Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

E mil's magic is a savage tug, angry and uncontrolled, nothing like the smoothness of our more recent travels.

His energy compresses my chest so tightly that I can't breathe. My heart thuds in my chest, a powerful rush of blood pounding in my ears as I brace to find out where he has chosen to take me.

To my shock, the swirling mist parts to reveal the alley at the side of the church where I left my pack only a short time ago.

The moon is high in the night sky, but even without it, the streetlights filter across the space, making everything within it clearly visible.

Only five paces away, Anarchy and her three brothers are engaged in a savage battle with one of my father's most loyal soldiers: the vampire named Gad.

Gad is incredibly fast, moving from one place to another in mere blinks, but Anarchy and her brothers are keeping him constrained. For now.

My half-brother, Lucian, is poised farther behind them, his wings spread, guarding the open end of the alley in such a way that he must be the backstop in case Gad gets away. We don't want him calling for reinforcements.

Only a short distance behind the fight with Gad, the fire jotunn called Jonah, with whom I have a fragile truce, is fighting another of my father's soldiers—the berserker woman known as Valki.

She has multiple piercings and her tank top is stretched to near bursting now that her muscles are pumped up. Usually, she wears a solid metal wire wrapped around her arm. It looks like jewelry but doubles as a weapon that can wind around someone's head and rip it off.

It looks like she may have tried that approach on Jonah, but he must have burned the metal to ash, given the smudgy, black ring of dust currently decorating his neck.

The remainder of my father's guards lie unconscious at intervals along the alley. Many of them are propped up in sitting positions against the wall opposite the church.

Judging by their steady heartbeats, which sound in my sensitive hearing, they're all alive.

We didn't come here to kill my father's followers. Not even Gad or Valki. Given how neatly some of the guards have been placed with their legs tucked out of the way of being trampled, my family has taken my wishes seriously.

My father believes I will slaughter other creatures of the dark, and I'm hellbent on proving him wrong.

Of course, the fight would be much easier without that limitation.

Jonah has the ability to turn any living creature into ash within the space of seconds. Instead, he's continuing to go toe to toe with Valki in a fight that makes me wince.

Likewise, Anarchy and her brothers have stayed in their dark elf forms. Their bodies are strong and lithe, their pointed ears hidden beneath their gorgeous, lilac hair.

If they shifted into their shadow panther forms, they could maul Gad to death within seconds. As it is, Gad appears to be giving as many bruises as he's receiving.

It's lucky we're in the alley because this kind of fight would draw a lot of attention from human passersby.

Emil and I have arrived in the same physical positions we were in when we left the catacomb—still kneeling on the ground. We're located at the back end of the alley and we're facing it side-on so I can see the entire alleyway, including the street in the distance.

Emil's decision to bring me here has surprised me.

Of all the places he could have taken me…

He chose to bring me to my pack—to these dark beings whom I now think of as my family.

My focus snaps back to him, my eyes wide. "Why did you?—?"

While I speak, I'm instinctively tugging toward Anarchy, needing to join the fight, but Emil's hold on me only tightens.

His voice cuts through me like a dagger. "If you don't want your father to kill your pack, call them to you. Now . Before he follows us."

I draw a sharp breath with the realization that my father could very well have the same transportation powers that Emil has. After all, the light magic keeper controls all kinds of light magic, and there are many good witches who can translocate themselves using spells. It certainly isn't a skill that belongs only to dark creatures.

If my father knows that my pack is out here—which is highly likely—he could follow me here within seconds.

I don't waste another moment, raising my voice to cry out to them. "Anarchy! Lucian! Family! Come to me! Now! "

At my cry, every member of my pack breaks off from their fight and sprints toward me.

My heart leaps at how quickly they respond to me.

Even Jonah jumps away from Valki, leaving her lurching across the alleyway mid-punch, her fist cracking the stone wall she hurtles into.

"Darkness!" Anarchy cries, her focus on me while her three brothers race along beside her. "You're alive!"

Before I went into the church, we'd all known my chances of survival had been slim. They still are.

