Page 32 of Her Blood Revenge

He lunges, and I shift into my wolf. The one in the centre comes at me talons first, slashing and clawing like a rabid beast. The other two attempt to get to Pix.

I drag my claw down one of the little shits, gutting it sternum to pelvis as I snap my jaws at another. Neither go down. One is always attacking as the two others attempt totake to the skies to fly over me. I don’t allow them to leave the ground. They will not get past me.

They will not get to her.

I look back at her. She’s trying to sit herself up and shake off the haze. Her hand reaches out, and her snake shoots out from the grass, slithering around her arm. It must have been following her this whole way.

She looks back at me as I snap my jaws at one of Neve’s unseelie. The ground around Pix shakes and the smell of earth magic taints the air. But when she looks down at the vibrating pebbles, I know she’s not the one doing it.

She screams as the ground begins to swallow her, dragging her down as she claws at the dirt, desperate to stay above ground.

‘ARCHIE! HELP ME!’

The way she screams my name is worse than a fist around my heart. I toss aside the unseelies who have now changed tactics from trying to get to her, to keeping me away, as the ground attempts to swallow her whole.

Focus! Use your earth magic and fight back, Pix!

I yell at her in my mind, even though I know she can’t hear me.

Her shouts turn from terrified to determined as she fights the magic pulling her down. Her fingernails rip as she clings to the soil and pulls herself up. Her hand stretches out, and a tree root violently rises from the dirt and slams down in front of her. She grips it, and it starts to pull her out.

That’s my girl.

‘I’m not your girl!’ she snarls, channelling more power into her defence.

My breath catches, and I stop stone still.

You… you can hear me?

She looks at me with an annoyed frown.

‘You never stop bloody talking!’

Her eyes widen, and she suddenly screams a pain-filled screech. She looks at her still-submerged lower half. Then, she looks at the snake, which slithers down her body. As the root pulls her up higher, I see a hand gripping her thigh. Their fingernails rip her skin as they pull her down again, and before her familiar can bite, she’s dragged further down the dirt, and the hand disappears in the soil. She hollers in pain, and a stomach-turning snap rings out as her shoulder pops out of its socket. Her grip on the root falters, but the root’s grip on her only increases.

The roots refuse to let her go. They pull, and they pull, determined to keep their earth witch above ground and away from whoever is beneath her.

Cole’s head emerges, and he looks utterly deranged. The smile he wears is twisted and his eyes are almost black with exhaustion.

‘Let’s see how they like you now!’ he yells.

He grunts and starts to laugh before being pulled back down by his magic and taking her with him.

She looks down again, and her eyes widen before they settle on me. Pleading with me to help her.

Her mouth opens, and the sound she produces makes me feral. Blood-curdling doesn’t even come close. The root pulls harder. Her shoulder is already dislocated, but she uses her powers to make it get her out of there. I rip the head off one of the unseelie, and the third gets slammed by my claws.

I reach her and start digging into the earth.

She’s still wailing in agony, with such a horrified look on her face that my chest feels unbearably tight.

I bite the hand holding her.

Cole releases his grip as I clamp my teeth down on him, and when I rip it off, Pixie is pulled free by the root. The last unseelie rushes her. A force of dark shadows slams into it, swirling around it fiercely. Tearing flesh and breaking bones is all I hear before the shadows return to the treeline and back to Dorian.

I spit out Cole’s severed hand and quickly shift back to my male form as I rush to Pix’s side. The tree root has untangled itself, leaving her left arm covered in welts and cuts as it lies limp above her head.

‘Pix!’ I gasp, falling to my knees beside her. I try to roll her over, but that only makes her scream more.

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