Sucker Punch (First Fangs Club #3) - Kristen Painter Page 0,58

her gold sword. She yanked it from its scabbard as best she could, but without being able to move much, that meant she sliced through her leather breastplate as she did.

A glint of light off the blade caught Dredward’s gaze. Surprised, he seemed to freeze as Artemis swung the sword toward his arm. He scowled, bared his teeth, and sank them into her throat. As he did that, he pulled his arm back.

With a blur of movement, he took his teeth from her neck and plunged the knife into the queen’s heart.

Artemis stiffened, eyes wide in understanding. She held the sword toward Donna and opened her hand, letting it fall free.

Then she dissolved into ash.

Chapter Twenty

Somehow, Donna caught the gold sword. The hilt was still warm from the queen’s touch.

Mouth dripping with Artemis’s blood, Dredward tipped his head back and laughed, teeth bared, eyes wild. “Where’s your queen now, vampire?”

Small flakes of gray drifted through the air, swirling and eddying on the currents.

White-hot, blinding rage pushed Donna to her feet on Kace’s back. The pain in her leg disappeared. There was no thinking. Just action. Dredward had to pay. She leaped into the air, gold sword raised, and brought it down with every ounce of strength she could muster. The blade sliced Dredward in half from ribs to hip.

His eyes went wide and round.

And then he, too, went to ash.

A moment passed where time stood still. Then it started up again. Donna kept her grip on the sword as she felt herself falling toward the earth, pain spreading in her leg.

Artemis was dead.

Maybe she would be too.

A rock-hard clawed hand snagged her wrist and stopped her fall. Kace. He descended until her feet touched the ground. Her knees buckled, but she clutched the sword with every bit of strength that remained. Cammie and Temo caught her.

“Boss, you okay?”

Her gaze stayed fixed on the last spot Artemis had occupied. Flakes of ash continued to fall. The queen’s? Or Dredward’s? There was no way to tell. Donna moved her head slightly back and forth. “I don’t know.”

In the moment, she didn’t care. She closed her eyes. The pain in her leg had taken over the lower half of her body and was creeping up her torso like a fungus. Her chest was starting to hurt. Even breathing was difficult. “Is…Rico okay?”

“We think so.” Cammie took Donna’s free hand. “Sis, you don’t look so good.”

“Ishalan…needs…help.” The ash seemed to be clouding her vision. “Get him…safe.”

“You need help.”

“Yeah.” Maybe she did. “Don’t…feel…so good.”

“Temo.” Cammie’s voice held a desperate urgency. “We need to get her out of here. Now.”

And then the pain became too much, and darkness swept her into its welcoming arms.

Donna woke to a gloomy gray light a few shades above total blackness. The shapes around her were familiar. In another moment, she recognized her bedroom. Soft beeping meant she was hooked up to a monitor again.

She’d slept, but for how long? And how much of what she remembered was real and how much of it had just been a dream?

Her leg throbbed, and the rest of her body felt like death. Was she dead? Maybe. Who cared? Things had gone so wrong. She reached for her crucifix and found an IV in her hand. She took hold of the crucifix and prayed that Rico had survived.

That all of her team had survived. Someone had, obviously, because they’d brought her back here.

Tears leaked from her eyes and slid into her hair. She let them fall. The queen was dead. Artemis. Gone. And it was all Donna’s fault. How many centuries had Artemis endured? Only to be turned to ash because of a course of events that Donna had set in motion.

She felt like an open pit of sorrow and bleakness. She wished she could fall into that pit and disappear.

The bedroom door opened a few inches, and Dr. Fox slipped in. He went to the monitor and looked at the readout, shaking his head a little.

“Am I going to live?”

He glanced over. “You’re awake.”

She turned her head away. “Yes.”

He came over to stand by the bed. “You’re going to live. You were poisoned again. A different, much stronger toxin. Quite a bit faster acting. I don’t know how it didn’t stop your heart. Perhaps the thing that you think protects you from the sun actually protects your life.”

She didn’t really care about herself at the moment. “How’s Rico?”

“As of yesterday, he’s doing very well. He was dehydrated and had some severe burns from