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Sonja gasped. It was like a veil had lifted from her eyes, allowing her to see him clearly for the very first time.
She turned whiter than I’d thought was possible, then two bright spots of red popped up on her cheeks. When she spoke again, her voice was trembling with fury.
“You—you had me following them the whole time.”
“And you did wonderfully, Sonja. You are special, you know. No one else would have been so dogged in picking up their trail again after that little disappearing act of theirs. You will make a fine spy for my army. The best of the best. And that’s what you will receive in return—only the best of everything. Would you like that, Sonja? To be revered as Gavriel’s favorite?”
Her eyes glazed over in a moment of confusion. He was getting to her, I could tell. His form of persuasion wasn’t like my succubus ability, but it was powerful nonetheless.
But something about all of this didn’t make sense. If she’d been communicating with Gavriel this whole time, why hadn’t he just made her tell him where the school was so he could destroy it? Why bother with hunting us down when he could attack directly?
I thought about how long we’d been gone and my blood ran cold.
We didn’t know that he hadn’t already done that. We’d been traveling for days, maybe more than a week. Plenty of time to flatten the whole school. I shot a look of terror at Xero, and his grim expression told me that he’d thought the exact same thing. We could very well be the only ones left.
Gavriel was running his fingers through long tendrils of Sonja’s red hair, gazing deeply into her eyes. He was mesmerizing her, but she was fighting it. She was also losing.
“Sonja,” I said, trying hard to get through to her. I pushed with my power, then recoiled as it bounced off the solid wall of Gavriel’s black magic.
Fuck it, maybe I need to go old school with this.
“Hey, ginger bitch! Get on your knees if you’re going to suck Gavriel’s cock!”
A spark of fire flashed in her eyes. She was still dazed, but she was coming out of it. Gavriel turned to me and hissed, sending a wave of his disgusting aura in my direction, but I was ready for it. I’d grown accustomed to his stench in the long minutes that he had been manipulating Sonja, and the magic wave rolled around me without touching me. His concentration had broken, and it was just enough to allow Sonja to snap back.
“You bastard! You almost had me kill them!” She leapt away from him and shifted into her demon form. “You made me betray everybody! My friends, my professors—even my enemies! You—you—”
As she screamed, she built a fireball up in her hands. Fueled by her rage, the orange globe cracked with power.
Gavriel sighed. “It was so much easier with Owen. I thought when you found the bracelet I’d used to communicate with him, I could make you his replacement, but—you’ve never really lived up to his level of blind obedience. Ah, well.” He shrugged resignedly.
Shifting my eyes, I caught the men’s gazes and nodded slightly. As soon as Sonja tossed that fireball, we would have to attack. It was our only chance of getting out of here alive, and he might be lord of the underworld, but he was still just one guy.
I carefully reached out to Kingston with my mind and found him ready, lying in wait down the dark tunnel. If our initial attack failed, and Gavriel pushed us down the passage, Kingston would be waiting with a fireball of his own.
“But think of the accolades,” Gavriel whispered, still trying to charm her. “Think of the—”
“Think of this, you son of a bitch!” She lobbed her fireball with more force than I had ever seen from her.
The air t
asted like burnt ozone and indignation as the four of us moved in to attack. Xero blasted his own fireballs at Gavriel’s back, Jayce shifted and sank his hellish teeth into Gavriel’s skinny torso. Quick as lightning, Kai grabbed the knife he had stored in his pack, hurling the bag to the ground even as he threw the blade with his other hand. It grazed the demon lord’s arm as he twisted his torso to avoid a direct strike.
I slid under the fray and touched the skin at Gavriel’s ankle, forcing a connection. Then I infused persuasion into every cell of my body, pushing it into him as hard as I could.
Kill yourself. You want to die.
It might have made a difference if I’d been able to hold on a little longer, but he shoved so many terrible images into my head all at once that I had to recoil. Sonja was gearing up to blast him again, and Jayce was still clamped firmly onto Gavriel’s flank. The powerful demon swiped at him.
“Jayce, claws!”
I thought my scream would be swallowed by the sounds of battle, but somehow it reached him. He dodged in the nick of time.
Sonja wasn’t so lucky.
Before her fireball could reach its zenith, Gavriel embedded his claws in her throat. Her mouth fell open, moving like she was trying to speak or swallow, but she couldn’t do anything. Xero hurled fireballs in rapid succession, lighting Gavriel up and almost obscuring the gurgling scream as the lord of the dark tore Sonja apart.
Her death was quick, but that didn’t ease the shock and horror that crashed through me as I watched her fall. Tears spilled down my cheeks and I pulled my dagger out of one boot and a stake out of the other. I didn’t know exactly what the fuck kind of supernatural Gavriel was, but he was going to die one way or another.
