Master vampire who’d absorbed demon powers. Hell, it was beyond my ability, and I could do downright freaky things when I let my other half have free reign.
Another deafening cheer tore my attention back to Ian, who was now retrieving Naxos’s bow. He bent the bronze arc, notched the single arrow, and aimed it at the final target, which still swayed from the turbulence left behind from Naxos’s exit.
I glanced up. No, Naxos hadn’t dropped down yet. How far had Ian thrown him? Five kilometers straight up? Ten?
Phanes squared his shoulders with resignation as Ian sighted the arrow at the round, red pomegranate dangling from the stadium’s uppermost beam. Exhilaration and relief washed over me. In another few seconds, this would be over. Ian wouldn’t miss. He could make that shot on a bad day, and as he’d proved, he was having the opposite of a bad day right now.
Ian drew the arrow back until the string could go no farther . . . and swung right, aiming at me instead of the dangling fruit. I had an instant to be shocked before agony exploded in my back.
The next thing I saw was the underside of the stone bench, followed by a close-up view of Phanes’s sandals. Above, I heard Phanes shouting, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Why did he suddenly sound so far away? Why couldn’t I move? And the pain, gods, what was this pain—?
“Don’t touch her!”
Ian’s voice, cracking like a whip. Then his face, right up next to mine, brows drawn so tightly together, they resembled a dark slash above his glittering green eyes.
“Don’t move,” he said, gripping me to his chest with one arm. Then another splash of acid tore into my back.
I screamed, twisting in mindless, instinctive need to escape. He held me with brutal strength as that agony dug deeper. Soon, I couldn’t hear anything above my screams. My darkness spilled out in liquid form, coating both of us while I writhed in a frenzy of pain. Still, Ian didn’t let me go.
Why was he doing this? Couldn’t he see that he was killing me? Why wouldn’t he stop, stop, stop—
Ice kissed my back and the pain vanished. I sagged, all my strength fleeing along with the pain. Ian pulled back enough for me to see his face. Liquid darkness still clung to him as if he’d fallen into a pit of crude oil, making his smile a white slash against it.
“It’s all right. I got it out.”
“What . . . out?” I croaked, trying to pull that darkness back inside me. It should have returned instantly, but instead, it moved at a crawl, as if reluctant to leave Ian.
Ian’s mouth crushed mine. I only had a second to savor his kiss before that wonderful, bruising pressure was gone. Then his arms were gone, too, as was the rest of him. But when he stood up so abruptly that I had to grip the bench to keep from slumping over, not a drop of my darkness remained on him. I looked down. It was gone from me, too, leaving me in my lovely, diaphanous dress that now dripped with my own blood.
“Who is that bitch?” Ian asked in a deadly tone.
“Helena is my servant.”
Hearing Phanes’s voice jerked my attention up to him. He was standing on the bench in front of me and Ian, his wings arced on either side like golden curtains, his body and their span keeping everything else from my view.
Or, I realized as my sluggish brain caught up, not keeping me from seeing the rest of the stadium. Keeping all the people in the stadium from seeing me and Ian.
“Helena?” I murmured. “What did she have to do with anything?”
Ian gave me a look I would have called amused, except his jaw was clenched and his eyes were flashing with rage.
“She’s the bitch who just tried to murder you by stabbing you in the heart with silver.”
What?
Before I could say it out loud, something large and dark flashed in my peripheral vision. Then the ground shook and earth puffed up around a hole in the arena.
Phanes’s mouth closed with a click while Ian gave the new crater a single, unconcerned glance.
“Naxos just landed.”
Chapter 12
I pushed myself onto the stone bench, ignoring the hands that both Ian and Phanes extended to help me.
Maybe I shouldn’t have. For a second, my vision swam. Dammit, I felt so weak! The reason why was at my feet, its blood-coated blade looking