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“Watch me.” She starts siphoning my magic, pulling it into her as if through a straw. “Thanks for making a pitstop before I tap into you. I’ll suck you dry and then draw the boys’ souls to me, keep the power over the elements in me for good.”
“No. Not letting you do this.” Bowing my head, lifting my hands, I follow my connection to her and pull. Magic flows from her into me, flowing into my blood, making me gasp.
Like a strong drink, it burns in my veins, pools in my belly, making me feel light-headed.
Her screech jars me. “You dared link to me?”
“No, you linked to me,” I correct her. “That was your mistake.”
She lets out an inhuman roar, her magic pulsing, the link breaking with a crack I feel all the way to my bones. She tries to unhook her magic from mine but I don’t let her. I can’t let her keep so much power. She’s still hooked into my boys, still trying to suck them dry, and I won’t let her do that.
Not letting her kill them.
They are still struggling, more feebly now. The enchantment—it’s tricky. The more they struggle, the more it hurts them, making their demonblood even weaker and expanding their elemental power until it’s out of control.
I can’t help them, not while I’m working on weakening Ophelia who seems to be throwing all her effort into keeping the boys linked to her.
“Screw you,” she breathes. “The ritual is done.”
“No, it’s not. You don’t control the elements yet. The boys are alive. You think I’m stupid?”
“The only way you can break the ritual is through death.”
“No. No, Lia.”
She yanks with her magic and the boys fall to the ground. Their skin is an awful gray hue. “I’ll kill them.”
I suck in a breath. “Let them go.”
“I won’t. You have to choose, Mia. If you keep the power to yourself, they die. If you pass the power to them, you die because, by God, I will gut you. Choose.”
I feel through my link to her the truth of her words. She will do it. She’s already siphoned so much from them, they’re barely alive.
If I continue controlling her, she will end them just to hurt me. I will have won, but at what cost?
“Fine,” I say.
“Mia.” Emrys is staring at me over the thirty feet or so separating us, his eyes full of flames. “No.”
“Don’t do it, Mia!” Jason yells.
“Don’t you dare do it,” Ashton says.
Sindri reaches a hand toward me. “Almaya, no.”
Closing my eyes, I lift my hands, palms outward, and shove all my power through the link to my boys. “I love you,” I whisper and I hope they feel it through the twine of our magic, “I love you.”
There is a roar and a gust of wind whips over me, sending me to the ground. The lake lashes at my feet, the earth writhes, flames jump around me.
And then the boys shift, their forms changing, stretching, expanding on the ground. I scrabble to get up as the dragon spreads his wings, as the griffin screeches, the panther leaps to his feet and the wolf shakes his shaggy head.
“Not so fast, cousin,” Ophelia says, reaching down and grabbing me by the hair. “If I kill you now, I’ll still become the Queen.”
I try to wrench myself away but she’s still holding tight. My hand encounters something on the ground. Vanessa’s switchblade. I grab it, lift it, and cut off my hair. The blade shouldn’t have been able to go through the magic, but its own magic flares, that of the fire, cutting right through.
Freed, I stumble to my feet and turn to face her.
With a scream, she falls on me. “You think your little blade can stop me, huh?” She grabs me by the neck. “This is a magical duel, not a mud fight.”
