Page 40 of Hellfire to Come
Magic surged through me again, this time tearing. Splitting. My body convulsed in this dream-space like it was caught in a live wire. I screamed, soundless, but the fire didn’t touch me.
Something else did.
A memory.
Brooklyn’s shy barely there smile.
Dominic’s quiet strength.
Echo rolling her eyes.
Chester grinning at nothing.
Rowan’s awkward, beautiful silence.
Samir’s smoldering gaze on me when he thought I wasn’t watching.
The soft fur and calming presence of my dog that I refused to call wolf.
They were light.
And I was not alone.
The mirror cracked.
So did the girl inside it.
“You’re not strong enough,” she hissed.
“I don’t have to be,” I said, rising to my feet even as my legs trembled. “I’m not doing this alone.”
The fire died.
The walls split.
And for the first time since I’d arrived in this hell, the darkness retreated.
I didn’t wake.
Not yet.
But I was close.
I’d be damned if I let Frederic win, that asshole.
He’d picked the wrong girl to mess with.
Chapter Sixteen
DOMINIC
The sky had surrendered fully to night, soaked in ink, stars like silver needles pricking through velvet black. Brooklyn hadn’t moved in over an hour, though I knew the dusk had returned her strength. She sat curled at the base of the gate, arms wrapped tightly around her knees, eyes locked on the path ahead as if sheer willpower could summon the shaman from thin air. The wards shimmered faintly before her, their glow strained and unsteady, stretched to the limit.
I stood behind her, quiet, unmoving. A sentinel in the dark. The air was brittle with silence, and something about it frayed the edges of my instincts. My panther paced beneath my skin, restless, teeth bared in anticipation. I fought to hold him back; my language faltered in that form, and I needed to speak. But the line between man and beast had begun to blur.
I sniffed the wind. There was something foreign threading the air now, like iron and ash. Something that didn’t belong to this place or its people. Unease prickled my skin.
Then the sound hit.
