Page 106 of Hybrid Heroics

He had just wasted too much of his power on me, trying to keep me busy, while his angelic friend performed a warped spell that didn’t work. There was no longer any glow to his skin. His furious auburn eyes held no spark.

I laughed, but that was the extent of what I would fake tonight. “That really fucks up your plan to kill me, huh? The one time you don’t have a plan B…”

I glanced around to see if anyone else had heard what Alric said about the warped angelic tomes. Stone was close, listening to us as three giant moths floated above his head. As my demon stepped toward me, those moths fluttered closer.

“I always have a plan B,” Alric informed me, his voice bordering lethal, if not for the gasping breaths.

He shoved me backward with a strike to my chest, the magic dissolving into my skin as I slid from the force. He had pushed me right into the path of those moths. Amelia’s shriek pierced my eardrums as they landed on my shoulder and back. Stone lunged toward me, but pulled up short as they fluttered away.

Not three moths.

Six.

They fed on power, and mine was to mimic, so that was what happened.

“Jin,” Alric barked, whipping around to seek out my mate’s father. “What else are you covering up?”

Doubt was hitting him hard.

Good.

“He’s not here,” I murmured, my voice low and calm. “Your hit didn’t fail. Jin Embers is dead.”

He glared at me. “Then those death moths belong to m—”

I slammed into his middle, plowing straight through the trees at his back. We left a path of upturned roots in our wake, the crashes scattering birds in every direction. Then we hit the ward. And true to word, that was the force that stopped us.

Alric kneed me in the stomach twice before I danced away from him, intent on returning to the yard so his comrades could watch his death. The ones still left standing, anyway.

Instead of attacking my unprotected back, he ran into the ward, snarling when he bounced off the shimmering surface.

I cackled. “Oops.”

“What did—”

“I do?” I guessed. “That’s a common question.”

“What—”

“We locked you in. They told me you were intelligent. I thought you would have figured it out by now. But since you haven’t, I’ll dumb it down for you.”

I flashed forward, grabbing beneath his jaw and under his arm so we were face-to-face. I raced back to the yard where everyone waited, slamming him onto the ground, onto the grass he’d fucked up.

His breath fled in a whoosh, back arching from pain after hitting all the trees. He seemed to just now realize he was healing at a slower rate than he was used to.

“This is my chessboard, Alric. My material.”

He stretched his arm out, procuring a dagger with his natural magic. I tightened my grip, leaving him only enough room for shallow breaths. He swung, sinking the blade between my ribs.

“I’m the black and the white,” I continued, voice level and bored.

I reached my left hand across my chest, snatching the dagger out at an odd angle, which resulted in me widening the wound. But I was holding all his wasted power, plus my own. We both watched it heal, the skin knitting together in seconds.

“I’m the board,” I confessed. “You have no control here.”

I released his neck, flattening my hand on his chest before removing it. He struggled to sit up, but he couldn’t with the magical weight I’d left sitting atop him. I kneeled at his right side, trapping his upper arm under my knees.

“I am the rules. No one else makes them or breaks them without my permission.”