I stepped forward, my wings spreading wide as my power surged up and through me. My tail thrashed on either side of me.I bared my fangs at her as I crouched to prepare to attack. “I willneverlet you come near my family again.”
“We’ll just see about that, ladybug.”
Clarkson took off like a shot toward the entrance of the cavern. Her pounding paws were silent against the crystalline floor as she ushered the girls out. Leah pulled Betty along behind her, following as close to the dog as possible. Clinging to Leah’s hand, Betty looked back at me with her large blue eyes still overflowing with tears and worry. My heart twisted watching them go, but I didn’t look away until I saw them cross the threshold of the cavern.
As soon as the girls were out, there was a sharp, cold snap, like the crack of a knuckle. Then, a wall of translucent, blood-tinged light exploded from the earth of the cave’s entrance. I watched as it sealed the mouth of the cave shut with crystallized blood with dark veins pulsing like capillaries. Leah and Betty turned around and called for me. Leah summoned a blast of fire magic against the barrier, but the bloody crystal wall didn’t react at all.
No one in.
No one out.
Lilah lowered her hand with an elegant flick of her wrist. Her visage was smug and serene like an artist stepping back from a finished masterpiece. When she turned back to me, she purred with her voice curling like smoke.
“Oh, don’t look so surprised, Byrdie-pie! You didn’t really think I would let anyone interrupt us, did you? Now, we canreallytalk.”
I growled, low and dangerous. “You’re not leaving here alive, Lilah. You’re not going to hurt anyone else ever again.”
Lilah threw her head back and laughed. “So cute of you to think so, Byrdie. Let’s put your little Main Character Syndrome to the test now, huh?”
And then, Lilah lunged.
She flew at me like an onyx missile, her body coiled with unnatural grace. Her thread of thick, dark crimson hissed through the air, snarling through the space between us like it was hungry. Ifelther magic claw down my skin before I saw it. I was highly familiar with the feel of Lilah’s blood magic already. After everything she had done, there was nothing that would make me forget it. Since she was a huntress, I should have been able to easily track her movements now. Yet, this was different. Unlike with Quinn’s daggers and the hunters’ weapons in Chicago, I couldn’t sense the rhythm of her weapon. It was like I knew the beat, but someone had messed with the tempo and changed the instruments. I could no longer follow. The gossamer panels of my wings caught the crystalline light as they snapped wide on instinct. I flew backward, too fast for the human eye to follow but not as fast as I would have liked. Lilah’s magic lashed at where I had been standing a half-second earlier and left a trench in the sapphire floor along with drops of blood.
Lilah didn’t give me a moment to be shocked.
She flicked her wrist, and two more whips formed, one in each hand now. She swung them around her like serpents, leaving trails of red smoke in their wake. As writhing and overzealous as her attacks were, they were also brutal and precise. It was like her first hit was just to show what she could do, but now each blow was more controlled, furious, and targeted. Wild, vicious, and deliberate, Lilah fought like someone who didn’t just want to win but to maim her opponent.
Lilah’s blood magic melted space, cutting through time itself so hastily I couldn’t dodge it. As I veered to the side to lessen the blow, it still clipped my shoulder. The rope of dark power was serrated with hooked points and crackled with black lightning. It sliceddeep, carving a jagged path through my skin. I cried out. Pain bloomed instantly, both blinding and electric. It was likeacid corroding my skin, but it didn’t burrow further beyond that. It made my muscles seize, but it didn’t hold the same stinging pain that made me wish for unconsciousness or death as Lilah’s magic usually did.
I tumbled back through the air, wings buzzing desperately to right myself and save myself from crashing to the ground. The wound itself didn’t bleed or crystallize like my wounds usually did. Smoke rose in wisps from the cut before a sparkling, transparent sheen of pale red crystal formed over the cut. Once it became whole at a slower rate than my normal healing, the crystal vanished in a cloud of glitter like my chrysalis powers. As different as the healing was now, the agony was still enough to make me hiss loudly through clenched teeth.
Lilah’s laughter resembled the sound of a whipcrack. Mocking, cold, and triumphant, she crooned, “Don’t you like my condolences, Byrdie? They are made from your ancestors and their deliciously strong blood. I figured you would love this over flowers and a tuna casserole.”
My pained rage boiled in my throat. I spat at her, “Go to fucking hell, you twisted bitch.”
Lilah’s grin widened, her eyes glinting with both amusement and malice. “You first, girlie-pop.”
Lilah slammed her palm to the ground.
Each of the bloody crystals around usscreamed. The dragon-tainted spires embedded in the walls and the floor lit up with a sickly red shimmer andmoved. They lunged, claws reaching for prey. Sharp black-red shards the size of my torso rose from the floor and rained from the ceiling in one vicious swarm of massive javelins. I dodged them as much as I could, gliding low with my wings dragging sparks on the sapphire floor, going to the side so the crystals on the end of my tail scraped the walls, or flying high enough for my locs to beat the cave’s ceiling. Lilah had made the mistake of hitting me before, so I could feel herblood magic and track her movements. But these attacks were faster than even my supernatural sense could keep up with. And, there were so fucking many of them. I could barely anticipate her moves. Even with my dragonfly wings going at full inhuman speed?—
One clipped the tip of my wing, too quick for me to avoid.
Another lashed into my thigh, tearing through my dress and skin.
Another tore my tail into two with the end holding on by a few scales.
Another sharp column pierced the soft space beneath my ribs before practically ripping one of my wings off of me.
My shriek sounded closer to a roar as the pain tore through me. The magic burned just as cruelly as her bloody whip. Acid crept into the edges of my injuries as they started to patch themselves up. While it didn’t seem like it was soaking deeper beyond my skin and it was less than when Lilah had tortured me, it still hurt likefuck.
I fell.
My bones rattled in my body as I crashed into the crystal floor, stones and shards flying upward as a crater formed from my impact. I rolled and bounced multiple times before I hit a crystal spire with my back, bending another one of my wings with a grotesque snap. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t even cry despite the tears raining from my eyes. The landing robbed me of any shaky breath I had left within me.
Gods. Fucking. Damn. It.
I lay there for a moment, not even trying to catch my breath, not even trying to regain my energy, not even trying to strategize. All I could do was allow the pain to exist. The layers of feelings of sadness, anger, and so many more complex emotions weighed so heavily on me that I couldn’t move. I could only justbe.
