Page 137 of Fallen Heirs

He ripped out the first branch and then he blurred in front of Constantine and drove it through his chest, right into his heart.

A choked gasp escaped me as I watched Constantine lurch, his eyes shooting wide, as the realization set in for him too.

It was over.

Xavier released him roughly and kicked him onto his back and we watched as he died right before our eyes, becoming a mass of desiccation, bone, and ash in a pool of blood.

Becoming… nothing.

“Oh my God,” I breathed. “He’s gone. He’s really… defeated.”

“If you hadn’t been able to annihilate his magic like that, there’s no way any of us would’ve been able to get so close. And it made him into a simple vampire, making it possible to actually kill him with just a stake.”

The battlefield suddenly fell quiet and we turned to see the acolytes had stilled mid-fight and were staring our way, their shocked gazes focused on the dead body of their master, the man they’d long foolishly thought a god.

The shock became ours when we saw some of them drop to their knees in pain and crying for the loss of him, while others raised their hands in surrender, the reason for their fight now gone.

Wow.

It tookObsidiana moment to respond to this crazy turnabout before they were then swarming them and incapacitating them, arresting them, and sending a bunch off toExemplarto be charged and processed.

Before we could revel in that, an ear-piercing cry sounded from Lenora as she took note of what had happened, having been caught up in her face-off with her former family to notice earlier—or to try to prevent his demise.

And then the worst happened.

She lost control, her power exploding out of her and creating a magical shockwave that blasted through Saryan’s shield. I saw him manage to soar him and Orpheus to safety a split-second before it made contact. But then the white power rushed toward the rest of us, covering the ground at a dangerous speed and rising into a tidal wave of power.

I threw up a wall of my golden fire. Xavier brought his magic into play alongside mine.

“Here!” Talon’s voice sounded, a moment before he touched down on my other side and created a wall of phoenix fire to bolster us.

Her power hit, blasting against our barriers with a force unlike anything I’d ever felt before.

The three of us stumbled back, fighting to hold it off.

“Shit, this is worse than before,” Talon cried. “I can’t… I can’t hold this for long.”

“Me neither,” Xavier gritted out, his magic already starting to tap out under the insane pressure of celestial magic. Vanessa suddenly teleported right beside him and lent her power to the mix as well.

I looked past the wall to see Saryan and Orpheus—now he’d had a few moments to recover—raining down fire upon Lenora, trying to weaken her, trying to do anything to stop this wave that would annihilate us all if our barriers fell even for a moment.

After everything we’d been through, all the trials and hardships, all the grief and utter pain, there was no way we were going to perish here tonight when we were so close to ending it all finally.

No fucking way!

“I need you!” I called to Saryan and Orpheus.

They flew over, realizing Lenora was too far gone in her utter loss of control to be stopped while she was in this fully unleashed state.

“You’re second only to me,” I told them both. “I need you to bolster the barrier while I pull back and open the portal.”

“You need an anchor,” Orpheus argued.

“I don’t do this now and we all fucking die.”

“Then I’ll—”

“You can’t,” I said, cutting him off. “I need yours and Saryan’s power to hold this barrier in my stead.”

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