror felt more consuming than a transformation. It was a moment he didn’t want her to see; that he couldn’t prevent.
‘STOP!’ Nicole screamed, dragging herself up the final steps and out of the water.
At the same time, Bells – whose chains must have been subtly unlocked by the Tène – threw herself between Aífe and their father, her arm outstretched.
Their father’s eyes widened with horror.
He launched as Bells did, but the knife still sank home.
To a metallic clang.
The Tène had flown up and flattened over Bells’ chest, morphing into a gold breastplate, stopping the blade and protecting its treasure.
