“You can’t spoil my fun. And you can’t save both of them. Which one will it be? Eenie, meenie.”
She shot a flurry of bolts at Duncan.
“Miney, moe.” Another flurry at Lana.
“God, she’s an asshole.” Breathing through her teeth, Tonia fought to sit up. “You’ve got to help me, Hannah.”
“You need to lie still.”
“Hannah, that bitch has the heart of freaking darkness inside her and a dragon under her. You have to help me. Get an arrow out of my quiver.”
The sky’s on fire, Hannah thought as the ferocious heat washed over her. “Tonia. You don’t have the strength, physically or magickally, to draw the bow.”
“No, but I can aim.” By the gods, she could still aim. “You’re going to have to do the rest. Come on, Team Sister time. Nock it.”
Even breathing hurt but Tonia sucked air into her lungs, pushed it out. “She’s distracted, we’re nothing right now. You have to keep me steady, brace me up.”
“I can’t do that and hold the shield.”
“Put it down. It’s all or nothing now. Nock the arrow, hold me steady.” The world wanted to spin—she wouldn’t let it. “You draw the bow, but don’t release until I say. We’ve got one shot.”
Because if we miss, Tonia thought, a pissed-off dragon’s going to burn us to ash.
“One shot,” she echoed, and blinked her eyes clear.
Seeing the fallacy of trying to draw fire away from the women, Duncan sent Laoch into a dive. He leaped off to stand with them.
“Together,” he said. “Just let it rip.”
“Wait.” Fallon gripped his arm. She saw Tonia lift the bow, Hannah draw it. “Wait.” She stepped to the side. She could angle it for Tonia. Just a little. “Hey, cousin. How about a little one-on-one, just you and me?”
Fallon spread her wings again, floated up. And yes, Petra turned the dragon while she smiled, stroked its neck.
“We’ll get there. We’re saving you for last. You’ll watch the others burn before I send you into the dark. I’ll rule then. Me! As it was always meant. The dark will feast and feast and—”
Tonia homed in. “Keep talking, bitch. Now, Hannah!”
The bowstring sang, and the arrow winged through the air. The keen head struck true, pierced the left eye. And the shaft dug deep.
The toothed tail slashed madly, and the sinuous body bucked, bucked. It shook its powerful head, fighting to dislodge the arrow. As it fell, the dragon’s dying roar shuddered through the air, swept over the burning grasses in the field, flattening them. On an answering cry, Fallon cleaved its head.
“Burn it!” she shouted at Duncan, but he’d already fired the flame.
Lana whooshed out wind to send the burning head of the dragon, the smoldering body of the man, into the pit.
“He was mine!” Petra barely got her wings out before she hit the ground. She landed badly on ground sparking with embers, screamed at the pain. “He was mine! We’ll kill you. Kill you all.”
“You’re done.” Duncan sheathed his sword, led with power only, pushed out with light when Petra flung out dark.
“Let him do this,” Fallon murmured. “He needs it. Open,” she said when Duncan drove Petra and what was in her back toward the stones. “Lock the dark.” And she, too, sheathed her sword.
Petra’s next flame dissolved when it hit the barrier.
“The circle holds. The light holds.”
Face contorted, Petra charged at Duncan, beat fists bloody on the barrier. “You will not send me back!” The voice that roared out of her, no longer her own, thundered.
Petra, trapped by what she’d taken in, flung herself against the circle, raced around it in a blur until the blood of the woman soaked the ground.
“Enough,” Fallon ordered. “It’s enough.”
“Get me up,” Tonia insisted as Duncan moved into the circle. “I’m not missing this.”
“You shouldn’t— Never mind.” Hannah got an arm around her. “Lean on me.”
“I always have.”
Her hair in tangled mats, Petra huddled on the ground, battered, bleeding. With eyes that had gone a sweet and innocent blue, she lifted her face to Duncan.
“It made me do terrible things. Look how it hurt me. Help me, Duncan. Rescue me.”
“Not this time.” He pushed, but more gently than he’d thought himself capable of, driving her back.
“Come with me.” Smiling through bloody teeth, Petra reached out, and the dark heart clawed with her.
Fallon stepped in. “Go to hell.”
Petra’s hands, her feet left grooves in the ground as she fought against the push. Her scrabbling fingers caught the edge of the pit. With one last