Page 133 of A Sun Scorched Bloom

She ducked, but Alaric didn’t stop. Wave after wave, he threw fire and ice in her direction. "I’m not afraid of you!" Alaric shouted with a sneer,almostconvincing her, but the sword in Lea’s hand warmed.

Lea’s darkness sang out to her, a mesmerizing melody that demanded she listen. It burst from her soul of its own volition and latched onto Alaric’s flames, pulling his magic into her very marrow. The feeling of his power flooding into her chest was overwhelming—intoxicating and horrifying all at once. Her head began to pound and her body ached. Rivers of something wet trickled from her nose and ears, but Lea didn't falter as she called his vile power into her body. Pain turned to agony, but Lea didn't stop.Couldn'tstop. They were too evenly matched. She needed to get close enough to spill his blood, something she would only be able to do if Alaric was powerless.

Lea’s black flames grew higher as Alaric’s magic followed her direction. She felt herself growing stronger, but as her powers grew, so did her wrath. Alaric’s fire felt different; full of hatred and jealousy, and it spread like poison through her blood.

His eyes blazed with something akin to fear as black fire overtook his own. Alaric's flames shrank, and he screamed in rage, his eyebrows raising and his face going white as he took a step backward. He knew what she was doing.Hurry,a voice urged in her mind.

Lea raised her sword in the air, the metal blade turning as black as midnight as shadows burst from the etchings of the wind and snaked up his body, slicing and ripping at his skin, pulling him closer.

Alaric roared, digging his feet into the ground, resisting her magic’s pull. "You thinkIcrave power? Here you are, wasting your time stealing mine as your mate takes his dying breaths! And for what?! Once his heart stops, so will yours!"

His words were like arrows embedding directly into her soul, the black haze controlling her mind fading as the reality of what was happening shook her to her core. She’d asked Erik to heal Gray, so why wasn’t he here fighting beside her? Lea glanced over her shoulder, her hold on Alaric’s magic faltering when she saw Gray. He was still as stone on his back, Erik’s face and hands red as he struggled to stem the bleeding from his chest.Oh gods, his chest.

"I’ll fucking gut you for this!" Lea screamed, ripping away his power with everything she had. Alaric shifted as his flames dimmed. Pure, unadulterated rage overwhelmed Lea as she consumed Alaric’s magic, the expression on his face shifting from murderous to that of a cornered animal.

She had to end this. Killing Alaric was the only way to save Emma, the sick rebels—maybe even Gray. Tanad’s words circled in her mind.Magic that can create just as it can destroy.

Oninstinct, Lea isolated her primary magic—the wild, wicked power that the goddess had said was only evil if that is what she chose it to be. Well, if embracing that evil was what was required to save her mate, then it wasn't a choice at all.

Pulling as much raw, dark magic as she could into a dense ball in her chest, she forced it through her arms and out of her fingers. Alaric stumbled back as black flames crashed directly into his sternum, burning a gaping hole in his shirt instantly. Lea watched the skin above his breastbone turn black as she demanded her magic slice through it like a razor, twisting between his ribs and wrapping firmly around his heart.

"You fuckingbitch!" Alaric spat, collapsing to the ground, his face going pale as sweat trickled from his hairline. He coughed, holding his blackened skin as he spit out blood. "I’ll kill you," he said through bloody teeth. "All of you!"

Lea branched the magic out, spreading a poison inside him made of every horrendous, awful thing that had ever happened to her—the pain of his torture and assault, the agony of losing her mother, the rage she’d felt watching Queen Emmaline’s murder. She commanded the reaper to seep into his blood, to rot him from the inside out.

Alaric tried to speak, tried to roll to his knees and rise, but Lea pointed her sword back at his shaking, sickly body, funneling his power into her chest as quickly as she could.

Lea saw the moment Alaric accepted his fate in this battle, watched in horror as he clenched his jaw and, using the last of his energy, slammed his palms onto the ground in a flash of red hot fire that made her eyes water and her skin flush. In less than a second, before Lea’s magic and sword could completely drain him of his power, life, and blood, Alaric wasgone, leaving only smoldering grass where he had been standing only moments before.

Chapter 88

Lea

Thecrownprinceturnedking was gone, and along with him, the only way to cure the Lonely Death, but as Lea took in Gray’s bloody, broken body, it no longer mattered.

Lea collapsed onto the ground next to Gray, her shaking hands immediately pressing against the horrific wound running from his abdomen to his chin. "No, no, no…" Lea muttered in shock, the pain in her own body growing.

Shards of bone protruded from the open gash, barely distinguishable from the shredded muscles and blood pooling in the crater where his sternum used to be.

Crimson trails ran from Gray’s eyes and ears, from the corner of his mouth as Lea turned his head and forced him to look at her. "Wake up! Youwill notdie. Do you hear me?" She pressed her hands inside his gaping chest, flooding him with healing magic, but there was so much blood, so many places he'd been wounded, she could hardly tell where it was all coming from.

"Alaric?" Gray sputtered, his lips turning a grayish blue as he raised a weak, trembling hand to Lea’s face.

"I tried… I… I’m sorry.Dammit!" She tried again to heal him, but the wound was so big, so deep. "Erik! Help me!"

Erik placed his hand on top of Lea’s, Gray’s blood squirting between their fingers with every erratic, slow beat of his heart. "It’s a fatal wound, Lea. Not even you can heal him. Without the moonflowers…"

"He will not die! I can heal him!" she sobbed. "Fuckinghelpme!" Black flames erupted around them in her anger, and Erik flinched. "Open your eyes, Gray!" Lea sobbed, filling him with healing energy, every last bit of light that she could find.

"His spine is broken. And his ribs…He’s lost too much blood. Lea, listen!" Erik grabbed Lea’s shoulders, shaking her. "He’s lost too much blood," he repeated.

Blood. With fumbling fingers, Lea pulled the satchel of seeds from her pocket, ripping it open and dumping them onto the blood-soaked earth. Lea pushed them into the wet soil, scooping the red liquid from the surrounding ground and forcing it onto the seeds. "Keep healing him, Erik!" Lea demanded, pushing her hands into the saturated dirt and flooding her magic inside. They had to grow.It has to be enough.

"Little Flower," Gray croaked, his eyes struggling to remain open as he fought to take short, wet breaths.

Lea raised her head to look at Gray as she continued to funnel every bit of magic she had into the moonflowers. "I just need one. Just one petal. And then you’ll be fine."

"Lea," he whispered, his voice so weak she hardly heard him.

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