Through the Ether (Force of Nature Book 5) - Amber Lynn Natusch Page 0,84
but you’re wrong. It’s what makes me strong.” I raised the amulet, and pale blue flame shot forth and wrapped around her like a fiery snake, snapping her limbs tight to her sides. The reek of burning flesh filled my nostrils, but I barely noticed, my singular focus on destroying the woman who had made me.
The queen tried repeatedly to pull her arms free—tried desperately to attack me with magic of her own—but it was swallowed by fire and by the winds that began to roar around us, circling wickedly as though waiting for the chance to be unleashed upon her.
“How does it feel, Mother? To be weak? To be at the mercy of someone who should love you more than life itself, but instead wants to see you suffer? To see you die?”
Her mouth pressed to a grim line as Knox and I took a labored step forward. “I could never have loved you.” She somehow spat those words like a royal from her throne and not a captive about to die. Blue flame shot higher into the sky, and I could feel the warmth overtaking me, that comfortable feeling slowly growing painful.
Over the whipping winds, I heard someone roaring my name. Heard something heavy hit the ground behind me. Heard the roar of a feral beast. But nothing could reach me; I was too far gone. I was vengeance and magic incarnate, and not even the fire consuming my body could stop me.
“Then I guess it’s a good thing I never needed you to.”
With a war cry all my own, fire erupted from every part of my body and shot toward the fey queen. Her mouth flew open in a silent scream, the rush of magic drowning out her wails entirely as she watched her precious amulet melt in my grasp—as her life slipped away.
“Goodbye, Mother,” I uttered through flaming lips.
I looked on as her body shone white-hot from within, then began to disintegrate to ash. Piece by tiny piece, the tornado of wind enclosing us carried her away until there was nothing left—nothing but an eerie wisp of magic wavering in front of me. But it didn’t waver long. Like the fey king’s had with Knox, it slammed into my chest and spread through my body like a demon possession. I gasped from the surge of power overwhelming me.
And then it stopped. As did the lancing pain in my side.
I felt the connection between Earth and Faerie begin to dissolve as I staggered forward a step, barely able to stand on my own, and collapsed to my knees where the queen had just stood. Lying on the ground was her golden crown, and the second I touched it, that connection snapped.
Faerie was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Piper!” Merc bellowed. Seconds later, he scooped me up in his arms, my body still aflame, and hugged me to his chest until the fire burning over my skin and through my veins snuffed out, the winds died down, and I fully realized what I’d just done. What we’d just done. “You did it,” he whispered to me, his lips moving against the top of my head. “She’s gone…”
Relief washed over me. “Knox! We did it!” Joy seeped into my weary bones as I turned to face the one whose power had helped me defeat the fey queen. The gasoline to my fire. “We really did it...”
My eyes fell to the ground where the alpha lay only feet away, staring up at the midnight sky as his wolves surrounded him. “Knox?” I called cautiously as I wriggled out of Merc’s hold. But there was no answer. I ran to him and crashed to my knees at his side. All that greeted me were his vacant, empty eyes. “No,” I gasped as I grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “No, no, no…” I dug my fingers into his flesh. “Help me heal him,” I choked out between frantic breaths.
Nothing happened.
“Help me heal him!” I screamed.
Nothing still.
“I am the goddamn queen of Faerie, and I demand that you heal him now!”
But no magic answered my call.
Because even on Earth, I could not heal the dead.
I pulled him into my lap and let loose an unholy sound that rivaled a banshee’s cry. I sobbed and rocked and clutched his dead body like holding onto him would somehow keep him with me—like he couldn't really die if I didn't let him go. Twice before, I’d thought he’d died trying to save me.