Page 45 of The Veil of Blood and Magic

The boy screams, drawing my focus as I notice the other core has his baton pointed at his throat.

I hiss, my vision coated in red as I move toward the boy?—

A sharp, hot pain spears through my back and out my front, just above my left hip, ripping the breath from my lungs. I glance down, noticing the spiked baton sticking out of my stomach. Thecore used my moment of distraction to stab me in the fucking back.

A loud roar breaks the air, and I barely register golden eyes and silver hair before I see Zev crash into the core who stabbed me, jerking the baton out of my back with the impact.

My vision wobbles as the two fight behind me.

Lightning streaks of pain shoot down my left side as I stumble toward the boy.

I grab the collector core’s blade, gripping it and drawing it away from where he was about to shove it in the boy’s throat.

The sharp blade cuts the palm of my hand, digging into my flesh as I yank it back and put myself between it and the boy once more.

“Stupid succubus trash,” the core says from behind his helmet. He yanks the blade back so hard that I yelp, the fiery pain rendering my right hand useless. I drop it to the wound on my stomach, both now bleeding, each beat of my racing heart pushing a little bit more of that blood from my body.

I tip my chin. “You can't...” I say but my words are weak. “Touch him.” I use my good arm to keep the boy tucked behind me, ensuring that no part of him is a target for the core before me.

“You can barely stand,” he says, nothing but arrogance dripping from his tone. “I'll simply kill you both.”

With how weak I feel, he might deliver on his promise.

I do my best to cling to the last dregs of energy I have as blood pours down my side, drenching my thigh. I swallow hard, waving to him in a come-hither motion with my good hand.

I just need to get him close enough to strike.

The core laughs, and my vision blurs, sparkles of black bursting at the edges as I involuntarily drop my knees. Shit. I’m usually a fast healer, but these wounds are too big to knit together as quickly as I need them to. I keep my shoulders heldhigh, ensuring that I'm still blocking the boy as the core raises his sword?—

The tip of a dagger bursts through his left eye, and I look up, sighing in relief as Jagger yanks the blade from the back of his skull. The core falls to the ground before us, and I let my body sag.

Jagger lunges toward me, but Zev appears out of nowhere, catching me before I hit the ground, looking furious and terrifying with blood splattered across his face.

“Insufferable succubus,” he growls. “Was this worth your life?” he asks, shoving my hand off of my stomach wound and pressing his against it so hard I whimper.

“An innocent life...” I say, struggling to make my tongue work. “Is worth everything.”

My eyelids are heavy, but I turn my head far enough to see the boy scrambling toward his mother, who scoops him up and holds on to him like she'll never let him go.

I roll my head back to look up at Zev, wondering how it'shisarms that I'm going to die in. A fucked-up way to go, if you ask me.

Zev lets out one of his signature grunts before he closes his eyes, mumbling something in a language I can't understand.

White light emanates from his fingers over my wound. A burning pain penetrates through my side and tears a scream from my lips. I struggle against his hold, instincts demanding I run from the hurt.

“Jagger!” Zev yells. “Hold her!”

Jagger grips my shoulders, holding me against Zev’s body where I’m draped over his lap.

Fire lances through the wound, burning me from the inside out.

“Please,” I beg. “Please stop.”

Teal eyes fill my vision—Jagger’s eyes—etched with concern as he parts his lips, a few liquid notes rolling off his tongue and washing over me. I cling to his voice, the honeyed notes that unclench my muscles, relaxing me against Zev’s magic.

“Almost there,” Zev says.

A burst of tingly cooling magic floods the once burning wound. My jaw unclenches, and I go slack in Zev’s arms.

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