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Another drop fell.
Sorin heard it splash down to join the first.
“How many have you killed, Ronna?”
“I...” She swallowed. “I don’t know.”
“How many children?”
The men across the gaping pit had stood in terrified silence.
Now, a couple slowly backed away, their indifference morphing into disgust and humiliation.
There was still the wafting stink of fear that told him she had other helpers in that crowd.
He’d isolate them, each one, and kill them.
But first...
“How many, Ronna?”
“Nine.” It came out slowly, reluctantly.
Sorin felt the new presence in front of him with only a little surprise.
Lifting his head to see Gia’s shade, he stilled as the shadow plunged a hand into the witch’s chest.
Ronna screamed, the sound cutting off abruptly.
In his mind, he heard Gia speaking.
“Nine children. Thirteen young adults barely past the legal age. Twenty-one women and thirty-eight men. All dead at her hand alone. There are other she helped with or ordered to die. But she killed eighty-one people all on her own.”
The shade jerked her hand back and looked at Sorin, then at Amy.
In that high, eerily beautiful voice, she said, “The human can take her life.”
Then the shade flitted away. She lingered over the pit, darted down, quick as a wish. He heard a couple of sharp, startled cries, followed by the cracking of several necks before she rose, now across the pit to the men quickly backing away.
He heard the screams before he realized what she was doing.
One man rose into the air, struggling against the ephemeral creature. The screams ended up abruptly as she broke his neck. Four more followed suit.
The rest shrank away but the shadow simply faded out of view.
In Sorin’s mind, Gia murmured, “They were the ones who helped or killed on her orders. It’s enough...for us.”
He got the message. They had their vengeance. He could decide the rest of the punishments as it was his territory. A bit irked at being denied the blood, he turned and tossed Ronna to the path in front of the cabin. “She’s yours, human.”
Moving to the edge of the pit, he stared down at the men who’d gathered together in small groups, clearly terrified. He studied them a long moment then rose to give the second group a hard study.
“Nobody will terrorize innocent men and women in my territory. And nobody will hunt a child, kill a child and survive. I might have spent a bit too much time whiling away in my caves but that is done. From here on out, consider me a very real threat in this region. Cross me and you die.”
Somebody jerked up a weapon.
Sorin saw it, but he chose not to move.
The staccato burst of a rapid-fire weapon sounded in the air. It hurt like hell but he bit back the grunts of pain, bit back the urge to cuss and used his magic to camouflage the minor injuries even as they appeared.
Looking bored, he glanced down at his chest.
“Was that supposed to do something?” he asked lazily. Then, with a minor shift, he let his wings flare out while his body took on the scaled appearance, the carapace golden red and gleaming. He was still beautiful, but terrifyingly so. “Would you like to try again?”
Guns were dropped and the men ran.
Looking at those left trapped in the pit, he hunkered down.
“If I decide to be merciful and let you out, are you going to be smart and just leave? Or should I just kill you now?”
