AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Thirty
Sebastian
I head to the grand ballroom at a quarter to eleven. The demons will begin gathering soon, jockeying for space closest to the table so they can watch the voting process. And being as how I own this place, it’s incumbent upon me to arrive first.
The actual nominees won’t arrive until the stroke of midnight. They like to make a grand entrance, naturally. Jinx withdrew after the fountain incident, so it’s just the three now: Drazos, Aza, and my brother.
I wonder, fleetingly, if Darkness can feel us gathering without her, voting for her replacement. Knowing that she’s been left to rot for eternity in a magical prison while the demons she led for over a century abandon her without a moment’s hesitation in their climb for power.
With a shake of my head, I walk over to one of the large wooden bureaus along the far wall and open it to reveal my hidden stash of bourbon. After tonight, I won’t be a part of this world anymore. No more lethal politics and knots of deception and murder and chaos and bloodshed.
After pouring the liquor into a glass, I take a sip and lean back against the bureau. A moment of peace before the final storm.
I’m raising the glass to my lips for a second sip when I hear the march of many footsteps coming down the hall. A moment later, demons pour into the room, Aza and Drazos in the lead. This isn’t the usual way it happens. It looks like every single demon on the property is flooding into the room at once. Not to mention it’s far too early for Aza and Drazos to arrive.
Something is wrong.
I straighten, setting down my glass and watching as more than a hundred demons pour into the ballroom. Aza and Drazos beeline for me on the far side of the room, stopping a few feet away, trapping me with no escape route.
“Are we beginning the vote early?” I ask, forcing a casual tone.
“On the contrary,” Aza says. “That’s already been decided. We changed things up a bit this time. And I have you to thank for that, apparently.”
My mind spins as I try to run through the possible meanings for her words. “Where is my brother?” I ask calmly.
“Oh, you mean my second-in-command?” Aza’s smile is razorblades and barbed wire. “He’s off attending to a private matter.”
This means Caspian has betrayed me and used his knowledge of the Raven Society spy to earn himself the position directly below Aza. He clearly realized there was no beating her, so he did what he always does: sacrificed his family to gain as much power as he possibly can.
It also means that Luciana is in grave danger. If she’s not dead already.
I return Aza’s smile with one of my own and lift my glass of Scotch again, taking a slow sip. “So,” I say. “I assume you mean to torture and kill me, then?”
Drazos grunts and takes a step forward.
I raise a hand. “And you think I’m just going to stand here and allow that?”
Aza’s lips twist into a snarl, her eyes glittering. “As if you have a choice. You are no match for me. For us.”
“You might be right,” I respond, setting my glass down again. “But you see, that’s the thing about playing second fiddle to someone your whole life. No one has ever paid attention to me. No one has ever tested me.”
Magic ignites within my core, racing through my veins, filling me with power.
“What I can and can’t do remain to be seen.” Heat pours from my eyes; I can feel flames burning there. “What I do know for sure is that there’s no way in hell I’m going to go quietly.”
Aza and Drazos both lunge for me, but my magic moves off me like a nuclear explosion, blasting them backwards. It rolls through the entire ballroom, knocking all the demons off their feet, shaking the walls, shaking the ceiling. One of the chandeliers a few feet away comes loose and crashes to the floor, bursting into tiny shards like an exploding star.
I haven’t killed any of them yet. Aza climbs to her hands and knees, burned and bleeding, and Drazos rolls to the side and shoots a bolt of black death magic at me. I’m quicker on the draw, flinging a deflection shield in front of me which bounces his magic back to him. It hits him and he disintegrates, turning to a pile of ash before my eyes.
Aza gets to her feet, throwing a lash of power around me in the moment I’m focused on Drazos. She grins as she squeezes the lasso of magic she’s wrapped me in, tighter and tighter. I can feel it begin to sear into my flesh, to cut through my muscle and my tendons. Agony pulses through my body. Her power expands around her, stretching across the room like a dark sun.
I just want to know that Luciana is safe before I die…
A chorus of moans and cries ripple through the far side of the room. The sexual kind, not the pained kind. I know demons get off on violence, but this is hardly the time for an orgy…
Aza spins, dropping me. I fall to the side, grabbing onto the bureau to hold myself up. Across the room, a demon stands in the doorway, hands raised, incapacitating half the room with… lust?
And that’s when the rest of the Raven Society charges in.
