Page 110 of The Slayer Seduction

Have we really lost? After all of this?

“Kill her,” Adam urges in my mind, giving me the inspiration I need.

These witches aren’t killers…but I am.

I turn to Iris, grabbing her face amid the chaos. “I love you, my sweet Iris,” I tell her, kissing her one last time. Her brows furrow as she looks at me, but I’m quickly out of sight.

Celeste and her new minion are too focused on tormenting the witches in front of the coven. They don’t even notice me. There’s a chance it won’t work, and I’ve come to terms with that. Iris is chasing after me, but she’s too slow as I come behind Celeste and shove a stake right through her back, piercing her cold, dead heart.

The witch beside her stuns me, and my muscles seize, making me tremble on the ground.

Celeste isn’t dead, but she can’t pull out the stake and I laugh through the pain.

Magic flares around me, spells shooting back and forth. Celeste is screaming at the witch I now know is called Aster, to remove the stake, but she’s too busy fighting off her own coven to help her.

The stunning spell eventually releases me. I’m weak, barely holding myself up as I walk up to the witch who has used me as a pawn, hurting my mate and her family. When I look down at her, it’s a disgust I haven’t felt in many years.

I’m ready to pull the stake out and dig my hand through her chest cavity and rip out her heart when a hand touches my shoulder.

I thought it would be Iris, but it’s none other than her grandmother. “Let me finish this,” she says, and I step aside, giving her space.

“I’ve seen it, you know? The way they burned you at the stake?” Delphine gets down to her haunches, so she’s face to face with a bleeding, defiant Celeste. “Though…it wasn’t thousands of years ago. It was today.”

Delphine flicks her wrist and I watch in amazement as the stake catches fire, burning Celeste from within.

The ancient witch writhes, burning before our eyes. The runes on the stake prevent her from doing magic or removing the hunk of wood. There’s no way she could transfer her soul.

Like she did all those years ago, she burns at the stake, but this time she isn’t coming back.

Iris finally catches up to us, and her breath hitches as she looks down and then at her grandmother.

“What…did you? She’s gone?”

“She’s gone,” Delphine says confidently as she approaches her granddaughter and cups her face. “She suffered for what she did to your mother.”

The two women embrace, holding one another. Meanwhile, there’s still chaos before me. Aster’s defensive magic is unbelievable and if I had to guess Celeste imbued her with something powerful to help them take us out.

But with Celeste dead, the bubble pops with a crack. The shifters and vampires can join the fray.

It’s now one witch versus all of us and she doesn’t stand a chance.

There’s a growl in the distance and I watch with utter amazement as two wolves, one with dark inky black fur and another that I assume must be Silas, approach the witch, tearing her to pieces.

A heavy somberness is thick as the two witches lie dead, but at least our side is left unscathed, well at least physically.

Iris and her grandmother finally part, and as I approach them, Iris falls into my arms and I hold her tight.

“We need to get the books,” Iris says and I pull back.

“That can wait. Are you alright?”

“I will be,” she says with a tight smile. “The whole coven is here. Now is the time.”

I grab her around the waist, teleporting us back to the office. Balam lies on the floor, but he isn’t dead. I nudge him and he groans awake.

“Fuck,” he hisses, rubbing the side of his face. I grab his elbow, helping him off the floor, and he stands.

“Celeste is dead,” I tell him as Iris collects the spell books.