Dark Champion (Flirting with Monsters #4) - Eva Chase Page 0,48
As much as I’d have liked to believe that I could blame the horrors of the Company of Light on this one shadowkind being, I’d met too many independent hunters and collectors over the years. That depth of hatred and revulsion could absolutely dwell in mortal hearts without any coaxing necessary. Hell, we mortals slaughtered other groups of humans often enough with less justification.
My own emotions flared inside me, anger and disgust at both this woman and the mortals working beneath her—and more than a little fear at the powers she could wield. I clamped down on a burst of flame just before it shot to the surface of my skin. It seared across my muscles all the same, and I clenched my jaw tighter against the pain.
I was supposed to be here willingly—I was supposed to be letting Omen hand me over to Tempest for her purposes.
“No less than he deserved,” I made myself say.
Tempest’s eyes gleamed approvingly. “Precisely.” She turned her attention to her former lover and co-conspirator. “So, you’ve come around to seeing the ‘light’, have you, my dear friend?”
I could only guess how he winced inwardly at that label. “It’s as the phoenix says,” he replied. “They deserve whatever hell you’re going to rain down on them. And who better to help you than a hellhound? I’d rather be by your side than scrambling around attempting to protect the pathetic creatures of our kind who can’t take care of themselves.”
To someone who’d heard Omen speak so emphatically about what he owed the lesser shadowkind and his shame over having brought harm their way in the past, those remarks held no ring of truth. But they must have been the sort of thing he might have said to appease the sphinx back then, and they were what she wanted to hear, what she thought he should feel. She had no idea what he’d been through in the centuries since they’d last schemed together.
Tempest smiled and inclined her head. “I knew you’d come around. Such good timing. We’re nearly ready for the grand finale.”
As she’d hinted before and Ruse’s questioning had appeared to confirm. Omen smiled lazily back, but his gaze had turned more intent. “Your disease is perfected?”
“Only another tweak or two. I doubt we’re more than a week away from making good on all these years of work.” She rubbed her hands together and studied me again. “And for whatever other havoc we wish to wreak, you’ve brought me this lovely gift. How have you convinced her to turn against her own kind?”
“They’re not my kind,” I said automatically, as we’d rehearsed.
Omen nodded approvingly. “The human side of her has its weaknesses. My incubus was able to charm her into following my will. Whatever I tell her to do, she’ll do.”
He wished. I resisted the urge to give him my most saccharine grin and a cloying, “Yes, Master.” Go too over the top and the jig would be up.
“Wonderful. You’ll have to expand that influence to include me.”
“Sorsha,” Omen said with a hint of a sardonic drawl, “do as Tempest says.”
“Of course.” I smiled brightly at her, and another flare of fire crackled up through my chest. Thankfully, my purse hid the balling of my hand as I willed it down.
Keep it under control. Keep my cool until I needed to blaze. I could handle this.
“Better under your sway than following her irrational mortal compulsions.” Tempest curled a finger to beckon me over. “Let’s look at you up close and see what you’re capable of, firebird.”
Oh, she was about to experience my capabilities, all right. This was the moment Omen and I had planned for. As I walked toward her, I inhaled deeply, every muscle coiling for the perfect launch of my powers. Two more steps, one—
I shoved one hand into my purse and whipped the other toward the sphinx at the same moment. While my fingers closed around the chain and yanked it out, fire streaked through the air from my extended palm.
It didn’t go the way it had when we’d practiced, though. My emotions were churning too fast and furious—the fire’s warble blared behind my ears. Flames sizzled around my neck and down my spine, and the blast I’d intended to hurl straight into Tempest’s eyes like the stab of a scorching dagger instead flickered apart into a whirlwind of sparks.
No. I flung the chain, aiming a heft of heat with it to guide its course and soften its metals, but my initial slip