Master of Desire (Merlin's Legacy #6) - Angela Knight Page 0,49

draw in a breath past the thumb digging into her windpipe.

Conal’s violet eyes met hers in savage determination. No! God, no, Conal! No! He pulled the trigger as she wheezed a breathless scream. In the instant his finger tightened, the big pistol seemed to melt and reform. When the gun went off, its muzzle was no longer in Conal’s mouth. It was pointed at Helena and the troll.

The sound as it fired was less a bang than a howl, like a Stinger missile going off. A ball of flame slammed into the nullifying shield around Helena and Olwydd. The spell exploded in blinding flash of blue light -- and vanished.

Magic crashed over Helena like a tsunami, backed by all the power of the Mageverse. Liam, you tricky fucker! She dragged the energy in, let it blaze white-hot through bone and muscle.

Olwydd yelled in shock as her shift went off in his face, leaving him with a lapful of fur, fangs and rage. Helen tore free of his grip, twisted in his arms, sank her claws into his face, and ripped. He howled in agony, trying to knock her hand away. Please, God, let us survive this! Helena used her healed vocal cords to roar the trigger phrase Maeve had taught her five years before.

* * *

Told you it would work! Liam crowed in Conal’s mind as Helena ripped into Olwydd like a pissed-off tiger.

We need to get her and gate…

But before he could complete the thought, she screamed… something. He didn’t recognize the language at all, yet Liam’s mind translated the ancient words in an explosion of lethal comprehension. “Death God, rider of the demon winds, thou art free of thy geas!”

A deep male voice thought, Oh, hell.

It felt like a nuclear blast going off inside Conal’s head, raw energy blazing along every nerve, every synapse in his brain, every cell in his body, searing his very consciousness. It was followed a heartbeat later by a whirlwind of images, a bedlam of voices screaming in anguish and agony and terror, ripping into his mind, swamping him, spinning him through centuries as if he’d plunged over Niagara Falls without benefit of a barrel. What’s happening? Dying, I’m dying, it’s killing me…

Light. Fire. Thousands of years of memories -- of justice delivered, of craving for revenge, of hate, of hunger and madness, until he thought it was going to sear his consciousness away…

No. A great thundering voice he almost recognized. Silence fell so abruptly, his skull seemed to ring like a bell. Conal lay on his back, staring up at the throne room’s ceiling. As if from a vast distance, he heard Helena roaring, the troll screaming, male voices crying out…

Power flooded him, an intoxicating rush of energy he recognized as Olwydd’s life force, even more intense than Birk’s. Savage delight shot through him as he drank that magic down. There, you motherfucker.

Oh, God, said Essus in the depths of his mind. This is not good. But he felt… amazing. Power seemed to fill every inch of his body with strength and energy and light.

A woman was screaming. “What have you done, you stupid mongrel?” Siobhan’s voice sounded… wrong. Higher than he’d ever heard it, almost hysterical.

“Evened the odds,” Helena replied, in the too-deep voice of her wolf. But there was an undertone of fear when she added, “God, Conal, I’m sorry.”

“You should be sorry, you mad bitch!” Siobhan shrilled. “You’ve killed him, and now he will return the favor! Maeve will not thank you for this work, not that you’ll live long enough to face her rage…”

Conal had heard enough. He rolled to his feet with no effort at all. All the lingering pain of combat -- the exhaustion, the bruises -- had been wiped away by the power he’d drunk from Olwydd’s death. His gaze found Helena, who crouched atop the troll’s corpse. She’d torn out his throat. “I have no interest in killing you, beloved,” he told her, in a voice far too deep and resonant. He felt so… odd. As if he wasn’t entirely himself. She flinched, her ears flattening against her skull, and looked away. He frowned and took a step forward, meaning to reassure her…

Conal! Essus, above him, warning. He whipped around even as a huge ball of green flame blazed around Siobhan’s hands, her eyes wide and wild. The last time she’d called that much power, she’d been battling her mother to a standstill.

As the demigoddess fired the blast at him, something cool inside him