Page 57 of A Reign of Roses
My lighte flung from my fingers in ribbons of hot, white fire. The power lassoed around the two guards nearest Lazarus’s bedroom door before they could get inside. Their screams echoed off the domed glass ceiling. It was the surprise that had doomed them—
But I wouldn’t be as lucky with the others.
Lighte like a vicious, honed wind flew from the sweating Fae guard’s hands and I dropped to the ground mere seconds before it could ensnare me. I could shoot my own power back at him, but thought it better to conserve what I had left.
Instead, I crawled for the unconscious men I’d charred, brandishing a dagger taken off one just in time to slice it through the neck of another soldier, snarling as he lunged for me.
An older, haggard guard’s cloudy gray lighte snapped through the air and sent me back down to the ground. Agony radiated across my shoulder. When he raised his hands once more, I rolled to the side, drenching myself in the blood of his fallen comrade.
I raised my hands as he hurtled for me—
But his blow never came.
He clattered to the floor, body sizzling on impact.
Sizzling, as flames frommy palmsengulfed him, until the embers were snuffed out entirely by his peer’s wet blood.
Triumph and hot, thrummingpowerlit me from the inside. Nobody would stand between Kane and me. I’d topple this whole palace to get back to him. And as if my lighte understood that, the powerfunneled out of my hands in jets of fire and sunshine, casting the wing in blinding rays of light and gilding the night-dark hall.
And that’s what it was. Power. I was more powerful than these men. I could see it in the way the remaining two approached me cautiously. Rabidly angry, embarrassed—but cautious. Fae soldiers or not, I was true Fae. And they…they werescared.
The dagger I’d nabbed flew through the air toward a new, incoming guard—someone who’d heard the noise or seen the feathered licks of fire brightening the pitch-black atrium—and lodged in his visor, carving its way through his eye. Gory gurgling spewed out as he crumpled to the ground.
Kane would have liked that one.
The last men appraised me. A shorter guard, wheezing furiously, and the sweating man who’d brought me here, clearly regretting his choices.
I stood, sucking in a breath. The muffled shouts of Kane and his father echoed through the door behind me. I had to be quicker—
The sweaty guard unleashed his own stormy lighte at me, and the other soldier ran for Lazarus’s bedroom. Strikes of needle-sharp wind stung my legs and face—but my white flames engulfed them too quickly, protecting me as mightily as they destroyed.
Before he could advance with a stronger attack, my lighte swallowed the sweating guard whole.
Even his screams.
Until—
Until ahand—a firm, thick hand—closed around my throat from behind and the other gripped my arms behind me in a vise.
I gurgled for air, kicking at impenetrable silver armor.
Every limb—everynervein my body—protested as I fought andfought and fought to breathe. Joints and tendons straining. My elbows writhing into his chest.
I could hear in his growls and grunts as I squirmed. “Don’t fuss,” he ordered, his meaty hands squeezing me closer and closer to unconsciousness. Pain whipped through my chest. I was running out of air.
With the last of my energy I closed my eyes and tried to focus on all Dagan had taught me about my lighte. He’d always said to focus on my emotions—that therein lay my power. And Kane—
He was likely on the brink of death if he was alone with his father this whole time.
That thought alone—
A whirl of conquering sunlight shot from my mouth as I threw my head back toward the guard andscreamed.
Air rushed into my lungs as I fell to the floor. And while I heaved in precious lungfuls, I took in the still-twitching crisp on the marble floor behind me, his flesh sizzling in my nostrils.
I had no time for relief nor to thank the Stones—
I leapt over scorched, distorted bodies and shoved against the door to Lazarus’s room.
