Page 61 of My Hexed Honeymoon

And I’m out for blood.

My mother’s face flashes as I hurl the end with the razor-sharp sickle, superimposing itself over mine from that fiery scene in the Hollow.

I miss Riven’s heart and hit their shoulder instead, but that’s not the whole truth. My hatred and desire to kill them broke for a fraction of a second, letting in the snarky comments and the times they made me laugh during our hikes.

Diego goes down at my side with three vampires on his back.

The blade is still protruding from way too close to his heart, and it lodges deeper as the vampires pummel him from both sides. The light in his eyes is beginning to fade.

Everything is falling apart at the same time the realms begin stitching themselves back together.

Threatening to close me off in the Hollow.

I’m running for the exit and sprinting with everything in me, and I’m not going to make it. Why would Diego fight so hard for me? All I am is a weakness.

In the distance I hear his deep timbre, his throat raw as he booms, “Don’t you fucking touch her!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

My threat is still echoingthrough the clearing when I collapse, my knees giving out like a house with rotted beams. Pain blooms in my chest as the blade, still wedged between my ribs, grinds against bone. The sharp tip nips at my heart, a breath away from piercing the organ.

Lodged in there so long it’s become a scream that lives inside me, raw and ragged, clawing for release.

My jaw hangs crookedly from my skull, the skin of my cheek gone, leaving behind only muscle and ligament. I’m still in half-form, a nightmarish amalgamation of human and beast, my ability to shift to either wolf or human seemingly broken for the moment.

Blood bubbles in my lungs, hot and tasting of copper, before spilling from my mouth and my wounds, forming a puddle beneath me. Every breath is a war, and I’m losing.

You have to get up. This fight isn’t over.

You have to keep Talia safe.

I go to speak, but all that comes out is a gurgling noise.

Through the haze of agony, I at least sense that Talia has come back to herself. She’s returned to me, both to this realm and herself.

For a moment, the bond pulsed so dark I thought I might’ve lost her.

It scared the shit out of me.

I drag myself through pine needles, twigs, and soil, crawling toward her and pushing to all-fours. It’s shaky and I’m gargling foamy blood, but I get there—between her and the advancing vampires.

She’s trembling, the Blood Loom still tight in her grip.

That weapon she summoned out of the air, though, is gone. There’s no trace of the gauzy rope she secured the vampire to a tree with—he’s with the rest of the gang now.

I only killed one and maimed two more and they’ve already mostly regenerated. What a failure.

“Do I take out the sword, or…?” Talia asks in a shaky voice.

“Take…out,” I wheeze, my gaze constantly shifting between the vampires. “Not until… have opening.”

Riven snorts. “An opening. Sure. Think you can dodge us all, little witch?”

Talia’s eyes dart to mine, wide and frantic, and I can see her calculating the number of vampires still able to fight.

And how to remove the sword while keeping them at bay and holding onto the loom.

I don’t have to count to know she can’t do all that herself, which is why I’m about to get my second wind.

---