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My grandmother looked down, her face breaking into a grimace as she saw my magic creep toward her. She limped back, breathing heavily and wincing. Injured. My withering magic must have caught her leg when she leaped back from me. “So you did lie about everything, Circe,” she hissed, pulling the knife more sharply against my mother’s throat. Mama winced, her eyes pleading with me to go, to run, to leave her and flee.
I couldn’t.
“The girl does have her father’s powers,” my grandmother continued, her breaths becoming more ragged as I pushed that death magic toward her. She limped back another step. Carnon dropped the wall of flame and shadow, dropping to the dais with a thud and bracing his hands against the floor. He was panting and sweating and bleeding, and he looked at me with sorrow. With pain. He was drained.
“You will help me eventually, Elara,” my grandmother hissed, icy eyes darting between Carnon and me, weighing her chances of escape. “With or without your willing submission, you will bring down the Bloodwood for me. And I’ll be coming for you again.”
With a movement so fast, I barely had the time to scream in horror, my grandmother slit my mother’s throat and disappeared into glittering red smoke.
“No!” I cried, dropping the death magic and willing healing to come to me, the trickle of magic slow, too slow, in my veins. “Mama!”
I knelt, pressing my hand to her throat to keep her blood in as it flowed, thick and fast over my fingers.
“No, no, no,” I cried, “Mama, I can fix this, just hang on.” I pulled on that power, pleading with the Goddess to help me, to save my mother, to lend me her strength. A faint glow, and the blood slowed. But then the glow vanished. I was drained too.
Mama made a gurgling sound, and I sobbed, pressing more firmly to keep her blood in. Her hands were still bound, I realized. I looked at Carnon, who nodded, crawling toward us and cutting the ropes that bound her hands and feet with the same knife my grandmother had used to kill her.
“It was blood magic,” I whispered, looking to Mama for confirmation. She blinked once, heavily, as if it took a great effort. Yes, then. “And my father was the Demon King? Alaunus?” Mama closed her eyes, a tear slipping down her cheek, and opened them again slowly. Another yes.
“Oh Mama,” I whispered, pressing my forehead to hers. I pulled and pulled and pulled on that healing power, begging and bargaining and cursing at the Goddess. No healing magic came. Just a simmering, burning fire as pain and panic and ancient, unfaltering rage filled my veins. “Don’t leave me.” I felt her hand then, cold and clammy, rise and hold my cheek. “I love you too,” I whispered, lifting my head. She blinked again, and then her eyes went glassy, her hand falling limp to the ground, and the blood slowed to a trickle between my fingers.
That rage erupted, sending a blast of fire out from me as I roared, becoming a tangible flame that I whipped around the chamber. Carnon rolled, barely missing the flames as they whipped past him, and I let out another great wracking sob, the fire dying as quickly as it had begun.
“Elara,” Carnon croaked, pushing himself up and dragging himself toward me.
“Don’t” I hissed, looking up. I felt that fire simmer behind my eyes still, that ancient, primal anger in my veins. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry.”
“I won’t,” Carnon said, groaning as he knelt beside me, the move causing him pain as he took my bloody hands. He held them, not speaking as he let me temper that rage inside me.
“I willkillher,” I said finally, looking up to meet his serpentine eyes. Back to normal now. He must have shifted with the last of his strength.
He nodded. “I’ll help.”
Chapter 30
Akela was the only reason we made it back to the mirrored hallway and out of the Covenstead at all. He growled, baring his teeth and scattering the remaining witches as he escorted us, bloodied and beaten, down the hall. Carnon carried my mother’s body, limp and lifeless, and I pulled us through the mirror where we fell to the floor of Carnon’s office.
Herne was behind us immediately, smashing the mirror as Lucifer ran for the healer, and Cerridwen fluttered over us in panic.
I held Mama close, unwilling to let her go until Carnon finally pried my hands away from her corpse with gentle, tender coaxing.
“Cerridwen will take her,” he assured me, looking into my eyes for any trace of the fire there. It was gone, banked and smothered by the pain of Mama’s loss. All I felt was hollow misery as he scooped me up, his strength returning now that we were back in Oneiros, and took me to our room.
For three days, he let me lie there in darkness, my misery consuming me from the inside as I replayed Mama’s death over and over in my head. He stayed with me, tried to convince me to eat, held me as I was woken by endless nightmares of Mama’s blood on my hands. Akela stayed too, curled up next to me, his warm head on my lap.Come back,he seemed to whine as I laid there in darkness.We need you.
Physically, I knew I was healing, my magic restored by the dreams of the city. Nothing was really wrong with me, except for that deep chasm of grief and sadness and anger that made me lock up and shut down. Finally, as the third day came to a close, I looked at my mate.
He was pale, his eyes dull, and the deep bags under them told me he hadn’t been eating or sleeping enough. His face was pinched with worry as he sat in an armchair next to the bed, an ankle crossed over a knee as he kept watch over me. He was so handsome, my Demon King, my mate, and I knew he would get me the vengeance I desired.
“I’m hungry,” I croaked, pushing myself to sit up. I felt puffy and raw, but Carnon sagged with relief as if I were the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. Akela whined, and I put my hand on his head, stroking the soft fur there.
“Pierre has been sending up about a thousand macarons every day,” he said quietly, propping me up on the pillows and dropping a kiss to my forehead. “I'll get you some. And tea.”
I nodded faintly, feeling too exhausted and empty for more words. I had let myself fall apart. Fall into that pit of grief. And now I needed to climb out of it. If not for me, then for my mate.
Carnon returned a few minutes later, a dainty lavender plate and matching floral teacup in his hands. The sight was comical enough that I should have laughed. Old Elara would have teased him mercilessly about the floral teacup. But Old Elara was gone.
“Thank you,” I whispered, taking a sip of the hot tea. “I’m sorry. For falling apart.”
