Page 374 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

“That’s why he took you,” I gritted out, grimacing as my neck burned with even that little motion.

She looped her fingers through my hair, yanking my head back with enough force it stung as she snarled, “Yield, princeling.”

“Ally,” Alec warned, shaking his head. “Look at me, Second. There are a lot of things you can come back from, but that’s not one of them.”

“Shut up and yield. You’ve already lost.”

“You didn’t teach me how to yield,” I ground out between my teeth. “So, either use that fucking blade or read me.”

“I didn’t teach you anything, Commander Porter.”

My blood ran cold.

First at the words, so like her brother’s.

I sucked in a breath, certainty settling heavy in my chest.

There was no summer. No sage or cinnamon.

Only fire, and something earthy, distinctly…

Male.

I shot off a warning down the line. This isn’t Ally.

Alec huffed. No shit, Moros⁠—

No. We have unwanted company.

A humorless chuckle worked through my ribs. “Well played, Adrastos.”

Freya

Agony. The amount of power I tore from the witch was agony.

My hands burned, my throat stripped raw—whether from the scream that ripped through it as Gio’s ashes floated away or the raw, rancid power I was forcing my body to contain, I didn’t know.

All I knew was that Cyrus and Carr had been shoved back in the blast of power as our magics collided.

I knew the brutality of her death magic tearing through my bones had buckled my knees; that the hard chill of the asphalt ached in them.

And I knew those wholly black eyes were fixed on me, which was exactly where I wanted them. Cyrus had hit her with the serum, and I was stripping her bare, and still, the bitch fought back. The plan warred with my outrage as I measured the distance between her and where I needed her. Twenty feet. Maybe less. And yet it might as well have been a hundred yards against her strength.

Another scream seared up my throat as I pulled harder, desperately wrapping around her ability to shift and trying to keep it locked away long enough for the injection to do its goddamn fucking job.

But she was moving.

Teeth gritted, canines half-shifted into her fangs, Marlana staggered forward against the onslaught of my attack.

I couldn’t keep this up forever.

She knew it.

I knew it. Worse yet, I could hear August’s anguish down the mental line, which meant things weren’t any better inside that damn building.

And then I saw it: the moment she cocked her head, those black eyes flickering with recognition. With a sneer, she slammed her palms into the street, and I swore for an entirely different reason.

Because we weren’t fast enough. The venom couldn’t debilitate a horseman fast enough.