Yikes.
Mira was pissed. Like ready-to-melt-down-the-world pissed.
“End. This. Now!” she snarled.
Pushing to my feet, I turned and faced Og. After checking on Greel, he’d regained his swagger because his brother was still alive inside the metal cocoon.
“One down, two to go,” he mocked me.
“Too bad I don’t have time to kill you in the way you deserve.”
“And what way is that?” He put his hands on his hips and laughed. “Slowly? Painfully? By a thousand cuts from that tiny sword of yours?”
I dropped the katana, and it dissolved into blue sparks before it hit the concrete.
“I don’t need a sword.”
Tuning out the crowd, I filled my hands with blue fire and flung it at his legs. He dodged, and I ran parallel to him until we were on the far side of the arena. He tried to stomp on me, but a quick roll took me around him. He spun on his heel, but I was faster and whipped a rope of power around his ankle. He stumbled and had to brace one hand on the ground, which gave me time to run around to his back.
Holding up both hands, I unleashed hundreds of flechettes. Just for fun, I shaped them like railroad spikes. They tore through his tough hide and turned the backs of his legs to raw hamburger in seconds. Howling, he rose and pivoted, and the knees I’d just destroyed gave out on him. He landed on his side with an almightywhump!
He pulled himself along on his elbows toward a line of metal fire barrels. Before he could reach them, I raced over and sank my left arm deep into a cut on his thigh, then fired off chains of lightning, one from each finger. Zig-zag patterns burst across his skin, and he sat up with a screech and swatted at me. I had to duck, but managed to keep my arm in his wound. Twice more, I hit him with five chains of lightning before the edge of his flailing hand caught my shoulder and knocked me away.
He fell flat onto his back. Blood streamed from his ears and his whole body twitched, but his fists clenched and he bared his teeth at me.
I didn’t draw the fight out any longer. Rome was injured, Mira was mad, and, even knee-capped and electrocuted, Og was still a threat.
I bundled all thirteen feet of him in a blanket of power and squeezed.
“Is the queen of the peri at your den?” I asked.
He didn’t answer, so I tightened the blanket around him until I heard something crunch.
“Yes,” he groaned, “in the dungeon.”
“Who told you to take her?”
“No one. My own idea.”
“Liar.” I forced the power to crush him even more. “You don’t have the balls for that kind of move.”
His eyes bulged and his skin turned gray.
Crap. Went too hard too fast.
Now I had only seconds before he was nothing more than rubble for the stone pile.
“You know I don’t like repeating myself, Og. Who told you to take her?Who?”
“Samuel Cas—”
He turned into stone with his mouth still open.
No more answers from him, but I got the ones I came for.
Dissolving the power, I looked for Mira and Rome and was satisfied to see they were right where I’d left them.
Now that the danger had passed, my ears registered the crowd again, and the volume was staggering. Half seemed to be cheering and the other half booing, and fists were flying throughout the stands.
