Page 184 of Red Ruin

Azrid has the undead, soon-to-berealdead bastard roped in shadows and pinned to a pile of collapsed bricks.

“He’s mine,” I snarl, angling toward the ground.

Azrid asks.

I snap as I touch down in the rubble.

Azrid makes a dumb fucking flourish, sweeping out an arm. When he sweeps back, his shadows retract. “Enjoy your turn.”

Suddenly freed from his ropes, Kyorgos stumbles. He catches himself in a lunge.

“Unbelievable.” Haughty as fuck, he straightens and snaps his lapels. Brick dust puffs off his uniform.

Kyorgos flexes his power.

I don’t stop him.Yet.

His aura hits like coffin breath—chilled and nasty.

Nothing to fear but the stench.

Scraping to the bottom of his bloodline, Kyorgos whips out his lich.

The transformation shrink-wraps his skin to his skull. Eerie nether-fire replaces his eyeballs, and his muscles waste. That pasty noble face warps to bone.

Less man, more skeleton glued together with turkey jerky.

I’m waiting to be impressed by some kind of lich-craft but his power stops there.

That’s fucking it?

When Azrid goes full pointy-eared master of blood and shadow, he can make me sweat one or two beads.

Even when the sad, old bat forgets his name and his toolbox is missing a few screws, my instincts pick up on his threat.

At full blast, the lich’s power can’t even stir my hair.

Thinking he’s top man on the pyramid, Kyorgos lifts his bony chin. “There’s no reason for dukes of our level to?—”

With a flame-wrapped fist, I blast him in the fucking teeth.

His jaw snaps, his aura shatters, and he lands ass-to-brick with half the buttons popped off his shirt.

My boots crunch rubble as I step to where he dropped. “You’re not on my level.”

Fuckinglavaeats through my veins. My shaking claws spit out curls of flame.

I snag the front of his jacket and lift. I’m shedding so much hellfire that his boot soles drip rubber. “You know what pisses me off?”

Kyorgos doesn’t answer.

He reflects my volcanic glare with glazed, human eyeballs.

A shadow streaks to peel open his eyelid. The lich’s pupils are blown.

“Concussion,” Azrid offers. “You cracked his skull. And his right bicuspid.”

I drop Kyorgos and whip my glare to the bat. “You stuck your shadow in his mouth?”

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