Chapter 40
Chapter Forty
brEXLEY
Rosie’s scream impaled the sky like it cut a hole in the atmosphere and through my chest. Killian’s body dropped, the beasts turning their attention to her.
Joska and Samu were still alive. It had been way past the time the pills should have killed them.
Yet here they were. Both appeared even stronger than before.
Joska only wore pants, his body strained with muscles and vigor.
He had to have doubled in size, mainly in his chest, his body moving like a gorilla set to kill.
Samu was thin but almost completely muscle.
His fingers were claws, his teeth sharp and pointed.
Both were heading for Rosie.
A shout bellowed out of my throat, and I leaped from my hiding spot.
I fired my gun into my two old HDF comrades, trying to distract them from her.
As if the bullets were nothing but mosquito bites, they batted at the hits before their irritation curved their heads to me, stopping their pursuit of Rosie.
Fuck.
Joska’s eyes lit up with hunger and desire—to kill and destroy, to hear my bones snap and feast on my carcass. A grunting noise roared from him, his hands beating his chest. Circling around, he barreled for me.
“Kovacs!” Warwick’s warning cry echoed in me, his shadow ready to slam me out of the way.
Taking a deep breath, I pushed him out, holding my ground, pulling on everything Tad ingrained in me. I centered on Joska, feeling everything bubble up inside me. My magic cracked through the sky, wind whipping my hair as lightning zigzagged down to the earth, directed at Joska.
Crack!
Joska leaped out of the way right as it hit, but the power of the fire bolt hitting the ground flung his massive body up in the air.
“Brexley!” Warwick grabbed me, the both of us thumping to the ground, rolling as Joska hit the concrete right where I had been standing.
Another cannon shrieked in the night sky, bursting through a huge section of the bone army, shattering them into pieces before it smashed into the old parliament building, only feet away from us.
BOOM!
The force of the impact ripped me from Warwick, chucking me across the pavement. I felt the object in my pocket dislodge, hitting the ground as I tumbled in a brutal roll, unable to stop. I covered my head as stone and debris showered down, bruising and slicing into my skin.
Coughing and wheezing, my head popped up, searching the demolished plaza.
Fear gripped my throat.
The nectar lay near the steps of HDF. Right where Istvan was rising to his feet. His eyes went to the substance lying innocently before him. His eyes lifted to mine, our gazes meeting. I could see the smugness shifting his features, his lips twisted with arrogance.
“Noooooo!” I screamed, scrambling up to my feet, watching him lean down, his fingers wrapping around the nectar. I froze as he picked it up, his face brimming with voracity.
His lip lifted in a smirk, glancing back at Rosie, who was huddled over Killian, then to me.
“My spies tell me it’s like fae food.” He brought it to his mouth and bit down on a quarter-size piece. Four times bigger than what I gave Rosie.
Time stopped.
Oh. Holy. Gods.
“There were rumors about the nectar, of its powers, but Kalaraja confirmed it when he watched you bring her back to life. Turn her into fae.” He nodded back at Rosie.
Dread wrapped around my lungs, crushing them as terror pumped through my heart. Istvan not only had the nectar, but he had just become fae.
Once again, I failed.
Istvan smiled, his fingers curling around the nectar, his lids shutting briefly, allowing the substance to take over. The abundance of magic he just swallowed down only took a moment.
The sky ignited with bolts of electricity, making the hair on my arms stand on end.
Gusts of wind howled off the river, whipping so hard it felt like a hurricane, blowing anything not bolted down to the ground, strewing pieces of bone from the skeletons in the air like daggers.
Magic sizzled my skin like fire, pounding down my airways and rattling me to my core.
It was my magic, the same that ran in my veins, but it no longer was mine, as though Istvan stole my blanket out of my prison cell, taking it as his. A right which had been taken. A violation.
Lightning sliced down. Death screams from Sonya’s army or maybe even Istvan’s, shrieked, filled with horror and pain. He didn’t care about the army he created. He would gladly watch them all burn as long as he got what he wanted.
The man had no soul. He killed my father and moved me in with them like he pitied my situation, only to use me as his pawn to gain more control and power. Manipulating his own son.
People couldn’t seem to understand how someone could be so cruel. Malignant narcissists couldn’t understand love. They got off on cruelty, felt power in someone’s pain, and felt alive in hurting others. They had no empathy or compassion.
