Page 214 of Bedeviled

My magic strains to gather before it rushes out. It’s an awful reminder that it does in fact have limits, and I’m approaching them.

Despite the growing fatigue, I press a hand to my own chest and ward myself again.

A split second after I finish warding myself, power slams into me, knocking me into the still sizzling monstera plant.

I grunt against the hit. The spell hisses against my chest, but my ward holds fast, thank the Goddess.

Across the way, Eislyn drags herself up.

Oh no. Not today, Satan.

“Annihilate.” I throw the spell as hard as I can.

It cuts through the air so rapidly that Eislyn is forced to drop to the ground again, and the action must shove that blade deeper into her stomach because she lets out a tormented scream. The spell hits the tropical trees behind her and blows them apart. Branches of a plumeria tree, fronds from a nearby palm, and thick clumps of dirt careen in all directions, the largest of them shattering glass.

Around us, the conservatory lets out an ominous groan, and a few sheets of glass fall from the ceiling, shattering against the ground.

Something heavy slams into my head. My legs fold, and the world goes dark.

CHAPTER 51

Selene!

I rouse to Memnon’s voice in my ear and Nero’s nose against my cheek.

Something warm is dripping from the back of my head and sliding down my neck. I blink, grimacing against the throbbing pain in my skull.

Otherworld. Eislyn. Coup.

Devil’s pronged dick.

I groan as I push myself up. Broken remnants of a glass pane slide off my back. That must’ve been what hit me.

More still are falling.

My queen, get yourself to safety!

My eyes rise to the other end of the building where the fighting rages on. I see a flash of Memnon’s magic, and I exhale.

My gaze moves to across the way, where I last saw Eislyn.

Devil’s double-pronged dick.

The bitch is gone.

I rise to my feet and use one hand to stroke Nero and the other to feel the back of my skull.

I wince when I feel a stab of pain.

Some fucking ward that was.

“Heal.”

My magic is slower to leave my palm than I’d like, but it flows into the wound well enough to repair torn tissue. I wait the painstaking minute it takes to stitch it all back together. Then, after applying another ward, I dash in the direction Eislyn went, Nero at my side, the two of us following the droplets of the fairy’s spilled blood.

I follow the trail through the palace, past the slain bodies of fae soldiers and servants. Down into the bowels of the building, to a long, narrow room.

A marble path straight down the center of the room bisects a series of marble pools. A flowering plant that has no earthly equivalent grows along the edges of the water and up the walls. Like everything else I’ve seen since I’ve come to this land, its beauty defies words.