Page 130 of Memories Like Fangs
Every chance I could, I scanned the field for my girl and kept a finger on the pulse of our mating bond, checking for any sign of pain or distress. I did manage to catch glimpses of her. Her beautiful body pirouetted, her pink locs, scales, and wings a rainbow of pastels among the red and white. Cooper kept trying to land a hit, but she never stayed still enough to give him a chance.
Two of Cooper’s men tried to sneak and jump her. Without missing a beat, I launched my daggers across the battlefield. Tina and Amy found their marks in one of the eight places Mom always told me to make my blades target. They went all the way to the hilt into the hunters’ lower spines and a bit to the left of them. The two men dropped to the ground without a scream. I called my blades back, dripping with blood, the men only a fewmoments from death. Byrd sent me a pulse of gratitude before she tried to swipe a crystalline sword toward Cooper’s legs.
Fuck me, she was so radiant in combat. Not just beautiful, butformidable. She didn’t falter when Cooper landed a glancing blow on her shoulder with the butt of his gun. She didn’t flinch when one of his bullets sliced across her arm, ripping a cut into her sweater and the scales underneath. She just growled, spun low, and slashed out with the crystal spikes on her tail. Cooper ended up staggering back, blood blossoming from a clean cut in his abdomen that was healing slower than normal. Every time I thought she might falter, she rose higher. When Cooper got too close, Byrd used her wings to shoot backward and give her some distance. Then, she summoned crystals and glass into his path like a minefield for him to be careful of if he wanted to keep his feet.
She stood her ground because sheownedit, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
My girlfriend. My mate. My beautiful, bloody queen. My war goddess. My future wife.
My heart ached with pride.
And, maybe something else ached with a little lust.
The battlefield thinned. The ground was littered with the slain or the groaning fallen. Some of the remaining hunters, finally realizing they were on the wrong side of fate, started to run, scrambling over bodies and slipping on the freezing blood. Others threw down their weapons and raised their hands. Both were snatched by the dragon-shifters.
The rest who stayed to fight? They met the business end of my daggers, Cole’s gun, Cody’s arrows, or fangs and claws from a shifter.
We were winning.
No,we had won.
I smiled. I could wait to kiss my girl breathless the moment this was over.
Then, Byrd let out a scream that cut me straight to the bone, killing any celebration in an instant.
“NO!”
I spun to follow her gaze. There, Lilah—la pinche putaand an absolute parasite who refused to die—dug her fingers into Talli’s chest. Her nails sank in deep. Then, shedrank. Talli’s blood curled out from her eyes, mouth, ears, and every other orifice in inky tendrils. It wasn’t just blood. It waspower. Even a human could see the magic glittering and glowing within the blood. The brilliant crimson liquid swirled around Lilah like a loyal pet snake. Drunk on Talli’s stolen essence, Lilah’s maroon eyes brightened with pure madness, rage, triumph, and—worse of all—hunger. Her smile was as bright as it was wild and feral.
Talli’s wet and raw screams quickly grew weak until they fell silent. Her body convulsed as her power and very life force were siphoned from her. The rosy glow of life under her white skin dimmed into a dull gray, and the healthy fullness emptied.
I was already moving.
It didn’t matter.
It was already too late.
I caught Talli as she fell from the sky. She sank deeply into my arms, no energy left to hold herself up. She twitched for a heartbeat. Then, two. The coral orange light in her eyes dulled as they became glassy. Finally, she sighed and stilled for the last time.
Lilah turned with an unnatural speed, even for a supernatural, flinging her hand out. A pulse of her stolen witch-fae magic exploded from her palm.
Right toward Maisie.
Maisie caught the full impact of the blast from where she hovered in the air from the fight, incredulous at what happened to Talli.
It echoed like a thunderclap. For one horrifying moment, Maisie’s entire body flared with the magical fire. Her cries and writhing of agony were snuffed out as quickly as they started. She dropped like a meteor, spiraling down with a trail of smoke.
“MAISIE!” Byrd’s dragonfly wings cut the air like a razor blade. She caught her best friend before she hit the ground. I couldn’t tell if she was conscious, but I saw the bleeding burns all over her body. Her tremors were made worse by Byrd’s broken sobs as she held her sister close to her.
Lilah laughed.
Fuckinglaughed.
And then, she was gone in a blink, swallowed by the magic she had ripped from another. The air she left behind shivered faintly like heat waves off asphalt as residual magic pulsed but faded. The scent of blood and death was suffocating.
Nothing strangled quite like Byrd’s grief.
I reached her side, setting Talli down in front of her like an offering. I delicately closed Talli’s eyes to spare Byrd the view. She wasn’t looking, though. Byrd was too busy cradling Maisie close to her. Like she could anchor herself to her barely breathing sister to not fall off the edge of reality. She rocked with small, rhythmic movements. Her dragonfly wings were tucked tight to her back, and her tail curled around her and Maisie, both vibrating softly. Byrd’s chrysalis magic hummed and crackled, low and chaotic, unstable and sparking. I was unsure if she would explode or collapse in on herself.
