AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But then I notice our hands clenching into fists, our shoulders tense like she’s straining. Reid’s fighting her. Her magic fills our body, dark and cold and nothing like the way my magic feels. I tentatively reach out to it, letting it rush over my fingers in my mind’s eye like water, and it responds immediately like it’s my own.
It doesn’t know the difference between me and V.
I’m willing to bet my magic would react the same to her then, so before she can figure that out, I tighten my grip on her magic and pull.
She physically falls back a step, and I yank harder, imagining I’m scooping the very essence of her out of my body.
What the hell do you think you’re doing?she hisses.
I tighten my grip, adding my magic and letting it mingle with hers, drawing strength from my blood, but also up from my shadow the way she taught me, letting all of the different magics twist and weave together until they fill my body whole. It feels hot and cold and dark and light all at the same time, so overwhelming I almost can’t bear it.
“Valerie.” Reid turns, and I can see the clearness in his eyes. He’s broken through her hold.
V lets out a roar of frustration and extends a hand toward Reid, her fingers curved like claws. He lets out a sharp breath, then clutches a hand to his chest.
No, I shriek as he falls to his knees.
Then behave. She twists her wrist, and he lets out a pained groan.
But instead of scaring me back into my corner, it makes the magic burn brighter, singing in my veins, funneling toward the shadows pushing me into the darkness inside my own body while V takes center stage.
I don’t know how to do this, but somehow I know I can trust that this magicdoes.
You will never hurt him again, I say, letting the magic wrap around her essence, encasing her in chains of power.You will never hurt anyone ever again.
You think you’re so much better than me? You think you would have turned out any differently had the roles been reversed?
Her voice echoes in the empty chamber of my body as if she’s being pulled farther and farther away. I don’t bother responding, not even as she shoots her—our—hands up to the sky, and the trees around us catch fire, the flames as black as the night.
“Valerie.”
Reid says my voice like a prayer, but I can’t see him, can barely hear him. Can hardly hear or see anything at all.
At some point I ended up on my back, and distantly, I feel my arms and legs spasming against the ground, fighting back, fighting against the magic purging everything inside of me that does not belong.
“You can fight her,” urges Reid.
“They’re coming.” Daniel—Daniel’s voice somewhere in the distance.
“We have to go.” Another voice I don’t know.
“Valerie.” Reid’s hands on my arms, my face. My body continues to convulse against the ground.
The magic wraps around my throat, my chest, my hips, squeezing and burning and threatening to consume me. I keep my hand wrapped around it like a leash, too afraid to keep holding on but too afraid to let go.
The last thing I hear is the echo of V’s scream.
CHAPTERFORTY
“No one touches her.”
“She’s a fucking liability.”
“Then what are you proposing? That’s my best friend—”
“And Beth was my girlfriend!”
“We’re all sorry about Beth, Wes—”
