The Rebel Queen (Outlaw #1) - Lexi Blake Page 0,154
a mighty predator should worry about.
He should have remembered that Hunter who’d taken his heart the first time.
His eyes lit and he reached in to grab the book. “Myrddin’s grimoire. It’s beautiful.”
It was covered in what I was certain was some kind of flesh and written in blood. I bet that killer thought it was pretty. Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t Myrddin. He pulled the book out of the bag of holding and it disappeared in his hands.
“What?” Alexander asked, confusion lighting his face.
I pushed him back, connecting with his arm hard, and the action did what I wanted it to. His arm came up and his hand released the now invisible book.
He immediately fell to his knees, trying to feel for it.
I let the bag drop, my hand firmly around Gladys. She hummed for me. I could feel her joy at being held by one of her sisters again. The Sword of Light is the traditional weapon of my people—originally named Amazon and now called Companion. She was a gift from the Heaven plane, from my brethren. She guided my hand because she recognized the man in front of her, recognized the pit that was his soul, the piece of him that sought to destroy that which he could not make submit.
In that moment, the Sword of Light and I were one, and I was stronger than I’d been before. She was made of the silver found threaded through angel wings, and she weighed nothing in my hands as we moved in an arc that descended on Alexander Sharpe’s neck and sliced through his body like it moved through water.
Everything went still for a moment and then the legendary Ripper turned to ash and fell apart with a single breath.
The sword’s blade was covered with his ash but only for a second as she proved she didn’t need blood to soak in an enemy’s power. The ash shimmered and then sank into her silver.
Gladys hummed again as though trying to wake me from that moment of connection between us. She knew I still had a job to do.
The only thing left of Alexander was that gold ring. I pocketed it and picked up that dark sword he’d tried to kill my son with. Unlike Gladys, this one didn’t hum for me. This sword felt wrong in my hands and I tossed it inside the apartment. I didn’t want to touch it but I wasn’t going to leave it behind for Myrddin to use against us again.
“Mom, I can see it.” Lee was on his belly, his head turned my way. “The book. I can see the book.”
He was still breathing. I could salvage this. Maybe Alexander had been lying and it was just taking a while for the blood to work. Maybe vampire blood worked differently on latent vampires. I didn’t know. I did know I had to get him behind those wards and then I would figure something out. I tossed Gladys into the apartment and gripped Lee’s ankles. “Where is it?”
“It fell. It’s near Grandma Chris. It’s touching her foot,” he managed. “Mom, you have to run. Take the book and run. You have to leave me.”
I couldn’t leave him. He was my baby. “We’ll be fine. When we don’t show up on time, your dads will come for us. We can go out on the balcony and he’ll fly up and get us.”
It wasn’t a terrible plan. Unless Sarah had warded the balcony. Danny would look for us. Dev would move all the planes to find us. We had to hold on. I gritted my teeth and started to pull him in.
“No, Mom. You have to go.”
“The king’s blood in your system is going to work.” I had to believe Alexander was lying.
It was hard to get Lee over the carpet, but once he hit the marble of the foyer, he slid easily.
Because of all the blood he’d lost. I slid my baby over the floor in his own blood.
But he was inside the wards. He was safe.
“I’m going to get the book. I’ll be right back.”
“No, run. Put the cloak on and run, Momma. Please.” His words were slurred.
I wouldn’t listen to them anyway. I wasn’t leaving him here. He wasn’t healing. There was so much blood.
If he turned, he wouldn’t know to stay behind the wards. He would need blood. I tried to remember everything I knew about how a vampire turned. It took different times for the turn to begin. Danny had taken