Chapter 47
Chapter Forty-Seven
Lena
“Stop it!” I scream as I watch my “uncle” Sergey land a hard hit to Boden’s face. I mean, does Boden deserve a good hit to the face? Absolutely. But I’m not okay with it coming at Sergey’s hand.
Sergey, who isn’t just a human family friend who would come around on holidays when I was young, but is a magica.
A magica who, now that I study his face, I realize hasn’t aged a day since I was a child.
A magica who knows what I am, who has always known.
I haven’t seen him since Dmitri’s funeral.
But maybe not Dmitri’s funeral? Did we cremate the wrong man?
Sergey turns his smug smile back on me, and the creature in my body bangs against its bone cage as I kneel in a broken body on the ground.
Sergey was the one who’d introduced Dmitri to the gang he’d taken that shady job with before he died.
Once I hit double digits, we rarely saw him, because we moved around so much.
But when he showed up uninvited to the funeral, I told him I never wanted to see his face again.
I was suspicious that somehow that job played a part in Dmitri’s death.
My heart races in realization of how accurate my mistrust of him was.
“Give it up,” I spit at him, hate drenching every word.
Because you have got to be kidding me. I’ve been pushed around for the last two months—humiliated and bullied, for Adrik’s zealousness and the Dark Sun’s crimes.
I’ve been running for as long as I can remember, likely from them, the realm’s nobility, the kingdoms’ courts, and the realm knows who else.
And this asshole wants to waltz back into my life and drop a bomb that he always knew I was magica?
My creature coils tight, tensing, ready to strike as two of Sergey’s goons creep closer, surrounding me. “Adrik’s dead.” I narrow my eyes.
“And yet his progeny lives on.” His sinister smile widens. “And you are going to help us fulfill the prophecy as it was meant to be filled—by a Solis and not these wastes of space pampered children.”
Time turns choppy, it seems to slow down and speed up all at once.
He attempts to reach past Boden for Cal while three of his men head toward them.
Boden blocks the men’s advance by throwing his bound legs out and tripping Sergey.
Sergey stumbles but quickly rights himself and lunges forward to grab Boden.
Instantaneously Boden flips his body so his back is toward Sergey, moving so fast he’s a blur.
Light builds in his hands but sputters out against the enchantments of the ropes around his wrists.
Sergey grabs a hold of Boden’s restraints, turning them to stone before throwing Boden onto his back, while one of Sergey’s men delivers a kick to Boden’s ribs.
The other two men have a hold of Cal, who’s struggling against their hold and the strength of the enchanted ropes with no success. One man’s hands smolder with embers, searing into Cal’s flesh and Cal stifles a scream.
Sergey leans over Boden, a knee digging into his back, and prepares to throw a punch.
The monster inside me screams to be let loose.
“Sergey! Stop!” I screech, crawling toward him on my knees.
He pauses, looking over his shoulder at me.
“I’ll make you a deal.” My breath is heavy and ragged.
The man could never turn down a bet. His gambling addiction got Dmitri in hot water more than once.
At the thought, Dmitri’s voice comes flooding back to me. “Remember The Rules, Little Sun.”
“You’re already a part of a deal. And, honey, you’re not a player.” He laughs, a sound full of vicious delight. “You’re collateral.”
He raises his chin at one of the men approaching me. The man wrenches me to my feet by my hair. Sergey turns back toward Boden and lands another stone-encrusted fist. The princes attempt to battle against the men, weakened with their hands and legs bound.
“Sergey!” I yell, hoping to redirect his attention. “What did I tell you last time we spoke?”
He throws his head back and laughs as spittle flies from his lips. “I believe you said something along the lines of ‘If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you.’”
“Exactly,” I snarl. Rule Number One: Keep moving, and always be ready to run at a moment’s notice.
I don’t think, I just let my body react.
I headbutt the asshole leaning over me. Which I realize too late is nothing like it seems on TV, it fucking hurts.
I throw a shoulder into the man standing behind me, sending him off-balance, just enough that I can launch forward.
I stumble toward the maze of crates at the other end of the warehouse, begrudgingly thanking Boden for the mandatory running sessions every morning.
“Vladlena, stop! Or I’ll put a bullet in their heads!” Sergey yells.
I jerk to a halt, turning quickly and coming face-to-face with the two men on my heels. The men slow, adjusting their positions, preparing for me to make a sudden dash.
From this vantage, I can see Sergey and three men have the princes detained, a gun to Boden’s head. “Enchanted bullets won’t kill them, but they will knock them down until I can cut off their heads.”
