Page 95 of To Free a Soul
“Would you have intervened had she not requested it?” Lindiwe eyed the dozen or so red-hued gazes upon her and lifted her upper lip in a sneer.
Jabez didn’t answer, and that was truth enough.
No, he wouldn’t have, and he didn’t even deny it. There was no point in lying. He wouldn’t have fucking cared if not forher.
And why? Why take away the very first companion after over thirty years who hadsurvivedthe journey to the Veil? Orpheus rarely had constant crimson orbs, but they had lasted long enough to bring her to his side and ask what had happened to make him so annoyed.
Because he’d watched it happen.
Because Jabez had killed that human in front of Orpheus and then left his bleeding corpse for him to eat while he fled!
And what for?! So that Orpheus failed? Was alone? Suffered? Why go to such lengths just to hurt him, when they were anentire forest apart? He was trying his hardest to move past his own hurt after thirty-six years, and Katerina had a new life here.
One where, apparently, she was undying.
The vile woman peeked around Jabez, barely looking a day over thirty, and she’d been around twenty-two, maybe twenty-three, when they’d met. At some point since Lindiwe had last seen her, Jabez had figured out a way to stop her from ageing.
That worried Lindiwe... what else had he learned or discovered? How much of a dangerous threat had he become?
“You know I can move through your wards,” Lindiwe said, eyeing the useless pink barrier separating them.
“But you must turnphysicalto harm her.” The smirk that grew on his smug face was malicious. “And we both know I’m faster than you. I’ll end you before you touch either of us.”
“I would just come back to life through Weldir and return here.”
Maybe...
She could also end up staying dead, or worse, be stuck in his void while he endlessly slept.
Jabez was right about one thing, and it was unlikely she’d be able to make a killing strike in such a small space. Not without some distraction.
Let’s see how strong his magic is... when it has an entire castle collapsed on top of it!
She turned tangible, and the Demons, most in clothing, lunged. Their strength and speed meant those at the front were at her within a second.
But she only needed the span of a single breath.
Pulling in a vast amount of power from Weldir, a dark ball of hard magic formed between her hands. She yanked her arms apart, and the ball expanded, pushing back the Demons in all directions.
It moulded around Jabez’s ward, his power stronger than hers, and they, under the ward, remained in the centre of the room. The others were flung against the walls or shattered the windows when they were thrown outwards.
The walls creaked and groaned while the building rumbled and shook. Stones dislodged, and when they gave way, they flung outwards as rotating boulders that crashed outside. Once the supporting walls were broken, cracked, and crumbling under the strain of her magic, the ceiling instantly toppled inwards.
Before a ledge of ceiling could land on her, Lindiwe turned incorporeal, rendering her magic inert. But the damage was done.
And as the castle tilted to one side and collapsed inwards, she shot forward through the falling rubble. The flurry of dust and carnage was difficult to see through, especially when it obscured her line of sight. In the encroaching darkness, she followed the only light she could see – a pink shimmering dome.
The moment she was inside it, Lindiwe turned physical and conjured a shadowy blade. She had to orientate herself to strike Katerina in the heart, and the woman’s blue eyes widened. Just as she sucked in a breath to scream, Lindiwe lunged to stab her chest.
Claws gouged into her right biceps.
With one of his hands high on her biceps and the other around her elbow, the instant he grabbed her, he used the momentum to shove her arm downwards quicker than she could figure out what was happening.
He shoved his knee up at the same time her arm came down, and her humerus bone snapped.
A bloodcurdling scream burst from her. Turning into a Phantom proved futile when she flickered in place against the white-hot pain. The shock of it halted her as tears welled in her eyes and bile rose in her throat, her body rejecting the agony.
She made another dagger form and slashed it at him. She cut a deep gash down his face before it stabbed into his arm, but he only glared. When she pulled it out to attack again, trying to get him to let go, Katerina bounced forward with a grunt. The woman wrapped her slim arms around Lindiwe’s left arm and held it in place so she couldn’t defend herself.
