“Regina Inferna.”
The hair of my arms stood on end at the sound of that voice. A slip of a woman walked out from the garden beyond the balcony, and the blood drained from my face.
“She can’t be real,” I whipered.
She really couldn’t. After all, I’d already killed the woman in front of me.
Chapter 22
Gabrielle
I pressed a hand to the glass. “Lila.” I breathed the name. The cambion had tried to kill me back in Romania. I’d beat her to it.
Or so I thought.
“Regina.” Her voice carried along the wind.
A pulse of energy lashed out of Andre. Never a good sign.
“Stay here,” he warned me. He opened the door to the balcony and strode to its edge.
Lila watched Andre exit, and I watched her. Her smirk, her calculating eyes, the sexuality that dripped from every one of her features.
She was a phantom. She couldn’t be real.
Andre stopped at the balcony. “You know how this ends,” he said. “Leave.”
“As soon as you hand my queen over, I’ll be gone.”
I couldn’t see Andre’s face, but I didn’t need to. A wave of power rippled through me. It was a magical warning shot of sorts.
“You test what little patience I have, sneaking onto my property and demanding my soulmate.”
“She is not yours, Andre.”
“She has always been and will always be mine.” His hands slammed down on the balcony, his power fissuring out. Bishopcourt shook violently as the blast tore through it. I braced myself against shockwave, even as it knocked Lila to the ground.
I was moving before the cambion pushed herself up.
“Get back inside,” Andre said, not turning around. Bits of the balcony crumbled beneath his hands as he dug his fingers into the railing and fought to maintain control of his power.
“Not without you,” I said.
Andre swiveled to face me, annoyance and love flashing in his gaze.
Peering through her curtain of hair, Lila’s eyes darted to the roofline, and she smiled. I followed her line of sight, and my breath caught.
Perched along the roof were dozens upon dozens of demons.
Well, damn.
They dove.
“Andre!” I shouted.
Hearing the urgency in my voice, he shoved me to the ground. My fear forced a burst of power out. It wasn’t very strong, and my aim was sloppy, but Andre grunted as it passed through him, the demons screeched as it hit them, and I heard a muttered “motherfucker” from Lila.
“Inside!” Andre roared, grabbing my upper arm and yanking me up.
Too late. Several demons latched onto his skin, their claws and talons slicing through it. More descended on me. I threw my power out, this time directing it towards our attackers.
I’d been ambushed for the second time this evening, and I was having none of it.
Several sets of footsteps pounded towards us. A moment later, Andre’s men and some of his coven joined the fighting. Already my soulmate was a blur of movement. He pulled out a dagger he’d been carrying on him and began mowing through his opponents.
I had no such weapon.
The creatures kept coming at me and I blasted them off with bursts of energy, but it only stunned them. I needed a strategy. I knew that other beings that wielded magic could shape the power itself into a weapon.
Once I blew the latest round of demons away from me, I imagined honing my power into a long, thin blade. When the next creature came at me, my power slashed out, and I envisioned it slicing my opponent through the chest.
He stumbled back as my magic hit him, and a tiny scratch appeared across his pectorals.
Epic fail.
While I was distracted, several demons swooped low and plucked me from the balcony. I twisted in their arms as we rose rapidly into the air.
“No!” Andre shouted. His power grew, and I could feel the electricity of it charging the air.
The flap of demon wings was a drumbeat, each one taking me farther and farther from Bishopcourt. Andre’s mansion was beginning to look like a toy.
My skin brightened as my own power built, fear and anger driving it onwards. Energy flooded my system, more by far than I knew what to do with. Thunder roared overhead as magic blasted out of me, ripping me from the demons’ grips. I began to fall from the sky, the ground rising to meet me.
I heard Andre’s shout, saw his form blur as he raced towards me. Several more demons swooped in and caught me before he could.
I kept shooting my power out, trying to shake them, but the demons had swarmed. They packed in tightly around me until I could see nothing but red eyes and leathery skin. Nowhere for me to go. They growled as I struggled. A meaty fist smashed into my temple, and the world went black.
When I woke, it was to a nightmare. A dozen grotesque faces peered down at me, and twice as many hands held me down. I struggled against them, but for the second time that night, I felt exhausted.
I cast my senses out. Wherever we were, it was dark and cool. I could barely smell the earth over the iron tang of blood.