Page 8 of Elven Throne

As she reached the edge of the parking lot, and the searing ache of the distance between her and the shifter settled into a deep, low, far more manageable throb at the base of her skull, she just hoped she and Maxwell had enough time to finish what they started while they were apart.

And that their separation now wouldn’t end up being their downfall.

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Rebecca’sbloodburnedthroughher, the ravenous hunger of her Bloodshadow magic and her darkest power yearning to be unleashed.

To be set free upon the battlefield.

To consume the lives of her enemies before Shade fell, and Blue Hells take anyone who disapproved of the Bloodshadow Heir doing what had to be done.

No matter who or what saw her.

By the time she’d taken a dozen steps across the parking lot toward the largest concentration of fighting, her instinctual need to enter the chaos and bend it to her will had nearly overwhelmed her.

She didn’t hand over the reins until she was almost upon one of the largest streams of griybreki surging in an endless flood of puckered gray skin, slapping webbed feet, and guttural, yammering mouths lined with tiny, razor-sharp teeth she’d once heard could chew through damn near anything, if given the chance.

As she approached the writhing column of hyped-up frogmen nearly scrambling over each other in their haste to get to the blazing white storm of magical vortex straight ahead, Rebecca followed the line of surging bodies back toward its origin.

Some unseen jump point hidden in the woods around the compound’s perimeter, most likely where Eduardo himself had thought best place it.

The griybreki hardly seemed to notice her existence, even when she drew so close, they could have leapt at her all at once and overpowered her with their sheer numbers. A few glowing yellow or electric-green eyes flickered her way as the frogmen drew past her like a herd of stampeding grassland beasts, but none of them changed course to target her instead.

Herd mentality, swarm mentality… It was basically the same thing, wasn’t it?

At least it would make what she did next quite a bit easier than she’d expected.

One more step forward, and all knowledge of where she was, and why, and how much was still at stake fled her mind beneath the raging surge of protective fury and her magic’s irresistible need to take what it was owed and fuel itself for more.

The orb of swirling mercurial silver struck through with bright bolts of silver, spewing showers of black sparks from her palm, existed for a fraction of a second before one sharp flick of Rebecca’s wrist commanded that orb into her Bloodshadow spear.

By the time she tightened her grip around that unmatched weapon of glinting Bloodshadow steel, cold and hard and unforgiving against her flesh, she was already running headfirst into the stream of swarming frogmen.

The quickest way past them into the white-hot storm of magic up ahead wasthrough.

Rebecca’s spear cut through everything that moved within her reach. Only after she’d pierced at least a dozen griybreki necks, opened a dozen more bellies and tossed their bodies across the asphalt behind her, did some of the griybreki tear away from the swarming column to come at her head-on.

She sliced through them all like a steak knife through warm butter. Dark and swift as the night around them. Silent as the shadows racing across the lot from the launched battle magic and blazing magitek weapons up ahead.

The fastest and deadliest thing here tonight, and nothing could stop her.

Nothing could stand against the Bloodshadow Heir sweeping toward the compound as exactlywhatshe was. Nothing more and nothing less.

Her previous fear of being seen at her most terrible didn’t exist tonight. She didn’t give a damn about who recognized her magic or saw her use it in ways that should have been impossible for anyone else, because they were.

Rebecca raced against the clock, her only goal cutting down any and all obstacles in her path toward the nexus of the white-hot storm she couldn’t keep her eyes off for longer than a few seconds at a time.

The swirling vortex of power and energy calling her ever closer.

When she was halfway there, the storming column pulsed with a shudder of rippling energy, brighter and fiercely hotter than before.

Maxwell had said this thingwouldexplode, eventually, and he was right.

Rebecca had to get there first, to keep the fallout where it belonged. To make sure her operatives didn’t blow right along with it when the time came.

She didn’t know who had created that storm. Maybe Eduardo. Maybe his griybreki in such overwhelming numbers. Or one of the bastard’s associates who might have helped with the portal technology he’d set like snares around Shade Headquarters.

It made no difference.

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