War of Hearts (True Immortality) - S Young Page 0,99
was. Almost like that part of her, that energy, that magic, never fit until she was given the knowledge of its origin. Like a misplaced key finally slotting into place and opening a door to unimaginable power.
And it was there, in the depths of her.
A golden, sweet, heady, beautiful, terrifying eternity of power.
Suddenly, Thea wasn’t afraid. “If you kill Conall, I’ll end you.”
Eirik smirked, the first real expression she’d seen on his face. “I am two and half thousand years old, Miss Quinn. I have killed my brother to stop the gate opening between realms and I have hunted many children whom I believed to be bearers of the fae queen’s spell. In the last twenty-five years, I have snuffed out three of the lives of your fae siblings.
“And now I finally have you in my grasp. The fourth. I will not stop until all seven of you are dead. Now, you can make your death easy or difficult.”
Thea’s heart bled at the news three others had died already. Three beings like her, like the woman in Prague, killed by this bastard just because they’d been born. The rage churned in her gut. “I’ll make it easy if Conall lives.”
“Thea, no!” Conall roared in fury.
She couldn’t look at him.
Eirik cocked his head. “I have heard it is an awful thing to force a man to live with the death of his mate. So, no. What I will do is spare him having to watch you die.” He turned toward the vampires holding Conall, and Thea felt that door inside her blaze wide open.
“Kill him.”
Her eyes widened in horror as a vampire, a blur of movement, ripped the silver knife out of Conall’s gut and plunged it into his neck.
The agony was momentary.
Conall stared across the room at Thea as the knife plunged into him, the pain so intense, he almost blacked out.
However, the sound of Thea’s scream was so unearthly, so forceful, it blew like a gale into him with such an impact it kept him with her. The physical manifestation of her grief was the last thing he felt before his body went numb.
He seemed to float, weightless, except for the crushing pain of watching Thea’s grief-stricken face. The heartbreaking horror in her expression made him feel desperate and powerless.
He’d never said he loved her.
Conall tried to feel his lips, to make the words come out, but before he could, blackness spilled into the edges of his vision as Eirik grasped Thea by the throat. Her eyes blazed bright gold.
There was a jeweled-handled knife of silver-gray metal in Eirik’s hand. Pure iron.
Conall wanted to lunge forward, to save her, the howl of his wolf trapped and screaming inside.
But as Eirik moved to plunge the knife into Thea’s heart, she swiped a hand over the incoming blade and it turned to liquid, splattering in thick mercury to the floor, the jewels from the handle rattling across the floorboards like marbles. Eirik snarled in outrage and tightened his grip on Thea’s throat but …
Conall blinked in amazement, forcing the darkness back, as Thea began to shimmer. Eirik hissed, baring his fangs, as he dropped Thea and stared at his palm.
His burnt raw palm.
Thea’s gaze moved back to Conall and tears slipped down her cheeks. He tried to say how he felt with his eyes and perhaps the message read loud and clear because Thea abruptly threw back her head and let out a piercing scream.
Light exploded out of her body, and Eirik and the vampires at his back screeched in agony as it tore through them.
Then they were gone.
Every one of them.
Piles of ash remained, dust dancing in the rays of pure sunlight beaming from every part of Thea’s body.
Relief soothed Conall’s pain.
She was safe.
His mate was safe.
And so he let the darkness come for him.
Shuddering through the fiery heat unlike anything Thea had ever experienced, she gasped for breath as the blinding white light disappeared, and she could see again.
Her clothes stuck to her skin, soaked with sweat as she took in the piles of ash where Eirik and his vampires had once stood.
She’d killed them.
All of them.
Her eyes flew to Conall, collapsed, surrounded by six piles of ash.
He was covered in blood.
So much blood.
Terror flooded Thea.
“Conall.” She flew across the room and reached for his chest. Relief almost suffocated her when she felt the tiniest flutter from his heart. But there wasn’t much time left, and Thea couldn’t bring someone back from the dead.