Page 86 of Queen of Wrath

Diesel was thrown ten feet back, his body making a cracking sound when he hit the street.

What?

I looked back over to see Jax standing there in his wolf form.

He glanced over at me, his eyes widening in recognition before he returned his glare to his uncle, who was already getting back up to his feet after a hit that should have been fatal.

I should have been worried about concealing myself from him, but all I could think of was how grateful I was he’d shown up to help.

“Don't think that you've won. I can slaughter all of you at once. You're no match for me!” Diesel was back on his feet again, marching toward us with a menacing curl to his cruel mouth.

Jax, Emory, and I gathered next to each other, preparing for the fight of our lives.

I looked over to each of them standing on either side of me, then returned my focus to Diesel.

I’m not going to go out like this…like a candle in the wind. That is what Diesel wants, but I’m not a candle anymore.

I forced myself to shift back into my human form, keeping my eyes on Diesel as I did. Then I reached into my pouch and removed a sharp-edged potion bottle. It was one I had never used before.

It was meant as a last resort—a sort of suicide potion. Shortly after consumption, this potion wasn’t made to only kill the one who took it, but any others standing close enough would also be caught in the blazing combustion to follow. Not even Emory or anyone around here might entirely escape injury…

But if it meant getting rid of this monster for good, I was willing to make the sacrifice. I just needed to make sure to latch onto Diesel before anyone could think to follow me and get too close. I flicked the cork from the vial and raised it to my lips.

“Emma!” Emory grabbed my hand, stopping me from tipping the liquid into my mouth. He leaned down smelling the contents of it. Then his face fell into a deep scowl. “Lillantra Root and Simonel Bone. These are forbidden for a reason!”

“Let go of me, Emory! I’m going to finish this once and for all,” I growled at him.

He shook my wrist with such force that the potion slipped from my grasp. The vial was about to crash right at our feet, but the moment Emory realized what that meant, his other hand went around my waist and pulled me along as he jumped back.

I watched in horror as one of the deadliest potions I’d ever mixed—and my last hope at ensuring Diesel’s final moments were filled with pathetic screaming and excruciating agony—shattered to the uneven surface of the cobblestone street.

Like an oil lamp tumbling from a nightstand, the instant the potion was released from its vessel on impact, flames leaped to life, dancing erratically as it hungrily devoured every last drop spilled. The heat intensified and scorched the very hairs on our faces just before it went out.

The potion would have done so much worse if I’d been able to drink it. It was meant to be digested, not thrown, quickly turning every cell in my body into billions of little bombs. It would have been over for me in a second, but the same couldn’t be said for the one I could’ve had trapped in my grip.

If the explosion hadn’t been enough to take him out, the all-consuming fire that followed certainly would have. But the chance to make that happen had been denied me.

As if the fire that had just burned out before us had been transferred into my chest instead, I boiled furiously from within.

I heaved a heavy rage-filled breath as I turned to Emory. “You bastard!”

“Asuma!” The word was shouted so loudly that it echoed off the streets. Lucky for Emory, it distracted me enough from biting his head off right then and there.

I looked around me, but couldn’t make out where the call had come from.

Shockingly, people then began jumping from different levels of Jax’s burning building. As they hurtled toward the ground, I winced slightly, not wanting to watch them splatter, but instead, they landed safely.

They must have taken a potion before jumping!

“‘Asuma,’ The rebels’ warcry,” Emory informed us with a devilish smile on his face.

Most of them who came down were holding onto people they had rescued from the fire. The rebels quickly urged those they’d just saved to run and get to safety, before joining the steadily growing force surrounding Diesel.

“How about all of us?” Emory shouted across the street to him.

Diesel snarled as he looked at everyone gathered around him. His eyes shifted back to our group, staring down Emory first, then Jax, and finally me.

His sinister glare lingered on me the longest, trying to figure out who I was and how I knew him in the past no doubt.

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