So I may see where to begin
Bring me light as fire burns
So I may bind it with twists and turns."
She chanted the words softly, eloquently, her hands deep in the soil, stroking and calming the ground, easing her way into the churning mass of gases and molten rock.
"We have to get out of here," Ben shouted. "Right now. This thing is going to blow."
Jubal and Gary kept a firm grip on him, holding him within the circle.
"You can't outrun a volcano," Gary pointed out. "She's our only hope now. I have no idea how she can do it, but clearly the mountain responds to her."
"What the hell can she do?" Ben demanded.
Riley ignored them, channeling power and energy into the earth. The ground shivered and shook continually, and she could actually feel a force rising.
"Fire leads me to the light
Guide my hand as I fight this night
Show me how to find my fire
So I may guide this volcanic power."
She wasn't going to be able to stop the blast, but she could already feel the response to her presence. She had to use every bit of energy and power she possessed to harness the volcano, to guide it away from the others-and that meant letting go of the evil entity she held so tight. Closing her eyes, she made the decision. If they were all dead, he would escape anyway. She couldn't do both. She abruptly pulled away, sending up a silent prayer that the binding would hold even through a volcano blast.
She felt the instant echo of malicious glee, of taunting laughter. That failure couldn't matter. Now, it was all about redirecting the blast and calming the volcano and preventing a catastrophic event.
"Red like flame, amber light, diverts this fire and holds it tight
Sword and dagger, double-headed axe, dragon's blood hold this volcano's blast
Salamander who lives in fire, create a tunnel for this river of flame."
Ash spewed high into the air. Several vents shot steam high. Fiery rocks streaked into the air, small blowholes, as if the great mountain just had to express itself. Lightning zigzagged, great forks spreading across the sky.
Riley held firm, refusing to flinch. "Triangle lightning, use your light to hold all powers, adding strength to their might."
She took another breath, closed her eyes and sent her prayer to the sky and deep into the ground. "Mother Earth, your humble daughter seeks your aid once more. You are living, breathing, ever changing in your natural state. The fire roars in you, yet your daughter pleads with you to tamp down that fire and send it far from us. The release is necessary to the growth of this world, true, but we ask for this boon."
It was the best she could do. Either she'd calmed the volcano enough to minimize the damage, or everyone was lost.
Arabejila had totally deceived him. Mitro wanted to rip and tear into something warm-blooded. His rage grew as he struggled against the tight binds woven around him. She was far stronger than she'd ever been. Her touch hadn't been hesitant at all. Throughout the years she'd seemed to decline in strength, but now she was all powerful-a force he hadn't counted on.
She felt different to him, but it had been centuries since he'd tasted her hot blood-and that had been his one mistake. He should have killed her outright immediately. Once he'd taken her blood, he had locked them together for all time. Even then, he thought her weak, but she wasn't now. She hadn't flinched or pleaded with him. She had struck hard and fast without the least bit of hesitation-something she would never have done before.
Snarling, he gnashed his fangs together, anger and hatred feeding his strength. She hadn't even deigned to speak to him. He was her lifemate whether she liked it or not, his possession. He could choose to keep her alive or let her die. It was his choice. He was superior and always would be.
He struggled harder against the tight bonds. Arabejila had always had a connection to the earth, but it seemed stronger than ever. The moment she was forced to turn her attention elsewhere, he should have been able to break free, but the bindings held tight. He couldn't move, couldn't rise toward that barrier he'd worked so hard to thin.
He cursed Arabejila, cursed the fact that she alone had the ability to shake him up. He should have made certain she was dead. She was the reason the hunter had found him again and again over the centuries ... She'd trapped him here. She'd kept him here. And now she was the only thing standing between him and his triumph. She was truly the bane of his life, and if he didn't uncoil the chains she'd placed on him fast, he would be trapped for all time.
He renewed his efforts, concentrating on finding each strand binding him in his fiery prison. Arabejila had woven the spell tight, the earth itself adding to her weave. He had always found it utterly disgusting that all living plant life responded to her instead of him. He'd tried, in the earlier years, watching her walk through a field with flowers and plants springing up around her, to do the same, but the earth refused to speak to him. The rejection had been so total and so instantaneous, it had filled him with a loathing for all vegetation. He despised anything that would choose a weak woman over him.
Mitro had always considered Arabejila one-dimensional-good in every way. She didn't know how to be anything else. He studied the binding weaves chaining him inside the volcano. Those weaves told him much about his adversary. Arabejila had evolved over the centuries, just as he had evolved, and he found her much changed and more powerful because of it. More, her weaves only told him she was a force to be reckoned with, not anything personal about her. She had left no emotion behind to aid him in defeating her.
That rankled. She was supposed to be pining away for him. Her weaves should have contained sorrow and that ridiculous, futile dash of hope she couldn't suppress whenever they had come into contact in the past. No matter what he did, how depraved he'd become, she'd always clung to that tiny hope that she could "save" him. She'd never realized that he neither needed nor wanted to be saved. Stupid woman. He found it insulting that she thought she had the power to turn him into a cowering rabbit like the rest of his species.