Page 70 of Peacemaker

“You’ll have to put him down,” Amias said. “End his suffering, Trinity.”

“Clayton,” I begged. “Can’t you do something?”

“I can kill this vampire,” Clayton said, his narrowed, angry stare on Amias.

Amias took a quick step back. “That would not benefit the werebull.”

“Don’t advise her to kill him again,” Clayton said, his voice tight.

Angus moaned, and thrashed, and slipped deeper into his world of pain.

Trying to cut off his horn was not like trimming a nail. It meant his life. If we couldn’t help him, he would die an agonizing death.

Somehow, he hadn’t known that.

Had he?

No. He wouldn’t have left us that way, and he wouldn’t have deliberately accepted such suffering. No matter what he’d done. No matter what he’d needed to atone for.

And he wouldn’t have put that on Leo.

“I don’t know what to do,” I cried. I wanted to cover my ears. I wanted to run away. I wanted not to hear what was coming from his mouth. But I stayed there with him, on him, as his movements became slower and weaker, and part of me wished he would die so his torment would end. I stayed there with him.

It was the hardest thing I’d ever done.

And there, into the midst of our vulnerability, the demon came.

He came into Willow-Wisp, stunning me. I hadn’t thought the graveyard would accept him. I’d thought we were safe there.

But he slammed to the ground hard enough to shake the earth, breaking and scattering tombstones when he landed. He had grown even larger since his last defeat and was at least twice the size of Leo.

Immediately, he sent a stream of fire at me—and the helpless werebull upon whom I lay.

It wasn’t like the fire he’d immersed me in the last time. That had been a fire of power, and I’d embraced it. I’d absorbed it.

And he’d learned from his mistake.

The fire he sent toward me was simply…fire. Hot flames crawled up my legs, eating away the fabric of my jeans, scorching my flesh.

It caught Angus’s tough shifter hide, burned away his hair and scorched his flesh, but his moans didn’t change. He was too agonized to hurt more than he already did.

I scrambled off him and rolled, smothering the flames crawling up my legs, then beat at the tiny fires caught in Angus’s hair.

Silverlight burst free and I stood in front of Angus, encircling us both in the sword’s silver halo. But the demon was not a vampire. The silver arc might hurt him, but it wouldn’t kill him.

And even as Leo lifted his fist, fell to his knee, and smacked the ground with his killing power, more demons appeared.

Seamus Flynn had brought backup.

I flung Silverlight away from me, having no choice as the demon’s Blacklight streaked toward Clayton.

As Miriam streaked toward him.

I needed to defend Clayton against Blacklight and Angus against the demons, and for a moment, I was overtaken by doubt.

Silverlight fought Blacklight, and though the demon’s new sword was powerful, it was not old. It was not Silverlight.

Then Rhys Graver raced into the graveyard, Shane at his side, and my relief was tempered by my worry. Clayton held guns in both hands. He shot silver into the demons’ brains, and his aim was dead-on, his hands steady, but the threat of Blacklight—of Miriam—was in his eyes.