shoulder blades.
My attention was quickly diverted as one of the Harpies Damien was fighting broke free from their fight and dove at me and the girls. I swore colorfully and lashed my power into the sky, taking it out before aiming for other airborne targets in an attempt to help Damien as he darted and swooped, his claws raking across our enemies.
Blood rained down and marred the pristine snow, and bodies began to pile up around the once beautiful clearing. I recognized some of the faces from Faction Opal, my faction, and my anger built into a rage.
They dared to move against me and my mates? On my mating day?
Even over the cacophony of battle I heard Killian swearing, and my eyes turned unerringly to him as I saw blood dripping from his arm where a strike must have landed.
My rage yielded to worry for my mates, momentarily distracting me from the fight.
“Watch it!” Risa’s voice was sharp, and I swung around as the water nymph took down another opposing shifter a few yards away, a scowl carved into her face. He fell at her feet, crashing and gazing up at her with eyes that widened in his startled face.
I narrowed my eyes at her, not realizing she’d come to a wedding she wasn’t invited to. Apparently she was one of the party crashers Molly had mentioned earlier, but with her power directed at taking out our enemies, I let the infraction slide. We needed all the help we could get if we were going to win this battle we’d never asked for.
Risa created a bubble of water, wrapping it around the shifter’s head, cutting off his air. No matter how he clawed at it, he couldn’t fight his way through the liquid. I forced my attention away, not needing to watch another life being snuffed out. There’d been enough death, and yet I knew we’d all suffer more before this battle, this war, and this rebellion came to an end. Even at my own hands.
I let another blast of fire fly from my hands, and then sought out Killian to make sure he was alright. Joshua dove to cover my Puca as the two worked in tandem, and my attention moved back to the skies where, with strike after strike, my fireballs landed, damaging our airborne foes.
Fury rode my bloodstream in a tidal wave, hazing my vision to crimson. They had destroyed my wedding, attacked my mates, my friends, my family, and I wouldn’t let them win.
“There!” Molly cried, her hand grabbing my shoulder and pointing toward Theo who had been drawn farther and farther from us. A shifter was about to leap from his blind side. I shifted sideways and loosed an arrow of fire on reflex, rejoicing when it landed true. A grim smile tipped my lips as he crumpled before he ever reached Theo, and then everything turned into a blur.
“No! Nix!” Molly’s frantic voice spiked fear and adrenaline through my chest. Time slowed, and I was barely able to respond before Molly sailed in front of me. It all happened too quickly, but I caught a flash of Risa’s twisted snarl and bared teeth. Panic ripped through me, a sharp, knife-like pain in my abdomen as I caught Molly’s body against my own. The force of her back colliding with my front toppled us into the snow as Molly cried out.
Nothing but coldness surrounded me. I tried to breathe, but the wind had been knocked from my body, the inhale like daggers in my lungs.
“You thought you could win?” Risa taunted, standing over us. A long blade of ice flowed from her wrist and hand, and I followed it downward, unable to understand what I was seeing through my shock. Risa pushed, and Molly let out a silent scream that was mirrored by a cry of my own.
My abdomen burned, and my lungs strained.
“Well, I guess I get two for one,” Risa hissed, her eyes manic as she stared down at Molly and me. “She jumped in the damn way, but I won’t be upset about ridding the world of another mythological sympathizer. You really thought I’d let you get away with taking the position that was rightfully mine? That I didn’t have loyal followers who wanted to see you and your mates stripped of your alters? I guess their deaths will have to suffice, but it would have been sweeter revenge to see you all stripped of your precious alters. Left human. Made to