I blasted a maximizer spell combined with werewolf strength at the half-demon. The punch knocked him unconscious. Huh. Didn’t know I could combine werewolf strength with my witch magic.

A wave of burning hot fire descended on the half-demon, and a fluttering of internal awareness told me it’d come from my mate. Kaillen’s black flames disappeared as soon as the half-demon turned to ash. I assumed that was so the ship wouldn’t burn beneath our feet, leading to an unpleasant death thanks to hungry sirens waiting below . . .

Kaillen and I made eye contact briefly before two more crew members descended on him.

My binding spell on the fairy shattered, and in an instant, he leaped to my front with his weapon in hand.

I bent backward, my body arching as his blade swung toward me as he tried to corner me by the rail, and it struck me that he wasn’t trying to kill me but instead he was trying to capture me. I bent my knees and flipped in a backward somersault, landing on the balls of my feet just as I flung my awakening power toward the fairy.

Tiny strands of magic intermixed with zapping power flew out of me as my invisible tentacles wrapped around the fairy like an octopus’s arms. My power bit into him, and my awakening power’s teeth serrated through his inner magic, shredding his insides to ribbons.

His feeling of surprise hit me first. Then his fear. I sank my claws deeper into him, hacking through everything that made up his essence. He cried out as his magic spewed from him like a volcano. Fairy magic flooded my pores.

My wolf whined at the intrusion of a foreigner’s energy, but I reassured her for a split second before pushing her back as I concentrated on extending my power.

More tentacles slithered from me to every opponent on the deck as sweat trailed down my skin and soaked my clothes. My power moved so fast and speared each opponent so quickly, that I didn’t have time to corral their magic as it poured into me.

Those strange octopus-like arms latched onto one supernatural after another. One. Two. Three. Four . . .

My entire body trembled at the exertion of sinking my magical teeth into so many at once. A wave of dizziness swept through me, but one by one, our opponents were beginning to fall.

But where was Jakub? I scanned the deck again. Still no sign of him.

Fallon’s brow furrowed when a fairy he’d been battling abruptly fell to his knees, his features anguished. Only Kaillen knew what was happening as Fallon turned to a new opponent as he and Barnabas continued hacking and cleaving their way through everyone in their paths.

The assassins moved with deadly grace, their strikes solid, their movements coordinated with cool precision. Fallon’s face was a mask of efficient purpose, while Barnabas still wore that maniacal grin.

Our enemies were annihilated as my awakening power continued to ensnare and capture, but this was different than training. I was moving too frantically, pulling too quickly. I’d lost the control I’d learned in training, and I couldn’t contain their magic as it barreled into me.

“Tala!” Kaillen called. “It’s too many!”

My body began to sway, but my awakening power knew no bounds. It flung and pounced as a primal feeling of revenge swept through me despite my fatigue.

Sweat poured from me in rivers as all of the supernaturals I’d latched onto moaned and writhed, collapsing one after another. Their magic siphoned to me, filling me with brimming strength and heat, yet I still didn’t know how to wield it.

My knees buckled.

So much magic. So much power. It flooded me as I took all of their rage and hate, their lust for the battle, and their feelings of terror as they realized that they were losing control, and that they no longer owned their magic, but I did.

Fallon and Barnabas stopped cleaving supernaturals in two when they realized their opponents weren’t falling from their strikes, but instead from an invisible force wielded on shadowed wings and misted claws.

Kaillen and his friends surveyed the damage as a colossal amount of magic hummed through my veins and flooded my senses. It was too much. I couldn’t contain it. I needed to release it, needed to get it out of me, needed to—

“Your ancestors would be proud. Your power is quite impressive.” A detached clinical-sounding voice flowed toward me from the back of the ship.

I clumsily twirled around, since I felt drunk on the raging power flowing through my veins. “Where are you?” I hissed.

I surveyed the area, barely able to do more in my debilitating position as power vibrated through my body. I directed all of my attention on the source of where I thought the voice had come from.

“I didn’t expect you to pursue me but am pleased you did,” Jakub continued. “It’s interesting that you thought you could catch me, if that’s what you were attempting? But I’m glad I’m here to witness this, to know beyond any doubt that you truly are the blood descendent. The key.”

Kaillen snarled and lunged, but Jakub-Dipshit was nowhere to be found. I couldn’t see him, yet I could sense him. Something prickled along my skin and tingled my nerves.

He’s hiding under a cloaking spell. That realization snapped me upright, because it meant he could be anywhere.

I staggered around, searching for any hint of Jakub’s presence as Kaillen and his friends did the same. Instinctively, we formed a circle, our backs to one another so that we were all facing outward.

I nearly buckled as the last of the crew members died from my power. “Why can’t we see him?” I managed. “We’re all strong. We should be able to see through whatever cloak he wears.”

“Because I’m commanding more power than you,” Jakub answered in that cold tone again, except he was closer this time.

I swung toward his voice, and the power that I’d harvested from the fleet of supernaturals surged against my skin.

“Tala,” Kaillen said, and then groaned, as the strength of my caged power barreled toward him on the mating bond. His growl came just as something cold caressed my skin.

Jakub.

A powerful zap of magic snaked over me, and my eyes widened when I recognized the feel of a portal key about to activate.

I rocked myself back, knowing that if I didn’t escape Jakub’s grip, he would steal me away by using the portal key I’d sensed, and the two of us could be anywhere in seconds. I would be alone. Trapped. Potentially at his mercy.

I cast a curse lightning fast, hoping I’d casted it on him. If my curse hit its mark, it would link me to him so my magic could find him and tether us. Then I would know where he was even if I couldn’t see him.

Something brushed against my curse’s power, but it was there and then gone. I had no idea if my curse had taken root because the power from the dead supernaturals was surging inside me, stirred up by the absolute panic I’d felt when Jakub had tried to whisk me away.

I groaned, but I couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t contain it.

I spun toward where that last sensation from Jakub had come from, just as all of the power brimming inside me rushed to the surface.

“Watch out!” I cried.

An explosion of magic, as wide as the slowly sinking ship, shot from my chest. Radiant energy rocketed out of me, the gathered magic of all of those I’d killed pouring from me in one vicious and uncontrolled blast. It rose like a tidal wave, higher than the masts, wider than the ship. It was as though a tsunami of energy blasted into everything in its directed path.

The ship’s side turned to fizzling embers when my explosion hit it, and all of us were jolted off our feet as the remaining floor beneath us gave a great, groaning creak as half of the ship fell away.

“She’s sinking!” Barnabas clamped a hold of my arm just as my legs gave out.