Page 223 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
“It moves onto the next in the bloodline.” He paused, tapping his lips. “And if recollection serves—that means your sister’s next.”
Even in strangulation, something deep inside me gasped. Vi’s face flashed across those widening dots. She with her easy smile, shimmering young eyes, and warm heart. She as a toddler with golden curls, clinging to me on an ornate bed, little Ace snuggled in tight on my other side.
Breathing became an afterthought.
Maybe I wasn’t enough.
But I was all they had.
Like a flint wheel on a lighter, I felt a loaded click, and that cold ember in my belly blazed up like a torch in a chasm of endless night. Through my panic, I cast my mind out as far as it could reach, and I snatched that torch like a lifeline out of hell. I glared at Dando, thinking,Oh, no—you didn’t.
My torch flourished like heartburn, my lungs smoldering. My fingertips smoked in a warning the harbingers didn’t catch.
“If you force us to kill you—well, I think I might vie for dear sister’s bounty. What say you to that, fellas?” Dando’s taunting grin turned my way. “Tell us, princess—your sister—does she take after you?”
My warrior’s skin kicked in full force. I stretched those damn tethers restraining my arms to their limits, hooking two fingers between the noose and my neck. And I inhaled.
“Will she spread her legs as willingly for her captor?”
Oh, no. You—fucking—didn’t!
My blood boiled, my firestorm roaring, and drowned out the Leprechauns’ bawdy laughter. Then they weren’t laughing at all—because my vision flashed red, sulfur permeated the air, and my fingertips sprayed sparks.
“Run,” a portentous voice, neither human nor fae, snarled out of me—fair warning. Baring my teeth, I set fire to my throat and watched Dando’s tortoiseshell eyes round to moons.“Just fucking run!”
My noose now cinders on my chest, the harbingers tautened my fetters. I smirked at them, their comeuppance in the flesh, and turned their weapons against them, now more hissing dynamite wicks.
Dando clutched his tricorn and whirled for escape. “Fire sylph!” he bellowed. His boggling comrades clambered after his retreat, their impotent, ashen tethers with them.
Please, I scoffed, surfing a breeze, and soared over their heads. I landed in their path. They skidded to a halt before me, drenched in their own fear.
I stood back to my full height and lifted incendiary hands. A tigress with three mice, I purred, “What were you thinking of doing to my sister?”
Backing away, Dando stammered, “It—it was a mere jest, princess.”
“I’mnota princess.”
I combusted then, a flame-thrower on steroids, my leg muscles quivering for control as I conducted a shrieking symphony of third-degree whoop-ass. I watched, refusing to cower, as the Leprechauns danced the dance of hellfire and brimstone.
And I witnessed a living nightmare when Dando, his face a contorted vision of hatred and malice, stumbled toward me, his teeth bared, saliva bubbling, and reached for me with charred, flaming hands. One of them fisted a knife.
Spooked, I shuffled back into a palm trunk and firebombed his chest. Ghastly, was his wail, before he fell to the ground, rolling, and set the palms near me ablaze. Hot ash rained from the sky.
Still, I never looked away, never allowed myself the comfort of ignorance.
This was my gift—the most agonizing, violent death imaginable—and I wouldn’t be sorry for it. Not even as the Leprechauns begged for mercy. Not even as they screamed for their mothers. I blocked their voices, breathing deeply, evenly, and with a healthy dose of righteous indignation until the threesome of wailing infernos quit writhing within my flames—the ones now consuming the willows I didn’t spare a second glance for as I cat-walked into the oncoming night, a freaking boss.
Gone, was the innocent girl shrinking from the bogeybats who’d eviscerated her father. Gone, was the child mewling, alone in a field of orphanhood and friendlessness. Gone, was the hapless youngblood who’d burnt herself out in a battle with ravening Fomorians. Gone, was the ineffectual abolitionist who’d gotten her ass kicked.
She’d been a victim then.
She’d never be a victim again.
Now, she was the only thing standing between the void and those who needed light. And shewasenough.
I hadalwaysbeenenough.
Thirty-Six
