Through the Ether (Force of Nature Book 5) - Amber Lynn Natusch Page 0,83

erupted from the skies, my anger and sadness overwhelming both me and the world around me. Lightning struck somewhere behind Larken, but she didn’t even flinch—didn’t bother to look. She was brave and cunning and regal and a warrior, and in that realization, I feared that maybe she was right about me. Maybe I was too weak to defeat her.

“I don’t,” Knox said just before he channeled the fey king’s power and lunged onto the bridge, eyes locked on his target. Larken clutched the amulet in one hand, then flicked her other wrist. Knox rose up in the air, his aura of magic visibly drawn to the blue stone. He hovered there for a moment as my mother took another step forward.

“I’ll prove it to you,” she said, as though she and I were the only two people there. As though Knox’s life didn’t hang in the balance. “I’ll put my amulet aside and fight you without it—give you a fair chance to beat me—if you let him fall.”

Knox dropped from the sky like an invisible string had been cut and plummeted toward the bottom of the gorge.

“Catch him!” I screamed. A gale-force wind shot up from the water below and caught him in midair, but the distraction proved to be a pricey one. Fire lanced through my side, and I turned to see my mother only a few feet away, her sword covered in blood.

“See?” she said, wiping the blade on her cloak. “Your attachments make you weak.” I staggered back a step, grasping the gaping wound in my side as I tried to focus my magic on Knox. But with every drop of blood that rushed out of me, I could feel my hold on him slipping. “All you had to do was let him go, and you could have possibly stopped me—could have spared your other friends—but your mind can only do what your heart will allow. And you don’t have the heart of a queen.” She leaned in closer as I stumbled backward, scrambling to get off the bridge—trying to escape her.

And all the while, my grip on Knox wavered.

“Drop him, Piper,” she taunted, driving her sword into my thigh. “Drop him and fight me. Don’t cower like a weakling child.”

I forced myself to stand, gripping the rotted railing for all it was worth. Tears welled in my eyes as I realized that my fate was inevitable. And as I hobbled backward onto the grass, I reached out through that connection Knox and I shared one last time to tell him that I loved him.

To say goodbye.

The queen scoffed at me, as though she knew what I was doing.

“Like I said—too weak.”

Liquid trickled from my nose, my limbs burned, and I wondered if my weakness would mean the end of everyone. My friends. My family.

Then I heard Knox whisper in my mind.

Pull me up.

I closed my eyes and tried to force the winds to bring him back, but my mother blasted my back with some magical force, and I felt my connection to him break entirely. I screamed his name as my hand shot out like I could catch him. A blast of wind burst through the gorge, driven by my terror and adrenaline.

And with it came Knox.

He landed behind me, and my relief was instant. “I love you, Piper,” he whispered in my ear, and his faint voice lulled me. I leaned back into him, letting our connection rejuvenate me. Then searing pain shot through my sides as he dug his claws into my waist and growled. “Now end this.”

His power rushed through my body—his alpha and fey king magic coursing through my veins as though it were mine and mine alone—and I turned my weary eyes to the queen and let the rage I felt burn in my glare. From the way she faltered when I did, I wondered if there weren’t actually flames flickering in their depths.

“I…am…not…weak,” I snarled as I staggered a step closer, Knox’s hold on me stronger than ever. Larken clutched the amulet and began to call its power, but I reached my hand out and pulled on it with the vacuum force of a tornado. She strained to maintain her hold, but the chain ripped from her neck and the charm soon followed. I snagged it out of midair and clasped it in my hand, watching with dark delight as her air of confidence shattered. “You think the part of me that is from this world makes me weak,