Page 78 of V for Vindictive

If I still worked for the Organization, it’d be my job to follow up on how it happened and how it got out of hand. But we weren’t under the thumb of those bastards, and we also had other world-ending issues to worry about. Wiping them out would be the best we could do here.

Lucky for us, covens rarely shared their secrets. Wouldn’t want someone to take the recruitment methods that set your coven apart and made it more appealing than other covens, now would you?

We hadn’t gotten the leaders yet—likely they were hiding away to save themselves and rebuild—but we’d taken out nearly twenty vampires already.

Phillip and Sloan worked together, trading moments and lines between them to overcome the odds. It was weird to watch the two men I was caught emotionally between work together like they hadn’t been about to throw down a few minutes ago. Like they were still best buds.

Sloan took out each vampire with a stake-ejecting crossbow, while the Austrian swung Blood Slayer across their necks. In seconds, the two defeated ten more, and I was left in momentary awe of how easy they made it look. Cash coughed and shooed away all the ash fleeing his direction from Phillip and Sloan’s efforts, grumbling about his clothes and how they were expensive and irreplaceable.

There’s the Cash we all know and love.

But as I honed in on the next vamp nearby, a familiar throb took hold of my stomach. I hadn’t called on it, or really expected it to show its face. Honestly, I was starting to think we’d go through an entire coven without my power showing up because that just seemed to be my goddamn luck these days. The air was shattered with an electric explosion, tickling the senses. Another pulse, and my companions slowed to peer around them until their eyes connected with mine.

A moment passed, but nothing.

I moistened my lips, unsure, before I spun to my right and landed a silver-coated, brass-knuckle-toting fist on a deserving vampire bastard mad-dashing at me in slow motion. As with the ones before him, I staked and cut his head clean off, straddling his body in a crouch before he burst into a billow of ash.

None of the vampires in this room were any older than a few decades, at most. They weren’t powerful or quick. A simple staking would suffice,but I lived by the double-tap rule. After Eros, I’d never trust the first killing blow.

Another throb hit, and the floor beneath our feet quaked forebodingly. Cassius locked his curious goggle-covered gaze on me, and my other two Hunters took out several vampires crowding them before jerking their confused eyes over to me as well.

Okay, so it’s not just me feeling this. Good to know.

A feeling unlike any before slithered over my body and then it pulsed again in warning. The sensation in the air around me was the moment before the shock. It was energized and dangerous. Ominous and unpredictable. It’d beenmaybethirty degrees in this underground death cave before, but now the air scintillated and climbed to the sixties. Then higher and higher until our skin was drenched in sweat as if we’d walked straight into the sweltering heat of summer after a trek through nothing but winter.

Something was different. It wasn’t clear at first what, but then a spark caught my eye before fast-growing flames consumed the space. A line of angry fire circled us with overbearing heat, and we were surrounded—my group as much its victims as the vampires who screamed out in pain and horror around us.

While I’d survive the flames, from what I knew about the other three, they wouldn’t. My heart came into my throat. I waved my arms around like an asshole, turning into my own version of a bumbling idiot to shoo the flames out of existence. Sloan, Cash, and Phillip came over to me, fleeing the fire circle as it closed in on them. It rushed my crew to the middle with me, furious flames licking their heels as they went.

“You have an enchanted item in that bottomless bag of yours, Fae?” I asked, peering over at violet-purple cat eyes as Cassius remove the night-vision goggles and stared wide-eyed at the flames. “Please tell me you do. I can’t call them off,” I said in a rush, words spilling from my mouth like I was new to talking. My eyes darted from one corner to the next, surrounded.

Funny how it was our intention to pretend my power was out of control, and now it really was. Classic V.

Phillip took my hand and I looked up at him, still struggling to temper my fear and anxiety. “You can do it, V. I know you can. Breathe, think, act.”

What was this asshole, a monk or something? Did he really think I was putting on a show right now? He couldn’t, right? It was painfully clear to anyone with eyes that I’d royally fucked this up.

I wasn’t that good of an actress.

When I opened and closed my mouth, trying and failing to somehow get that point across, the Austrian’s hand squeezed around mine harder. “I know, maus. Not like we planned, but you can do this.”

Thank Christ the man wasn’t dumb or oblivious in this case. I couldn’t deal with a stupid asshole while my power was on a literal path of destruction.

My other hand was suddenly grabbed, taking my pulse with it, and I jerked my head over to find Sloan with a smile that could melt ice. “You’re in control. You’ve always been in control.”

It seemed fitting that I’d be caught between two men, who inspired sickly sweet poetry in my head, mere minutes from killing them both with my terrible ancient Fae powers, and still not know which hand to hold onto. Made a girl wonder if cosmic jokes were often this elaborate. I’dbecome my worst hussy nightmare. Death inches away, and my heart still wouldn’t even eeny, meeny, miny, moe this shit for the sake of the people who might read this tragic tale of a nympho Hunter.

I’m officially broken in the love department.

Cassius’s eyes bounced around, flames reflected in his luminous irises everywhere he looked. “I don’t have anything for hellfire, Hunters. Maybe—I don’t know—mention there’s a possibility she might burn us all alive with it next time. I’ll be better prepared. But I don’t plan on dying today either, so find some way to call it off.”

So he thinks this is part of the plan. Great.Guess I gave the Dark Fae too much credit while he fought earlier. My mistake. He was still a total idiot.

My pulse throbbed violently in my ears, loud and afraid, and I closed my eyes, trying to regain control. But the feeling only grew in my belly, and the fire stretched higher to the ceiling, flickering like my life’s rage had been embodied in the flames—the total opposite of what I wanted.

Oh, awesome. I made it worse.

The two men flanking me tightened their grip on my hands, the heat oppressive against our bodies, and I tried to ignore how weird it all was. How tragic it was not to know who I wanted when I could lose them both.

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