Behind them, Lucian beats his wings, rises into the air, and dives over the top of both Valki and Gad, sweeping toward me so fast that he reaches me within a heartbeat.

Jonah skids toward me at the same time.

They're all aiming for the mist, still lingering for several feet around me and Emil.

They will know it's an indicator that the keeper is preparing to transport us out of here.

Back within the alley, Gad races toward Valki, assisting her to regain her balance before he turns to us. His fangs are drawn and I know he could reach me within a blink of my eye. Potentially get so close, he'll come with us wherever the keeper takes us.

He could do a whole lot of damage on the way.

"Vampire!" I shout, causing him to narrow his eyes at me and also, thankfully, to pause where he is. "If you value your life, you'll run?—"

"We aren't afraid of you!" he spits back while Valki towers beside him.

In her berserker form, she's even larger in stature than Emil and Jonah, and right now, every muscle in her body is pumped and corded, her movements so twitchy, I could believe she'll move as fast as Gad.

"I'm not talking about me," I call, tension thrumming through me while the mist begins to thicken, another tornado of energy starting to build.

It doesn't feel fast enough. My only hope is to keep Gad on his back foot long enough that we have time to get out of here.

At the same moment that I speak, white light bursts to life within the church, splashing against the inside of the windows.

Cracks scatter across the stained glass, which makes a horrible shrieking sound as if it's about to explode outward.

Gad and Valki both shrink up against the stone wall opposite the church, as far back from the shrieking glass as they can get without leaping over the high wall.

I guess I don't need to explain to them that I'm not the worst threat to them right now.

Light magic is bad news for all dark creatures.

Based on what I've seen of my father, I suspect he'll be too angry to care if he hurts his followers in his efforts to catch me.

Satisfied that Gad and Valki will stay away from us for now, I reach out with my free hand to my nearest family members—Anarchy and Lucian—ensuring they've gathered close to me.

They all crowd in toward me and I'm hit by their familiar scents. The musky mix of panther and dark elf. The fiery ash of Jonah's presence. Even my half-brother's crisp, angel scent.

All of it is comforting. And sharply contradictory to the iciness of Emil's hand, which has remained around the back of my neck, and the ragged press of the broken book, which I've kept clutching against my left side.

"Veda?" Jonah's alarmed voice sounds. "What the fuck is that?"

"Light magic," Riot snarls, answering for me from where he crouches next to Anarchy.

Their faces are pale with the growing intensity of the light spilling beneath the nearby church door and the increasing pressure in the air.

It's been mere heartbeats since they all skidded to my side, each one of them now crouching as close to me as they can get.

Like me, they will feel the burn of the light magic across the distance. Sense the impending explosion. And know that we won't survive it.

My focus is now on Emil.

Once again, he has the power to save us or destroy us, but the mist still isn't thickening fast enough.

"Emil?"

His jaw is clenched and his cheeks are pale.

Maybe the cracks in my heart haven't healed enough for him to regain his full power. Maybe he can't transport us out of here after all.

Or maybe…

Suddenly, all I can hear in my ears is his warning that I should have killed him while I could.

My breath stops as I wonder if I've made a terrible mistake.

He surprised me by bringing me back to this alley, where I could rejoin my family. He told me to call them and bring them closer if I wanted to save them.

Like a fool, I trusted him.

Despite what I saw in the book…

I still. Fucking. Trust him.

He has all of us in his grasp now.

My father's light magic is spreading all the way across the alley, blocking the way out. Even Lucian won't be able to out-fly it.

If Emil wants to hurt me more than he already has, he could transport himself out of here, and me with him, concentrate his protective energy around only the two of us, and leave my family behind to be killed.

Torn apart before my eyes.

If he wants to destroy me, all he has to do now is rip away my hope that my pack will be safe.

With my heart in my throat and a terrible panic rising up within me, I ask, "What is our fate?"

He is like ice, frozen and cold, as the mist finally— finally! —thickens around us.

But then he replies, "I'm taking you to hell."