Page 106 of Gift from the Wing

I’m going to kill her.

This stupid, crazy-ass stalker bitch dies today.

“Germ. Still a delusional fucking psycho, I see.”

Her eyes narrow menacingly and I glare right back. Despite the sound of the boiling magma beneath me and the hushed orders behind me, our voices seem amplified in this large space. She hears the malice and intentions in my tone.

Her time is coming to an end.

“The only delusional one between the two of us, Willow, is you. How the fuck you believe you’ll get out of this is beyond me. The Summum-Master has made his demands, he’s given his orders, and that is that.”

“So you’ve known about him this whole time?”

“Admittedly, no.” She sighs with an eye roll. “Daddy didn’t feel it was necessary I knew it all. Until I came home and told him all about the whore at the academy who was trying to steal my men. Then he informed me of my role, and I took on my position proudly. Unlike you. No worries, though. Soon enough you’ll be out of the way, and me andmybest friend will have the Nexuses promised to us.”

My blood both boils and turns to ice in my veins at her words. Multiple things about how she just said that cause the hair on my neck to stand on end.

“Who the fuck are you talking about?” I ask coldly.

“Ask Caspian. He knows all aboutmybest friend.” Her loud-ass laugh rings so loudly in my ears, it nearly makes my eyes crossed. I can’t stop the smoke that blows through my nostrils or the flames that cover my partially shifted claws.

I’ll kill her. I’ll kill them both.

“It’s all been decided. Silvia’s being a little stingy with not giving Caspian up, though, so I caved with a trade. She could take Caspian, and I’d take Ry. He’s not too bad to look at.”

The ground beneath my feet shakes and I’m not one hundred percent sure whose earth element was just set free. Mine, Tillman’s, or Ry’s. But when Ry takes off sprinting to the right, attempting to charge around this big-ass platform to reach Gima, the sides surrounding us begin to crumble into the magma below.

All of us wobble from the sudden shift and I fall forward, catching myself on the railing, holding on for dear life as my men hang on to me. The unforgiving heat that licks across my face has me peering over the side to get my first glance at the bright orange magma. It’s bubbling angrily and shooting large glubs in the air as the stone continues to crumble into it. The temperature rising around me has beads of sweat instantly forming on my forehead, and I know, if any of us fall in there, there’s no surviving that.

I whip my head around rapidly when Tillman bellows Ry’s name and with a quick command, he has a vine wrapped around his waist, snatching his ass back off the edge before he could literally fall to his death.

Peering around me, Lyker, Aria, Lennox, Kyan, Keeper, and Roye, plus the E.F. members, have had to huddle closer together. Some are even pushed back into the hallway, and we’re completely cut off from getting around any other way. My eyes scan the other side, pinpointing the earth elementals who have their palms faced out, commanding the platform around us to fall.

“On each side of us, they’re using earth elements to tear apart the platform and hold it down. We need to get them back up,”I frantically shout.

Tillman’s orders to our earth elementals come not two seconds later and multiple people break from our hoarded circle to stand closer to the edge to bridge to gaps between us.

I hold in my protest when Roye joins one side and Lyker steps up on the other. A silent whimper pleads through my mind, begging my brother to get the fuck back. It’s a useless request, though. He’s got one of the strongest earth elements here and he’s not just going to stand around watching.

My breaths come in harsh pants as I push myself to stand back up once the shaking finally ceases and I sneer at the manic smile on Gima’s face. That stunt and her words have me on the verge of blowing this entire volcano up, but I shove the desire down. It’s going to take a shit ton more than that to have us back down, and in reality, the bitch is undeniably crazy if she thinks anything she just said will come to fruition.

And Silvia can count her fucking days.

I’ll hunt her down if it’s the last thing I ever do.

“Where the hell is Oakly?” I growl.

“You know, I thought you were a hell of a lot smarter. The men in the Mastery speak of you as some legend, but you didn’t even bother to look above you when you came through the entrance. The scouts up top watched everything go down and alerted us in here. You’d think for an animal that could fly, it’d be natural for you to look up,” she says, giggling as her head tilts back and she gazes through the top of Pyra.

Slowly, not trusting this bitch whatsoever, I cast my gaze above me just as she’s doing, and I choke back a sob as I stumble into my men’s bodies behind me.

From the neck down, Oakly’s covered in a stone encasing, and the entire contraption around her is being held in the air by a net knotted by vines. Her head is slumped to the side and she’s out cold. She doesn’t flinch, twitch, or move as I scream for her in my mind repeatedly.

Her name bellowing from her Nexus’s throats barely registers in my ears and whatever the guys are saying to me doesn’t penetrate the darknessclosing in. I can’t hear. I can’t breathe. I can’t feel my Nexus’s hands on my body. I can’t see through the red tinting my vision.

Every nerve ending in my body prickles painfully, causing my limbs to tremble and the rage-filled tears that slide down my cheeks are nearly scalding.

“She’s their true Primary and they’re fully bonded. If she dies, the four of them do as well,” I say far more calmly than I feel when I snap my gaze back to Gima’s and step forward to grip the railing.

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