Enchanted bullets? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!
Can’t I catch a break? I have had it with this realm’s bullshit!
I’ve spent too much time recently being scared and unsure and lonely.
Too much time feeling worthless, hopeless, and trapped.
I always slap on a sunny smile and shove my pain deep.
But the thing with that is, all those feelings have to have somewhere to go.
And mine were just feeding my creature—creating a ravenous, insatiable monster.
Those feelings evolved into something else. They were digested—transformed.
So I’m not afraid anymore. No, I am fucking pissed.
My beast is stirring, and her name is fury.
She is my power—as much a part of me as any other limb.
At first, I thought my power was putrid veins or rotting roots or slithering vines.
Then I imagined it was living ribbons, golden harp cords, or flowing streams of musical liquid.
Now I know my power is both those things and more. It is a multiheaded snake—a hydra.
She caresses the air with her tongues and lashes out at others with her many heads. Her fangs can pierce into my victims and lovers alike, consuming their life forces, drinking in their pain or devouring their pleasure. Returning their experience tenfold.
Stroking the golden and iridescent black scales of the hydra in my diaphragm, I encourage her to strike out at our captors. She sinks the fangs of her oil-slick-colored heads into the men throughout the warehouse. Stunned by the sharp bite, the men freeze, distracted.
Rule Number Two: no identifying information.
Sergey and these Dark Sun assholes don’t know me.
They don’t know what I can do. I’m not just part seraphim with missing light.
Nor am I just a succubus with control over the desires of others, sustaining myself on pleasure.
I am my father’s daughter, and for that, I keep close company with pain.
I crave it, I thrive in it. I planted roots and grew deep and beautiful in it.
Without pain, there is no pleasure, and I am a maestro of both.
I am balance.
I mentally pull on the snake attached to the man holding a gun to Boden’s head, and he stumbles, falling to the ground with a shriek of pain. Quickly, Boden, with his wrists still bound in stone, grasps at Cal’s restraints, working to unknot them. Sergey regains his focus and lunges for Boden.
I don’t know how many heads my hydra has, but it feels infinite.
Thousands of coiled snakes are ready to launch from my body into my prey.
At my order, my hydra lashes out and sinks a second set of fangs into Sergey.
With my mind, I direct her to bring Sergey toward me and out of the fray.
He’s dragged forward as if pulled by an invisible rope.
I yank on the snakes embedded in the two men in front of me; their chests seize as they scream, crashing to their knees.
Boden, relieved of his restraints, throws a shock of lightning-bright fire toward the magica with the gun, and he goes up in flames.
At the same time, Cal drops to the ground, their hands making contact with the concrete, causing it to ripple, crack, and send the other two magicae they are tussling with tumbling.
Tugging lightly on my creature, I yank Sergey’s face to mine. “Kneel,” I demand.
His face is red with fury and eyes wide with shock. “You aren’t supposed to have magic.”
I send additional fangs toward Sergey and the men on their knees, these gold and deeply enriched with pleasure “I. Said. Kneel!” I overwhelm them with painful venom and poison them with pleasure.
I yell. Sergey’s body convulses, shudders, and lowers to the ground.
With force, I rip the gold fangs from their bodies, leaving them with only misery. All three men crumple.
“I will not be used!” I send more venom hurtling down our connection.
The magicae convulse, foam seeping from their lips.
“Not by the Dark Suns, not in Adrik’s name,” I scream.
My vision, tinted with anger, dances with slippery ominous colors.
“I will not be used. Not by the royal houses, not by the whole of the motherfucking Realm of Sidera.”
Like the scales of my hydra, the world around me shimmers with an iridescent sheen, displaying a swirling palette of vibrant hues.
Deep blues and purples blur the edges of my vision, merging into greens and yellows that ripple like liquid rainbows at the center.
The two men seizing on either side of Sergey still as their bodies fail.
The entire warehouse has a surreal, kaleidoscopic quality, the colors give way to the darkest of blacks, dotting out my vision. But I’m an unstoppable force.
“And I will certainly not be used by you, Sergey,” I grit out between clenched teeth.
“You don’t want to do this,” he pleads. “I wouldn’t hurt you, not really. We’re basically family.”
I hear Dmitri’s voice in my mind once more. “Most importantly, remember Rule Number Three: Don’t form any long-term attachments.”
I lean down, pressing my lips to Sergey’s ear. “I don’t have a family anymore,” I whisper, before sending a dozen incorporeal hydra heads to sink their fangs into his flesh, flooding his body with agony.
He lets out one last strangled breath, a whispered name on his lips just for me.