Taking another step forward, Grey shook my blood off his blade. Oswald was sweating from the effort of keeping the shield between us, his fangs elongated. If Nolan took his attention off Kylan, his cousin would be able to kill him.
Inhaling deeply, I held my wand in a loose grip and pointed it to Grey.
There was one shot. I didn’t know how much of a hold my memory manipulation had on him. If it had been an abject failure, I might be out of luck. However, if he’d somehow confused himself by stabbing me before he’d seen my face and realized his ‘true’ objective… maybe I could fix that.
Placing one hand on Ozzy, I clutched my bonds. Shan, Cas, and Em were weighed down with worry as they got further away. Nolan was furious, determined to beat his cousin once and for all. Oswald was desperate, knowing if this shield came down, he wouldn’t be useful any other way.
I closed my eyes and mentally reached for Grey, knowing what I would have to give up in this last-ditch effort. Cradling my final memory of Maisie, her face on that phone screen as she bid us farewell, I swore to the gods I’d find her again. I’d never get these memories back, but if I gave up this one final piece, I might just be alive to save her.
With a massive effort, I forced my mind into contact with Grey’s. The distance between us was too great for the connection to be anything but tenuous. I shoved the memory I’d implanted during our last meeting at him with greater force, trying to secure its place in his head.“What was it you were supposed to do when you saw me?”I asked.
He put up so little resistance, it had to work.
I knew the moment it did.
My heart wrenched as my last memory of my sister dissolved to dust and floated away.
This time I drew myself back out of his head immediately, my mate bonds giving me strength.
When I opened my eyes, Grey was blinking. He stared at me. Kylan shouted at him to kill me again and I lifted an eyebrow. He would move at any second. It was only a matter of what he would do when he did.
“Push Kylan toward Grey,”I told Nolan telepathically.“It’s going to work.”
Everything happened in slow motion.
Nolan abandoned his blade for a second to shove Kylan back in our direction with a gust of wind. The vampire mafia boss stumbled for a mere second, taking in his surroundings and determining he wasn’t in the path of any enemies. He didn’t suspect a thing, but Grey was at his back.
Grey looked down at the knife in his hand, then at me. In a moment of conviction, he spun and plunged his knife into Kylan’s back.
Grey’s gaze immediately filled with horror, my compulsion breaking as his boss choked on his own blood. The sword had missed his heart, but Nolan took the opportunity he’d been given. My mate used his sword to pierce his cousin’s heart while he was dazed from the betrayal.
With a decisive twist, Nolan pulled out the sword and let Kylan’s lifeless body fall to the floor.
I heard it thump.
We’d won.
Kylan was dead.
I’d lost something, I could feel a hole in myself, but I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t have time to linger on it with Grey returning to himself.
“What did you…?” Grey trailed off, looking between me and the bloodied knife in his hands. “No.”
“Yes,” I said. “You’re a traitor. I wonder what all of Kylan’s friends are going to think when they find out you betrayed your boss?”
I should kill him, and would, but part of me wanted him to know what it was like to be hunted first. It was what I’d dealt with from the two of them. Nolan took a few steps forward, but Grey’s attention zipped to him and he darted back on quick feet.
“No one is going to believe you,” Grey said.
“All these guards and sellswords saw it was your sword that caused his demise, even if my mate was the one to deal the killing blow. Besides, there are rumours you wanted to kill him. People will assume the rumours were true.”
His jaw clenched, but instead of furious he looked panicked. I’d brought his world down around him by forcing him to help in this plan. He would never be in a Zemterran position of power again.
Nolan saw what he was going to do before he did it, but my mate wasn’t fast enough to stop him. Grey flung himself backward through a glass window, landing with an audible grunt. He was gone through the field of deep purple flowers, leaving a blood trail in his wake as Nolan cursed and stalked up to the window. I rushed across the room, placing my hand on his shoulder.
“No, let him go. We can hunt him down later, but I bet someone else will kill him first.”
Hesitating, Nolan sighed when Ozzy came up to us. He’d never be able to take pursuit with both of us ready to stop him.
