With a shriek, I released the Padisa. Dropping the hilt, I yanked out the weapon and shucked it across the tent.

My magic quivered. I blinked in and out of height as she bolted. Uzadaan tackled her, crashing to the ground and skidding with his momentum.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Rokath shot down our bond.

“Fine,” I ground back. The wound was manageable and not life threatening. “Someone kill him,” I snapped, pointing to the one we’d intentionally left alive. “Can’t have him telling everyone the Myrza isn’t actually alive.”

Vokkia slaughtered him without hesitation.

That one hit of silver had gulped a solid portion of my well. Anxiety spiked as I struggled to create the form over myself again. “We need to make more of a scene now,” I instructed, my mind working at a sprint, fueled by the fear I couldn’t wield my magic. That I was powerless in the midst of our enemies. “Gag her first so she can’t say anything. Oh and check her back for a mate mark.”

Uzadaan and Zurronar held her arms while Izzenna ripped her tunic open, finding the skin bare, but a few hidden sheaths. Izzenna snatched them all from the Angel.

“You will fucking die for this,” the Padisa hissed at everyone. Her lapis eyes glittered with hatred.

“No, that will be you,” I bit out. “Unless you join our cause. But that’s a discussion for later. Let’s go.”

The males hauled her upright, using a torn bit of her tunic as a gag. She writhed, a muffled scream shredding her throat. Her long white hair tangled in a thrash of limbs. “Can I knock her out?” Uzadaan threw over his shoulder in Demonic.

“Once we get into the woods.” Chaos clawed through the camp, and somewhere, a fire spit smoke into the night. Any who passed by us were either killed or left clinging to life.

“We’re almost out,” I relayed to Rokath.

I received a grunt in response. Once the shadowed trees enveloped us again, I gave the males permission to silence the Padisa. Uzadaan threw her over his shoulder and marched on, focused on his task while I scanned our rear with Izzenna and Vokkia, ensuring no one was following us.

“Quickly now,” I encouraged, seeing no flashes of white. We had an agreed upon rendezvous point, and I wanted to reach it before Rokath’s group simply because my magic was already waning.

Sweat beaded my brow as I pressed on. Legs burned from the uphill climb. Air scraped down my throat like shattered glass.

“Szélhámos, are you alright?” Izzenna asked me, slowing her pace.

“Fine,” I panted out. But I was quickly realizing that I was not, in fact, fine. Dizziness overtook me, and I stumbled, rocks slicing into my palm.

At least I was making an offering to the Fates for a successful mission where no one died.

Izzenna and Vokkia caught my arms and hauled me up the remainder of the hill. “Maybe you should let your magic go now? So you don’t burn out?” Izzenna suggested, helping me sit on a rock. With a well as deep as mine, that was nearly impossible, but I didn’t have the energy to correct her.

The males had paused, and Zurronar’s face was pale as he examined me.

“Let it go,” he murmured, giving my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “We’ve got you.”

I did, mostly because I thought I was going to be sick. Zurronar grabbed my shoulder, sucking in a sharp breath. “We need to get you back immediately.”

“Why?” I asked, but then bile rose. Gagging, I turned to the side, retching over a bed of moss. Vokkia rubbed soothing circles on my back until I came up for air again.

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, blinking through blurred vision. Rokath burst through the treeline, blood-slicked, with death in his eyes.

Behind him, the Deathveiled tore through the underbrush. All of them. I breathed another sigh of relief.

“What the fuck?” he growled, racing to my side. He bared his sharp teeth at Uzadaan and Zurronar. “Who let this happen.” It was less of a question and more of a demand for information that would certainly end in one of their deaths.

“Mine,” I wheezed, my chest growing tight. I clutched it, and then, Rokath noticed the dark blood on my own.

“The Padisa stabbed her. The blade must have been coated in a poison. It’s what they injected me with shortly before you saved me,” Zurronar explained, hovering close like he would save me.

He was an honorable male, just like his brother.

A snarl tore from Rokath’s throat, and he whipped back to the camp. Fury took form in my mate. The rage that poured down our bond nearly ripped it apart. The savage beneath the surface exploded, burning me from the inside.

There was no mercy. No diplomacy. Only lust for blood.

“I should end every last life in their camp now.”

“Maybe save mine first?” I suggested, the world spinning around me. I tried to stand, to get his attention, but I pitched to the side.

A roar—Rokath’s?—shattered the night. My vision tunneled to a pinprick. I wasn’t afraid of the dark. But I was afraid of leaving my mate behind without me.

Shadow. Silence. Surrender.

Nothing but a void.

OceanofPDF.com

56

Assyria’s eyes rolled to the back of her head, body collapsing inward. Leaping forward, I caught her inches from the ground. Her frame, so small in my arms, felt like a dying ember. The weight of her limp body twisted a knife between my ribs. Terror blistered my blood, black and thick like pitch.

Why did this female continue to take poison and venom like it was nothing? When I fucking saved her life again, I was going to shake the foolishness out of her. After I fucked her so hard that she knew nothing other than my name.

“Get everyone back safely and you’ll have earned your rank,” I snapped at Zurronar. Without waiting for a response, I yanked my membranous black wings into existence. Air resisted me as I speared through it, clipping the treetops and begging the wind at my back to aid my desperate flight.

“You will not die on me,” I growled down our bond. She was unconscious, but even in that state she would fucking hear me and she would fucking obey for once in her life.

I refused to believe otherwise.

A cough rattled her chest, and I clutched her to me, trying to keep her warm. Crystals solidified on my metal armor, the cold and the altitude lacing a deadly combination.

Faster, Rokath, faster.

I flew like fury made flesh, my only focus on what lay ahead. Everything behind me didn’t matter. Only Assyria’s breath. Her pulse. Her sharp tongue that shredded me to ribbons.

Flapping my wings, I clawed for every bit of distance. The embers dotting the outpost crackled into full blown flames. Assyria trembled as death licked her skin.

I slowed my pace, preparing to land. My feet thudded against the roof of the second building where the healers were located. Pounded a staccato rhythm as I neared the edge and leaped to the exterior landing. With my heavy boot, I banged on the door. A female—still dressed in wool sleeping attire—appeared in the crack. Her eyes went wide as she beheld us.

“Halálhívó!” she exclaimed, throwing it wide and allowing us entrance. She shouted for assistance while directing me to place Assyria on a table. “What happened?”

The former priestess yanked bottles from shelves, instruments from drawers, and gathered clean cloths onto a tray.

Hooking my fingers beneath the metal, I eased Assyria’s helmet over her head. She needed an antidote, or more, and the slim cutout down the center of the metal wasn’t enough to reach her mouth.

Flakes of half-digested food clung to the edges. I’d clean it later, once I knew she would live. “The Angels stabbed her with some sort of poison-coated weapon. A soldier we rescued initially came in with the same ailment.”