Boundary Born (Boundary Magic Book 3) - Melissa F. Olson Page 0,103

rest, but you still cannot beat me. You will never beat me. I said I won’t kill you, but I can come after your friends, your little niece. That vampire you’re fucking.” He extended his hand. “Or you can take my hand and walk out of here with me, right now.”

I didn’t move, didn’t answer. His expression softened. “You’ve shown me you are a worthy prize, deathling. Come with me willingly, and I will treat you well. And all the people who love you will be safe.”

We were frozen for a moment, his hand extended in peace, a respectful smile on his face. I would be well treated. My family and friends wouldn’t be harmed.

You’re more than just a bulletproof vest, Lex.

Be a witch.

You have everything you need, baby girl.

I pushed the voices out of my head and reached up to Lysander, offering him my injured forearm. I knew my expression was defeated, conflicted, remorseful. That was fine. He took my forearm gently, helping me to my feet with a broad smile on his face. Maybe it was because he’d shrunk down to nearly my height, but this close, and in the dim lighting, he seemed utterly human. That made what I had to do even harder.

Where did Lysander’s magic come from, what was the one thing that we both had?

Blood.

As fast as I have ever moved in my life, I lifted the combat knife I’d pulled from its back holster and slashed it across Lysander’s throat, digging in as deeply as I could. While his eyes were still widening in pain, I bent and jabbed the knife into the meat of his thigh, digging for the femoral artery.

He was thrown off-balance by the two sources of pain, and it took him a full second to stretch out his arms toward the grass, trying to suck in more life that he could sacrifice to heal his wounds.

But my idea was working. Lysander couldn’t make new blood any faster than anyone else, not without boosting his body with magic. And there were no more lives for him to suck up and turn into witch magic—he couldn’t take mine, as a fellow witch.

He tried to fend me off, but I only attacked harder. I reversed the knife grip and stabbed for the carotid artery, the brachial artery in his arm, all of the major organs I could remember. I did it quickly, fwip-fwip-fwip, going for speed over accuracy. He bellowed with pain and rage, but the blood was pouring out of him now, and though he squeezed enough magic out of the Gardens to heal a couple of wounds, he couldn’t heal them all. I kept going, darting around him in a circle as he began to slow down. The amphitheater grass all around us had turned as brown and dry as old pine needles. Now there was nothing left for him to kill.

Except for me. He couldn’t use my spirit, but I could see him deciding that revenge would be a nice consolation prize. He took one step toward me, but the blood was flowing now, the tiles getting slippery, and I thought, more. I plunged the knife again and again, reopening the few wounds he’d healed, carving new ones. I stopped aiming at arteries and just stabbed and sliced anywhere that wasn’t already bleeding. He fought me, getting in a few blows to my face and arm, but the more strikes I made, the more feeble he became. At last, with a widening pool of blood spreading over the tiles around us, Lysander dropped to his knees. I made one final cut, to the draugr’s jugular, and he collapsed with a splash of blood.

Chapter 41

I froze after he fell, not sure what to do. I knew next to nothing about the draugr’s physiology. Boundary magic had sustained him, but if my own experiences were any indication, he wasn’t exactly dead—more like in stasis, waiting for the medical intervention or passing of time that would allow his biology to restart.

I wasn’t going to let that happen.

My knife was sharp, but I only had one good hand. Cradling my injured arm, I scooted painfully across the tiles, slogging through the blood until I reached the shotgun, which lay at the far end of the tiles. I dug in my coat pocket for more rounds, and managed to reload using mostly just one hand. I couldn’t slam-fire one-handed, so I had to painstakingly pump the shotgun, hold it in the exact position I