Page 136 of Fallen Heirs

“Not even you, the almighty King, can defeat me now.”

“I don’t need to. I merely need to endure.”

I didn’t get the chance to figure out what he had in mind there, because I was suddenly ripped off the ground by Constantine and tossed several feet across the field.

He was there in the next second pouncing on me, snarling and baring his fangs. “Punishment will befall you for what you said to me earlier. Rest assured your unimaginable suffering will end later tonight when I have Lenora take your life.”

“Spare me your self-important villain monologues,” I spat at him.

He dug his talons into my arms, the sharp pain making me hiss. “You could have been my queen, but you foolishly rejected all that I offered you.” He shook me, deepening the wounds he was digging into my arms in the process. “You rejectedme!”

He ripped one hand free, then wrapped it around my throat. “Now you’ll beg for mercy that won’t come. You’ll cry for me, bleed for me, and scream for the torment to end.” He called his power, his crimson fire erupting around my throat, burning my skin and trying to weaken me in the process.

He’d just made his biggest mistake.

He’d given me access to his magic.

Up close and personal access.

While he was busy laying down threats and going on about all the despicable things he planned to do to me, I zoned out and discreetly twisted my left hand, forming a golden sphere, watching as the sparks began to fill it up, my dark magical annihilation ability taking the reins.

And then I thrust it into his back.

He roared and fell back off me, his eyes wide as he looked at me.

I forced myself to my feet, finally feeling my healing working well enough to enable me to do so, while I called my golden power, holding it at the ready on both palms while I watched Constantine’s magic start flickering in and out as he fought to call it forth again. It just wouldn’t come.

“No,” he uttered in distress. “Stop!” he screamed at me.

I didn’t.

I kept moving forward even as he moved back.

He dropped to his knees as his entire stream was annihilated, and then he was clawing at his arms, his chest, obviously feeling the chill from me destroying every ounce of his magic with myinfection sphere.

“Didyoureally think you could come atusand survive it again?” I spat at him as I stood before him.

He shuddered on the ground for several moments.

And then I heard a vicious snarl.

“You won’t survive this!” he roared, forcing himself to his feet, completely irate, the monster in him fully manifested. “You took my magic!”

“Gone forever. You never fucking deserved it.”

He went for me in one of his insanely fast blurs of motion.

But he never made contact.

A sudden wind whipped around and then Constantine was bellowing and lurching forward as a tree branch was shoved through his back and right through the other side, protruding from his chest.

As he dropped to his knees, choking and gasping, I saw Xavier standing there.

“You won’t lay a hand on her again,” he growled at Constantine’s ear as he angled the branch, making his entire body convulse and another ear-splitting roar tear from him.

He conjured another branch with a spark of his magic, then shoved it through Constantine’s throat. He gurgled, bloodspewing everywhere as Xavier had obviously nicked his carotid artery.

“And you won’t speak another ill word either.” He twisted it and Constantine spluttered, his nails digging into the ground. “This is how it comes to an end. You dying at the feet of those you’ve wronged.”

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