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And then I was on his chest, one foot propped at his side, my knee in his abdomen, my katana across his neck.
And as he looked up at me, surprise in his gaze, I pulled out the aspen stake I’d slipped into my waistband before leaving the House.
It was one of the stakes Jeff had given me for protection shortly after we met—and if stabbed through the heart, it was one of the surefire ways to kill a vampire.
Logan lifted his eyebrows. “So that’s how it’s gonna be? I gave you immortality, and you want to send me to hell?”
My voice was hard. “You gave me nothing. You took, or tried to. Turns out, you weren’t very good at it.”
I held my katana in one hand, the stake in the other, poised above his heart. My hand shook with need, with hatred, with the fear of having this man, this monster, haunt me for the rest of my life.
He did this. Caused all of it. He was the prime mover, the reason I was a vampire, and the reason my family had been endangered as a result. He’d hurt my brother, injured my friends, and apparently had no qualms about using his magic to make us puppets, to turn us into minions in the sociopathic kingdom he probably believed he’d rule with Reed.
I wanted him dead. I wanted Logan Hill—his name, his magic, his essence, his existence—erased from the earth by my hand. I wanted to plunge the stake into his heart, and see him turn to ash. Because this was his fault.
But even so . . . nothing I could do would change any of that. Nothing I could do with the stake in my hand, nothing that his death would accomplish. I would still be alive, a vampire. Caleb Franklin would still be dead, as would the other girls Logan had killed at Celina’s command.
I understood justice, but if he died by my hand, if he died like this, it would haunt me forever. I didn’t deserve that. And neither did he.
Gabriel had acknowledged that I had a claim on Logan Hill’s life. I wasn’t the only one now, and probably wouldn’t be the last. But I got to decide how to play my chit.
“Logan Hill,” I said, staring into those malicious eyes. “You aren’t worth any more of my goddamn time.”
I reared back and plunged the stake into his thigh. Blood spilled, hit the roof, and spread in a pool beneath him. I stood up as he howled in pain, screaming as he wrenched himself up, gripped the stake, tried to pull it from his leg.
Yeah, that had been small of me. But damn, did it feel good. “Now we’re even, you raging asshole.”
“You bitch!” he said, spittle at the corner of his mouth as pain racked him. “You fucking bitch.”
I leaned down, smiled at him. “Bitch or not, I just kicked your ass.”
And then, because we had bigger battles to fight, I tranq’d him.
I stood up and turned back to look at Sorcha and Adrien. She stood proudly in front of her creation, an amused smile on her face.
“That was entertaining,” she said, “if less entertaining than it might have been if you’d actually killed him. And why didn’t you?” She cocked her head to the side like she honestly couldn’t fathom why I wouldn’t have killed him.
“I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
Her grin widened. “Doubtful,” she said as magic crackled above us. She glanced at the sky, eyes narrowed like she was reading portents there. And she didn’t seem to like what she saw.
She looked at Reed. “Can we get them out of the way?”
“As you wish,” Reed said, his gaze on the sky. At one time, he’d relished the idea that he was playing a game with us. But not now; we weren’t important anymore. The magic, the QE, and the control it would give him—those were the important things. He wanted control, was waiting for the magic to snap into place. That hadn’t happened yet . . . but whatever Mallory and Catcher were doing, it also hadn’t erased the green smears of magic from the sky. Was it going to work?
Sorcha looked back at me and grinned, and then threw out a hand. Magic—a bright green sphere of it—launched toward me.
I didn’t want any part of that.
I lifted my katana, turning the blade flat, and aimed. The mirrored surface deflected the shot, sent it spinning toward the building, bursting out a chunk of the concrete wall. I was glad that hadn’t been me.
She made a frustrated noise, tossed another ball, then another. I spun the sword, the blade catching the light of her alchemical machine before deflecting both shots. One spun off the roof and burst into sparks in midair. The other skidded across the roof, leaving a ten-foot-long char line as it burned out.
“Dull, dull, dull,” she said, and turned her malicious gaze to Ethan. She lifted her hands, fingers canted to aim, and let magic fly.
I raced toward him, using every ounce of speed I could muster, dove in front of him, and braced myself for impact.
But the shot burst into crystalline sparks of magic.
