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“Allgoblins are mad.It’s when we accept it that we reach our true potential.”Petra circled, and Vori tracked her, not daring to move away from Mitch.She’d be the man’s shield until she could figure out how to save him.Perry might have a complicated relationship with his father, but he wouldn’t recover from the man’s loss.Somehow, he would find a way to blame himself.
“What do you want with my consort’s father?”Vori would focus on Mitch’s connection to her and the goblin realm.Not on the man.
“Stay, and I’ll show you.We’ll finish what I started.”Petra licked something off her claws.Red blood.Mitch’s blood.It had to be.“I assume you brought your consort through the glass.He’s the only reason you’d be so stupid and selfish as to leave Kradnovtl unprotected.”
Vori flinched.“I had blood vows to fulfill.”
“Promises made to a witch who might not follow you into the goblin realm.You could’ve let me go.”
“To destroy this realm?”To murder Mitch?To kill Perry if given the chance?
“Ooh, pot, kettle, black.Or maybe green in our case.If the prophecies are right, you’re a terror and a tyrant who’ll use whatever death and destruction necessary to keep Kradnovtl.”
“I won’t.”She would never become like her father.
“No, you’re worse.You picked your life, your consort’s life over an entire realm so you’re not a mass murderer outright as your father was.But still, by abandoning your kingdom, you’ll kill more of our kind than your father ever did.”
Anger clawed at Vori—an icy fury that spread across her, threatening to crack at any second.“Let Perry’s dad go.”She forced the words through clenched teeth, her control slipping.“It’ll just be you and me.”
“And ruin my plans?I don’t think so.”Petra sounded so nonchalant, so matter of fact.Her calm almost hid her ferocity.With a heartbeat of muscles bunching under green skin as the only warning, she launched into attack.
Vori met her head on, keeping herself between this maniac and Mitch.The first hit came in a brutal smack of skin on skin, knocking the air from her lungs.Slamming into Petra was like running into a wall of Kradnovtl’s castle.One moving and out to crush her.Her shoulder burned in agonizing pain, but she couldn’t stop.Wouldn’t stop.Not until she finished this.
In a tangle of limbs, they went to the hard concrete that was so unlike the pretty hardwoods and lush carpeting in the rest of the house.With all the whips and chains and cages hanging in here, the concrete must be great for cleaning up blood, but it made for horrible traction.
Struggling to catch her breath, Vori fought to get to her feet, slipped on something wet, and landed on her ass.Petra lunged for her, and she lashed out viciously, aiming a kick to the knee.She missed, catching the goblin’s thigh instead.A solid blow.But it wasn’t enough.The hits kept coming.It was all she could do to hold her own in the fight.
Petra was tougher, meaner.Or at least she was as long as Vori didn’t lose control.She struggled against years of holding out against the berserker that lurked beneath her skin.Her ears rang, and blood filled her mouth, copper and acidic and nauseating.Yet she managed to get free and make it to Mitch.
She slashed through the restraints on one of his arms.“Get yourself free and go.Now.”The command came out on a snarl, and she locked down every mental hold she had over her inner beast.Scaring Perry’s dad wouldn’t help, and she had to get him out of here.
From behind, Petra raked claws into Vori’s bad shoulder.The burn and flash of hurt blazed like liquid fire stoking to full-out inferno.
“I’m so glad you came,” the woman purred in her ear.“I needed you to complete the ritual.To invoke the stones.A golden-born’s blood, sweat, and tears.”
Shit, she’d played right into Petra’s trap, completing the blood crown’s transformation into a destroyer of worlds.If she’d only stayed in Kradnovtl.
“Hurry!”she yelled at Mitch.Or she’d meant to shout.It’d come out more as a roar.
Petra bit her, slicing sharp teeth through skin.Pain pulsed through her, and she struggled to think through it.The world tilted.Sweat drenched her, making her palms slide across the floor as she pushed the crazy killer off.
The shadows of their fight reflected on the walls, making them look twenty feet tall, gruesome, and deadly.The beast she’d denied and repressed all these years was there on full display in horrific silhouette.All these years of restraint, and she’d become the monster she hated in a matter of seconds.
Metal clattered against concrete behind her.
“Vori.”Mitch was free.
“Run.”She pushed at him.“Leave me and get out of here.”But either he didn’t hear her or didn’t care.He beat at Petra with a club or a bar or a bat.It was impossible to tell from the shadow show on the wall.Each blow echoed through Vori in a rebound of painful thumps and thwacks.
The weight lifted from her, and she sucked in air, hoping her lungs would forget their paralysis act and work despite the pressure and stabbing intense pain.Cracked ribs?Probably.Among other assorted injuries that would leave her body looking like a Pollock painting of black, blue, and purple if she lived through this.She rolled to her side.
“Don’t interrupt.It’s rude.”Petra wrestled the weapon away from Mitch and knocked him to the floor.He yelped like a kicked dog.“Stay down, and I’ll make it quick.”She turned to Vori.“Don’t worry, Your Majesty.I know how you love to watch.I’ll make sure you see me kill him.”
Petra raised the bar over Mitch’s head.He curled his arms, shielding his face and skull, but the instinctive gesture wouldn’t do much against a goblin-strength blow.
He would die.
In an instant.
