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“Well, well, fancy finding you here,” Maddy snarls.
Else shrieks and rushes at Maddy with a dagger held over her head. “This ends today!”
Before Maddy can reach her, a fiery burst shoots out of Caleb.
It streaks across the room, bright and hot. It finds its target unerringly. Unapologetically.
It slams into Else, pushing her away from Maddy and knocking her over.
Else drops to the ground with a round hole smoldering in the center of her chest and her eyes locked wide in surprise. The ends of her hair flame and then go out. Tendrils of smoke curl up toward the ceiling.
Maddy gasps and covers her mouth.
Oh my god. What has he done?
Chapter14
Caleb
Caleb grits his teeth and clenches his fists, trying to figure out what he’s done without panicking over the hugeness of it. Else is dead, andhekilled her.
He focuses on the sensation of the ground beneath the soles of his shoes, and the bloom of love for Maddy in his chest. He’s Caleb as he was before, as a human, but he’s not old Caleb at all. There’s so much more to him now, so much more he doesn’t understand.
When had his heartbeat gotten so loud? Was it always that way before? The stench of burned flesh and singed hair disturbs him and his stomach churns, clenching with each pound of his pulse.
Else still smolders on the ground in front of them. What had just happened? He isn’t sure he can say at all. It hadn’t happened with any more thought than protecting Maddy, and the sequence of doing isn’t something he can repeat.Protect Maddy.That’s the only goal he has in his head. It’s the only reason Else is dead on the floor of the great hall.
Regret over her death isn’t in him, but confusion is. How had he done it without thinking? When Else brought the dagger down, all Caleb could imagine was Maddy, dropping to her knees with a stake in her heart. The magic surged and burst out of him with no reason or thought.
“Why?” Maddy rasps at him, clutching at her own throat. She sprints to his side and tugs on his arm. “Why did you have to kill her?”
Caleb tries to pull her close, but she’s slow to move toward him. She leans away as though she’s afraid of him.Her. The one he loves, the one he needs. He would never do anything to hurt her. “I had no other choice.”
“But you always have a choice.”
His gaze narrows. “Do you have a choice when you consume a mortal in the middle of bloodlust? Did you have a choice with the lab tech? Or did it happen by instinct?”
Her mouth stretches into a twisted grimace, and her eyes turn glassy from moisture. “I don’t think that’s fair.”
The unshed tears in her eyes break through the hard barrier around his heart, and he fights a rush of regret over his comment about the lab tech. Instead of apologizing, he merely whispers, “Maddy, I had no choice. I had to keep you safe.”
“Even when you were a vampire, you didn’t kill anyone outright unless it was necessary. You didn’t even talk to her first or try to negotiate with her.” She shudders. “You just burned a hole through her.” Her hands tremble as she gestures, so she puts her hands on her hips. “Maybe you shouldn’t use Faerie magic, Caleb. It’s so dark.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think whatever it is you do, whatever powers you have… They come from Faerie magic, and Faerie magic is dark, isn’t it?”
“We already know it comes from my forebears getting mixed up with Faerie magic and witches and who knows what else,” he agrees.
“Well... Maybe it…” She pauses long enough to swallow. “Maybe it leaves a little dark in you each time you use it.”
Caleb doesn’t like what she’s implying, but she probably has a point. They know so little about his powers. “So, you’re saying I shouldn’t use it?”
She shrugs. “If you don’t have to, no.”
“Maybe you’re right, but we’re going to need my powers if we’re going to have any hope of defeating Orion.” He doesn’t tell her he can’t command it, that it comes out of him without his controlling it. “I don’t know that I have a choice about that either.”
She doesn’t say anything for a long time. “If the Order isn’t going to help us, we have to try something else. We must get that book back.”
