lunged forward without hesitation. Raal didn’t have time to react before Ronin snapped his neck. Dumbfounded, I stood in the in-between with my mouth agape. Before I could open my eyes to confront Ronin, he disappeared, leaving Raal’s dead body to crumple to the floor.
My eyes shot open and my presence returned to my body. I stared into the shocked, lifeless gaze of the man who’d just spiked me with Harry’s blood, the man whose neck was now bent at an impossible angle.
“Shit,” I cursed.
Getting to my feet, heart racing, I quickly put distance between me and Raal’s body. I couldn’t sense any life, although considering he was threatening to go see the big man, which was probably Harry, I wasn’t sure I would have healed him if I could.
I took a few calming breaths to settle down, then dropped to my knees as if someone was pulling the new power out from under me. I blinked and the visible overlay that let me see energy, thresholds, and magical wards blazed bright. Raal’s body was glowing as the tattoos on his skin flared to life. I watched in horror as the vines on my arms began to bleed into a stream of energy that creeped back toward Raal. The flow of power reawakened the vines on Raal’s skin as they had originally appeared before he transferred them to me, as if the power was returning to the source now that Raal was dead.
I wondered if this was because of proximity or if anyone he’d ever done this to would be feeling the pull. As I considered this, a thin trail of energy snaked in from under the door, answering my question. His base magic was somehow pulling everything back to him.
The power at my core rippled, fighting the drain. The slivers of energy that I’d appeared to absorb earlier from Raal’s own blood were pulsing toward the brightness at the center of my being. I couldn’t let any of the power go or I’d never be able to take Ronin to see Leland Kane—not to mention that I’d most likely never get another sample of Harry’s blood to try this again, and the weak Fall Queen that I’d become would die easily at the hands of the next contender.
Remembering the way my body had reacted the first time Mab juiced me—before I had any control—and seeing how Raal’s magic seemed to want to join mine, I let loose the reigns, hoping this wasn’t the biggest mistake of all time, and pulled hard on all the power around me.
Just like it had in the museum last summer, my newly powerful presence wanted everything, but unlike the museum, which had power oozing from its pores, the only source of power here was the dead man in front of me. Instantly, the flow of power out of me reversed: the vine tattoo that had been manifesting on Raal’s skin drained away and returned to me.
But it didn’t stop there.
All the tattoos on his arms started fading. The first to go was the mermaid he’d been putting on Frankie when we arrived. There was power in every one of the marks, power so faint in some that they wouldn’t have been noticed individually, but together, the stream of energy blossomed into an electric charge so strong that it almost knocked me on my butt. My sight saw the final flow of power as it trickled in through the door, through Raal’s body, and onto my skin—putting the ghost image of each tattoo in place as it had been on his form. I was lit up like the illustrated man at the carnival and glowing so bright I must have looked like a pure ball of white light to anyone that could see it.
Raal’s body sunk in on itself as the final spark of his magic left, and he disintegrated into dust before my eyes. My core roiled with hunger at the loss.
I. Wanted. More.
A pulse from within beckoned to the world around me. It instinctively pulled on every source of magic in the vicinity and I didn’t want to stop it—so it was maybe a good thing that someone clocked me on the back of the head.
~#~
It had been a while since I woke up in unfamiliar surroundings, but if I wasn’t
My eyes shot open and my presence returned to my body. I stared into the shocked, lifeless gaze of the man who’d just spiked me with Harry’s blood, the man whose neck was now bent at an impossible angle.
“Shit,” I cursed.
Getting to my feet, heart racing, I quickly put distance between me and Raal’s body. I couldn’t sense any life, although considering he was threatening to go see the big man, which was probably Harry, I wasn’t sure I would have healed him if I could.
I took a few calming breaths to settle down, then dropped to my knees as if someone was pulling the new power out from under me. I blinked and the visible overlay that let me see energy, thresholds, and magical wards blazed bright. Raal’s body was glowing as the tattoos on his skin flared to life. I watched in horror as the vines on my arms began to bleed into a stream of energy that creeped back toward Raal. The flow of power reawakened the vines on Raal’s skin as they had originally appeared before he transferred them to me, as if the power was returning to the source now that Raal was dead.
I wondered if this was because of proximity or if anyone he’d ever done this to would be feeling the pull. As I considered this, a thin trail of energy snaked in from under the door, answering my question. His base magic was somehow pulling everything back to him.
The power at my core rippled, fighting the drain. The slivers of energy that I’d appeared to absorb earlier from Raal’s own blood were pulsing toward the brightness at the center of my being. I couldn’t let any of the power go or I’d never be able to take Ronin to see Leland Kane—not to mention that I’d most likely never get another sample of Harry’s blood to try this again, and the weak Fall Queen that I’d become would die easily at the hands of the next contender.
Remembering the way my body had reacted the first time Mab juiced me—before I had any control—and seeing how Raal’s magic seemed to want to join mine, I let loose the reigns, hoping this wasn’t the biggest mistake of all time, and pulled hard on all the power around me.
Just like it had in the museum last summer, my newly powerful presence wanted everything, but unlike the museum, which had power oozing from its pores, the only source of power here was the dead man in front of me. Instantly, the flow of power out of me reversed: the vine tattoo that had been manifesting on Raal’s skin drained away and returned to me.
But it didn’t stop there.
All the tattoos on his arms started fading. The first to go was the mermaid he’d been putting on Frankie when we arrived. There was power in every one of the marks, power so faint in some that they wouldn’t have been noticed individually, but together, the stream of energy blossomed into an electric charge so strong that it almost knocked me on my butt. My sight saw the final flow of power as it trickled in through the door, through Raal’s body, and onto my skin—putting the ghost image of each tattoo in place as it had been on his form. I was lit up like the illustrated man at the carnival and glowing so bright I must have looked like a pure ball of white light to anyone that could see it.
Raal’s body sunk in on itself as the final spark of his magic left, and he disintegrated into dust before my eyes. My core roiled with hunger at the loss.
I. Wanted. More.
A pulse from within beckoned to the world around me. It instinctively pulled on every source of magic in the vicinity and I didn’t want to stop it—so it was maybe a good thing that someone clocked me on the back of the head.
~#~
It had been a while since I woke up in unfamiliar surroundings, but if I wasn’t
Similar Books
