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He gave me a bored look and snapped his green hand around my own throat, gripping so tight that stars broke into my vision. Pain carved far deeper than a basic strangulation should have, and I couldn’t hold in my scream.
It was like being electrocuted by the mirrored floor, only ten times worse. It shattered my soul apart, and I felt my mates scramble to shore me up with magic.
My feet lifted worryingly off the metal floor of the ride as the circle bond erupted like a newborn star, and I mouthed a curse even if I no longer had the wherewithal to actually speak it. X—that wasXsending a kingdom's worth of magic down the bond.
"No," Eidolon snarled, trying to rip himself away from me.
But my claws hooked deep into his throat and I held on, a conduit as I took X's magic—theorb’smagic—and made it lethal, pumping it like poison into Eidolon's body.
Kill him,I commanded the power.Kill every atom in his body until nothing is left.
"Avie, stop this," he snapped like a general barking orders at a new recruit. But then his tone changed, hisbodychanged, and I shrank into myself. I couldn't let go—the magic was using me for its vicious whim, a thing with its own thoughts and will—but when Eidolon's face became Christian's, I almost wanted to.
"You won't kill your dad," he said, with convincing hurt. "Not really, not permanently. I know you, Aveline; you can't truly hurt me. You'd never be able to live with yourself."
I knew that. I'd killed him, and lived with it, and broken. It wasn't just the massacre in London that shattered me; it was him. It was killing the only person in the world who loved me, who'd ever cared for me and looked after me and given me a safe place. Even though he tortured me in that safe place, I couldn't move past those pathetic thoughts.
I wanted to let go. But I couldn't get my hands to unlock, couldn't stop the flow of magic, and with every minute even more of it surged from X into me. So much that it never ebbed away, so much that Eidolon couldn't steal it all. Oranyof it. He should have been gloating, all-powerful, but instead he was pale and worried.
He switched tactics, like a true coward. "Stop this right now, Aveline, or I'll go down there and find X. I never really finished with him the first time; you forced my hand by finding Lou."
I flinched hard enough that my claws detached from his neck, blood soaking my palm."Don't touch him."
"That's up to you, Avie," Eidolon replied, eyes narrowed. "All you have to do is let go of me."
But if I let go, he'd killallof them.
I gave another tug on my bonds. More. I neededmore,needed to burn the heart out of this monster until we were safe. Or until—until my mates were. As long astheywere, I didn't give a shit what Eidolon did to me.
"If you want to torture someone," I spat, but weakly, my voice little more than a rasp, "you hurt me. That's what you've always done, right?"
I gasped, my eyes so wide as power crashed into me with the force of a wave. My feet hovered inches off the base of the ride, my hair floating, and power merged with every cell in my body until there was no end of it, until it began toburnin my veins.
"Everything I've done is to make you stronger," Eidolon snarled back at me, digging his fingers deeper into my neck so I couldn't reply.
I managed to laugh, managed to spit in his face. It was satisfying, if gross, to watch it slide down his face. There was a scar on his cheek, a nick just below his eye, where I'd cut him when I was learning to sword fight when I was thirteen. I blocked out the memories, but the familiarity of fighting my father was disarming.
But if I lost here, he’d kill my mates. So I embraced the burn of magic in my veins, and gasped when it flashed so hot that my blood boiled, and smoke rose through my pores.
I couldn't let go of Eidolon. I knew he was my father and I was killing him, but I had to do this.
Let go, babygirl,Dev said suddenly, his tone sharp.Release the magic. Now!
I can do this,I panted, breathless even inside my mind as pain and heat spiked, the delightful scent of burning flesh invading my senses. Eidolon roared with agony as more of the orb's power shot through me into him.I can kill him.
Aveline!Dev roared.It'll kill you too. Stop!
I won't let him hurt anyone else,I said, my voice strangely faint. But Eidolon was screaming, and his hand fell away from my throat as he tried to pull my hands away from his own neck. I was vaguely aware of the hole I burned through his throat, vaguely aware of metal scalding my palm, burning an imprint into my skin.
Claws punched into my stomach in a last attempt to save himself, but the pricks were mere drops in the ocean of my pain. I opened my mouth to snarl; only fire emerged.
"Stop," Eidolon growled weakly. "Let go, Avie."
I thought he was trying to save me like Dev was, and my heart stuttered. I gained control of the wild power long enough for my heart to thud slower, for the flames to bank under my skin.
But Eidolon was still tugging at my hand, a vicious edge to his eyes even as he grew weak. He wasn't trying to save me; he was trying to save himself.
"Let go of it," he hissed.
