Blackbird Crowned (The Witch King's Crown #3) - Keri Arthur Page 0,86
up ahead, an engine roared to life. I swore. The bastard was not going to escape me.
Vita’s pulsing increased, and her energy burned through me, lending my limbs additional strength. I was all but flying over the ground, my feet barely touching.
He wasn’t going to outrun me, even if he was somehow avoiding the wave of earth.
A figure finally appeared on the horizon. He was cloaked in black and wearing a hat, so I had no idea if it was Winter or not and, at this point, didn’t care. I just wanted to catch him and find out what they’d intended.
He crashed through the pencil pines and briefly disappeared, but I was only seconds behind him now. I just needed some goddamn luck and he’d be mine.
I plunged through the pines and scrambled over the fence. A long paddock beyond swept down to a road on which a car waited. The bright gleam of its headlights illuminated the ground between it and my quarry. His hat had been torn off, revealing long white hair that streamed behind him.
Winter.
Running faster than my wave. How that was possible, I had no idea, but the bastard wasn’t going to escape. No way, no how.
I grabbed the wind again and flung it forward. It howled across the distance separating us, flattening everything in its path. Winter cast a glance over his shoulder, then reached into his pocket and withdrew what I presumed was a gun. I didn’t falter. The wind had protected me once from bullets. It would do so again.
But Winter didn’t stop, and he didn’t shoot.
He didn’t get the chance.
The wind hit him, sweeping him up and around, drawing him ever higher. I released its force and watched as he slammed back down. The wave of earth finally caught him, sweeping over his feet, legs, and arms, pinning him in the position that he’d fallen. He made no immediate attempt to move. I rather suspected that, given the twisted positioning of his earth-covered limbs, he couldn’t. His legs and very possibly his back were broken.
The car accelerated away, the squeal of its tires riding across the silence. I paid it no heed, my gaze on Winter. His eyes were closed, and blood seeped from the sides of his mouth, but there was no sense of death coming from the earth.
Not yet, anyway.
I nevertheless approached him cautiously. He might not be moving, but, pinned or not, the gun remained in his hand. He might still be able to pull the trigger, even if he couldn’t aim the shot directly at me.
I drew Nex. Lightning flickered around her blade, a pulse that was eager in feel. She remained hungry to shed blood, though I did have to wonder if she actually was, or if I was projecting my own desires onto her.
Winter’s eyes opened, his gaze flickering from me to her and back again. There was no fear in his expression. There wasn’t even pain, though he had to be in a whole world of it. The only emotion etched onto his thin features was acceptance.
He knew he was going to die, and he didn’t care—perhaps because there was at least one other incarnation of him out there.
I stopped near his knees and studied him for several seconds. He returned the gaze evenly. I had no doubt he was sharing what he was seeing with his remaining counterpart.
And that’s exactly what I wanted. I wanted the remaining clone to see my presence at the death of his brother. Wanted him to realize that I’d be coming after him as well. I wanted him to fear that fact even though it was doubtful any of them were capable of it.
“I did promise you all a slow and agonizing death,” I said evenly. “The last incarnation of you will be next. And don’t forget to tell that bastard I once called brother I’m coming after him as well.”
Winter chuckled, though it ended up being more of a gurgle. Blood erupted from his mouth and spilled down his sharp, pale cheeks. He was as broken on the inside as he was on the outside.
“We both know that neither you nor your brother have that sort of courage.” His words were a guttural, pain-filled whisper, and I couldn’t help but rejoice in that fact. “It’s why he gave you to us, and why you will make every effort to save him when in truth he should be dead by now.”