Istvan only lived when others suffered.
His face contorted into something I didn’t recognize.
His eyes were bright like fire burned behind them.
His jaw gritted while the wind whipped through the lightning, sprinkling fire down in a furry.
I knew what it felt like to hold the nectar, the overpowering force it sizzled through every nerve and vein. I could barely handle it.
He not only had the magic burning through his gut, but shredding energy through his arms.
There was no way I could stop him. Everything about this felt wrong, as if nature itself was screaming out at the injustice.
“Brexley Kovacs.” Scratchy and ancient, I felt the fae book crawl inside my head, jerking me back.
“The girl who challenges nature.” It flickered a memory in my brain.
A dream I forgot. Something that was on the fringes of my mind but had gotten lost in the chaos.
“Terrible things happen when nature’s laws are broken.
Though within terrible, greatness can be found.
Power to drain and consume the wrong. You are not the only one in this story who defies nature, who should not exist. It is only together you can right nature’s balance. ”
Drain and consume the wrong.
Holy fuck.
Just like I could drain Warwick, I had been able to drain the nectar too. I could take it all from Istvan.
“Kovacs . . .” Warwick’s voice called to me through the deafening gale, already sensing my movement. My head craned over my shoulder, his bright aqua eyes on me. I didn’t speak, not even through our link. He knew already. I had no choice.
“No!” his shade bellowed. “Don’t you fucking dare, princess. Whatever it takes, right?”
Yes, whatever it took to keep him alive.
My heart poured through my eyes, my shadow kissing his lips softly before I cut off our connection and turned away.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” His voice boomed in the air. I heard Caden, Scorpion, Birdie, and Hanna also screaming for me. My friends tried to stop me, but this was for me to fight on my own. I was the only one who could right the wrong.
Pushing through the winds, I headed for Istvan. Lightning hit the ground near my feet, breaking through the concrete to the earth. I didn’t stop. My magic wouldn’t hurt me outright. I could feel it, and that was why it had to be me. The one who could get close to Markos.
Istvan’s eyes narrowed, squeezing the nectar tighter.
The world seemed to denote around me, flames raining down from the sky, setting fire to buildings, cars, living and dead bodies.
The wind slammed into me, making me stumble.
Getting back up, I grunted, pushing forward, using up a lot of my strength.
My magic was there, but there was no doubt who would win. The nectar had taken the majority of the magic funneling into me the night I was born. It protected me, kept me alive, because no living being could have lived being hit with that much force.
My feelings for it were toxic, like I owed it my life, as if it were alive. It wasn’t, and I kept getting people killed because I couldn’t see the difference. I couldn’t see that it should not exist—see that only one of us could survive this night.
Istvan’s face darkened with hate and vengeance, becoming almost unrecognizable.
“You want to die just like your father?” he snapped, lifting his shoulders like he towered over me. “You are just like him,” he sneered in an insult.
“Thank you.”
Istvan’s lip curled. “Both you and my son are worthless. The world will not miss you. Your death will mean nothing.”
“No, but they will cheer yours.” I slammed my eyes shut, pulling on the power whirling around us. The familiar electricity scorched up my throat and down my veins, wrapping around my spine, burning with agony.
It was like swimming upstream, my legs quaking with the effort to take the power back and let it burn out inside me. It wanted to be free, to be used, and I was trying to dampen and put out the flames inside me. I could feel the magic taking me. Overpowering me.
I was nothing and everything.
Somewhere between life and death.
The Grey.
Like ashes. Burning myself into embers and dust.
I could feel it, but I only pulled harder, squeezing my lids tighter, hearing Istvan yowl.
The icy winds tangled my ponytail and ripped at my skin, but nothing cooled the inferno in me. I was taking on too much. My legs gave out, and I fell to my knees, my physical body starting to lose its battle against it.
The magic from a Seelie queen, her family line, dark magic, druids, and the wall dividing Earth from the Otherworld spun inside me as I consumed more of it.
I wasn’t supposed to survive that night. I should have perished next to my mother. I escaped what nature planned for me, but now it had caught up with me. The least I could do in gratitude for the time it gave me was take the nectar with me.
Neither of us should exist.
I tugged harder, a scream tearing from my soul as I held on as hard as I could.