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The mole … was Shira?
Sweet, caring, generous Shira was spying on us for a psychopathic megalomaniac? What the actual fuck?
"What?" I laughed, my tongue thick and heavy in my mouth. That was a lovely leftover from ripping out part of Eidolon's neck and numbing myself with his venom.1
"Tell me about it," Bel muttered, beyond furious. She stalked across the field, took a detour to kick Shira's back—just to drive home how done she was with their engagement, I guess—and hissed at Eidolon.
No really, shehissed.Her tongue was long and forked and—oh, holy shit, something weird was happening to her body. She shimmered, and her skin wasdefinitelysparkling now, a pearlescent sheen like mother of pearl replacing the warm gold of her skin tone as … oh, okay, that made sense. She shifted into a seven-foot-tall viper and hissed her rage at Eidolon's face.
Heh, she was bigger than him.
"The Ghost Viper," Eidolon whispered, looking actually rattled.
Maybe that meant I should have been scared, too, but adrenaline pumped into my blood instead. While Bel shifting into a super-snake distracted him, I staggered past him towards X.
"Are you okay?" I demanded, running my hands over his face, my thumbs gentle on his scars. "I'm going to get rid of this compulsion, okay? You're going to be fine, you're safe, I'm here."
The sharpest edge of panic left his eyes, and relief bled through his soul into mine. I wrapped him up in protection and promise.
I'd almost given up, almost accepted death, but Jezebel blasting through the barrier and taking Eidolon head-on was exactly the reminder I needed.
The strongest power on Earth, Hell, and Heaven? Girl power.
"Here," I murmured, pulling X down to the grass and helping him sit. "You're a smaller target like this." I kissed his forehead, lingering while Eidolon and Bel hissed at each other behind us. "I'll protect you, I promise."
I tried to ignore the panic that flashed through him when I slipped a knife out of his waist sheath and let go of him, but conviction pounded through me now. I wasn't alone; I had backup. I could do this. With Bel as a giant albino viper, I could do this.
"They're coming, you idiot," Bel laughed, her voice more a hiss than anything. "You blocked off the church, not the funfair."
Hope choked my breathing to whispers of air, and my stare snapped to the wall between the church and the fair. My mates, our armies—they were coming?
I flinched when Bel's smooth, white head jerked forward like she'd swallow Eidolon whole.2He rushed out of her path instead of staring her down like he would have with me. He was clearly freaked out by the giant viper—or spooked by her reputation. The Ghost Viper, he'd called her. Fancy.
I’d met one evil viper today; it was nice to balance that out with a good viper.
Movement fluttered near my ankle, and I stabbed down with my knife.Stab first, ask questions laterwas the way to go when your life was at stake. I couldn't say I had any remorse when the blade sank into Shira's face, right under her eye. Light bled from her stare, and a shudder of power crept into me.
I felt it travel through me, felt its trickle as it moved through my core of magic and—and out through amate bond.
How could I be so blind? I'd stabbed myself with a dagger that contained devil-level power.3And thenXhad taken the dagger out of me and got slammed with all that magic—not just the orb's magic but … maybe mine too?
I glanced across the field at X, who was completely oblivious to the fact that he had enough power to obliterate Eidolon. But could he do it? After everything my abuser had done to him, after endless torture and psychological warfare, could he do it?
And what would Eidolon do when he realised where the orb's power—and mine—had gone?
I couldn't let him figure that out. No fucking way.
I said it before, and I'll say it again: this fucker dies now.
I patted down Shira’s corpse for weapons and shook my head when I found a nasty little serrated knife tucked against her back. Backstabbing bitch. I couldn't believe we never realised what a traitor she was.
Ah … we should probably let Sinjin out of Taj's torture room. Poor guy, he tried to tell us he was innocent and we'd just handed him to Taj to slice and dice. Oops.
"Here'sss how it'ssss going to work," Bel hissed, her forked tongue lashing at Eidolon as she dove forward again—andbarelymissed biting him. Something told me his venom wouldn't paralyse a giant snake, either.
I crept up behind him while he was focused on her, keeping myself between him and X.
"You're going to releassse your ssad, little goonsss—" Hey, I knew I liked Bel—she saidgoonslike I did. The sibilant S's were cute, too. "—and undo your compulsssion on my friend. Or I'll do toyouwhat I did at Breakwater."
