Page 115 of Her Beasts

“How the hell did you get Clodius’ power?” I snarled, running to him, pushing him back with my wind.

“It’s mine, you dumb bitch.” He threw a ball of electricity at me which I parried with a wall of fire. My magic was becoming weaker the more I used it. “You don’t even know half of what I can do!”

He launched himself at me, but knew if he touched me, it was over. Pushing him even more with my air magic we lashed out at each other with our magic trying to gain the upper hand. I grabbed my last knife, prepared to throw it, when he brushed his hand over me.

I screamed, scared for the baby, but instead of pain, I was thrown into the prison of my mind.

No, No, No!

I tried hitting the wall, pulling my magic to break the walls, but nothing was working. My body was beginning to feel heavy, my limbs weren’t working, and all I could think about was my men. I would be trapped here forever until I died.

“Get up!?” A voice yelled in the room.

Instantly, I was thrown back into the battle. Caston tried to grab me, but I was able to roll away. He hit me with magic as I fought through the pain and threw a knife at him, cutting off the electricity. I cried out trying to get up, seeing Caston with a knife in his side as he tried to get up. Calling on my earth magic, I wrapped him in vines, he burned them, and the effort was making me dizzy.

“I told you Katarina, you don’t know what you're dealing with.” He stood up completely unaware of what was going on around him which is just what I wanted. “I’ve spent years getting power and you will not get in my fucking way.”

Aeon stopped time for just a moment, Zev wrapped him up in vines as Lucien came up to my side surrounding him in fire.

“You think this is going to stop me?” he yelled, then laughed with a glint in his eye, but when he looked around there was no one left. My men had taken care of everyone else, and it was just now that I realized why it had become so awkwardly quiet.

Lucien snapped his fingers catching his legs on fire, then released the fire like it was a warning.

“This won’t stop me, I have family on the way and this is…”

“You mean them?” Zev pointed to something right behind me.

I looked over my shoulder to see my father holding Caston’s father’s head in his right hand, and his mother’s in his other hand. I didn’t know what was more shocking, that my father was even here or that my father was holding their heads.

“You son of a bitch!” Caston struggled against the vines.

“It seems like you’re all alone, baby,” I said, walking up to him.

The anguish on his face almost made me feel sorry for him. As much as he acted like he didn’t like his family, I knew his mother was everything to him. They talked regularly, but they had brought this on themselves.

“I want to feel bad for this, but I don’t, because your family tricked a younger girl into doing your bidding. Your family was too cowardly to do anything themselves,” I sneered at him. “All for your stupid ideologies and thinking you were better than everyone else.”

He tried lunging for me when the guys growled, all coming closer to me.

“This is bigger than you and me, Katarina, you’ll see this doesn’t end with me,” he said with a smile. “You’ve just pissed off a bigger entity, so be prepared for the consequences.”

Dread loomed over me, but I didn’t let him see it.

“Let them, Caston, we’ll be ready,” I said, slapping an artifact on him. “Oh, and I’m pregnant you asshole.”

“Fuck—”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence before he was knocked out. It was the same artifact we used on Clodius, but I knew better. We had to figure out what to do with him and as much as I wanted him to die now. Some suffering seemed in order, while we asked questions about this entity. The tension was still thick with my father and our Coven behind me.

It’s not over.I said to the guys.

I think it is, Hellcat.

I looked at Zev who wore a bored expression, nothing like what I thought he would look like when he met my family. Aeon and Lucien looked just as relaxed, making me feel like they knew something I didn’t.

Slowly turning around to look at my father, I was relieved he hadn’t been captured. He had helped us a lot more than he knew. We locked eyes, time stopped for a moment. He didn’t look like the same man who had left me here. His expression wasn’t hard and unattached, the ‘I don’t give a shit about you’ look I had become familiar with was gone.

“Katarina,” he whispered, his face morphing in anguish. “I didn’t think I would ever see you again.”

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