Page 7 of Silver Claw

She sprang to her feet and came at me, her stare full of nightmares and fire, and once again, fear—terror, actually—got its sharp, evil claws into my flesh.

I’d underestimated her and overestimated myself. I was going to pay for that mistake. I didn’t wait to see what she would do but went at her with my demon blade. Even if my magic couldn’t incapacitate her—at least not for long—no one could withstand a cut from my blade. Its magnificent power was one reason the big bad angel I’d cut with it had wanted it so badly.

And no matter that my magic was about as effective as a water gun against her, she wouldn’t be safe from the blade. No one was. Ever.

She met me head-on, and we fought with our blades, our fists, our rage.

She was good. Experienced at fighting. She stood toe to toe with me and for the first time in a long time, I honestly wasn’t sure I’d walk away from a battle.

My magic couldn’t damage her, and she seemed to heal from it almost immediately. How the hell could I fight someone who couldn’t be hurt?

Quite unintentionally, I sent another burst of magic at her, which was more of a weak puff of smoke than a force of brutal power. I cursed my lack of control even as she sucked the magic away, dropped the dagger she’d been using, and then brought out a different blade.

It appeared in her hand, long, curved, and shiny black with tiny, glowing green symbols etched in the blade. And yeah, I was in a fight for my life, but my mouth watered for her blade.

Someday I was going to take that weapon.

But I was afraid. Afraid for me, my magic, my blade, and my wolf.

As it always did, my fear made me angry, and the rage came. I needed that rage. My inner psycho wasn’t afraid of anything. She was just mad. She didn’t care if she died.

As though thinking about my death summoned her, I caught a glimpse of my guardian angel, Nicole, blending with the shadows of the night, watching.

Waiting.

I hoped she was there to lend a hand, because I didn’t plan on going to the land of the savage angels just yet.

Anika sliced my chest and then my ribs with the shiny black blade, and as I dwelt for a millisecond on the strangeness of that pain, she punched me in the face. I blinked out like a wind-kissed candle flame, but it was only a stutter.

I didn’t remember hitting the ground, but the bone-rattling fall woke me up in a hurry. She descended, the tip of her blade dripping red, and I leaped up to meet her. I let my instincts take over, and despite the weakening of my demon blade, I shoved the eager knife into her chest, viciously, the force of myrage making me—and the blade—stronger, faster, and a whole fucking lot meaner.

She wore some sort of armor beneath her shirt, but that was no barrier to my blade. It had been forged in hell, strengthened by the blood of hundreds of victims, and magicked by the demon lords.

I was gratified by the widening of her eyes as I twisted my blade inside her. I ripped it free as she was still processing the first cut, and I slashed her throat with all the rage I had inside me.

At that moment, I’d never hated anyone as much as I hated that bitch.

And I meant to kill her.

“Not smiling now,” I murmured, and as she staggered, I punched her the way she’d punched me. Bone crunched, and then she was flying backward, blood arcing from her body.

I followed her, my inner psycho fully in control, gleeful and hungry for more. I would chop her into tiny chunks, mop the ground with her blood, scream my rage into her dying eyes.

I pinned her against a tree with the demon blade, and because my brutal, irrational psycho needed something big, something vicious, I screamed into her face. I screamed the killing angel’s scream that I had planned to never use again.

And as she was seizing against the rough bark, lost somewhere in her mind, somehow still alive, I slammed my palm against her open mouth and called my magic. I planned to shove it down her throat and choke her with it. It didn’t matter that she could shrug it off after a minute or two.

Before that happened, she’d be dead from the angel’s scream. Things fell from the dark sky, things I’d killed. No, not things. Birds. Tiny animals in the trees, caught in the crossfire.

But nothing came when I called my magic. It didn’t come.

And finally, even through the thick red haze of rage and madness, I understood something that was nearly incomprehensible.

She hadn’t simply healed from my magic or managed to become immune to it.

She’d killed it.

She’d sucked it out of me when I’d sent it out to destroy her, and she’d killed it. Panicked, I opened my mouth and screamed again.