Page 55 of Beautiful Madness

I’d wanted to break it as well,but not with daywalkers swarming, looking to bite and kill or turn everyonethey could get their teeth into.

There was no time to centermyself, to calm, to find the cold core that would allow me to use my mad magicwith intent and purpose.

I did it anyway.

Once upon a time I’d been greatin a crisis—it was only afterward that I’d react. And somehow, I found thatonce again. If I hadn’t, Jared would have died.

Even as I fought my way towardhim, killing daywalker after daywalker not with wooden stakes but with mymagic-filled hands, the power holding him suspended broke and he dropped to thehard cavern floor.

The wall of magic continued tohold, but as though he were now releasing some sort of tempting scent thedaywalkers could not resist, Jared called the monsters.

Another spell—likely the spikespiercing his body had been coated with something the daywalkers would findirresistible. His captors had thought of everything.

There was simply too much goingon at once.

I lost sight of Sam, but I sawWyatt. I saw him a millisecond before he was overcome by the crush of daywalkerbodies.

Lennon had wanted Jared to be adistraction, and I knew it, but I couldn’t worry about her and Eli. Not then. Ihad to get to Jared. I had to break the wall, pull out his spikes, and let himshift.

Because even over thehorrendous sounds of hungry daywalkers and the awful, crushing magic hanging inthe cave, I could feel Jared’s lifeforce weakening. It was the realization thatI might really lose him that brought out my inner psycho, but this time, mypsycho was stone-cold mad. And that coldness was exactly what I needed.

Just that quickly, I wasn’tafraid of anything. I wasn’t worried that if I screamed it would kill Jared andSam as well as daywalkers. I wasn’t even filled with sorrow because Jared wasdying or horror that Lennon and Eli were escaping, even tied together as theywere by my magic. I didn’t care that the warrior I’d called to help me freeJared was being ripped apart and feasted upon by hungry monsters.

I cared only aboutthepurpose.

I had a purpose, and it wasn’tfueled by emotion. I would break the magic and save the alpha, because that waswhat I’d come here to do. Andnofucking one would stop me.

After he was safe, I’d throwmyself into the joy of killing.

The purpose didn’t make mestupid, though, so I kept my mouth shut and the angel’s scream inside—for now.Not only because saving the alpha would have been impossible if I killed him,but because the entrance to the cavern was filled suddenly with wolves—one ofwhom was my mother, and five stake-wielding humans who should not have beenthere for any reason.

The detective, Lucy, Remy, Joe,and Zach.

My pack.

Son of a bitch.

I’d known Sam was going to sendout our location and call for backup, but not backup that would die in seconds.Joe and Zach weren’t even healed yet. Joe had a fucking brokenarm, forGod’s sake.

“Motherfuckers,” I screamed,rage, for a few dark seconds, breaking through my psycho’s coldness. That waswhen I slipped, and before I could even grasp the fact that it was happening, adozen daywalkers fell upon me.

The pain rivaled that of silver.Sharp agony shivered through me, icy enough to make gooseflesh cover my bodyand scorching hot enough to set my very bones on fire.

I was bitten.

ChapterTwenty-Nine

It took those bites, though,and that terror, to finally bring the one thing I needed most. The magic I’dclaimed the night in Scarlett’s when dozens of bloodsuckers attacked me. Thenight I’d been trying to find Rick.

I’d dubbed it my psycho, but itwas more, even, than that.

It was a different kind ofmagic, and though I’d believed I’d used it since, I had not. I just hadn’tknown it. Maybe I would never be able to find it on purpose, but I didn’t care.At that moment, I cared only that it came, that it shriveled up every speck ofhumanity inside me, and that it killed what it touched.

Nothing had ever felt better,and I remembered that feeling. I also understood that I would likely forget itagain, and that was not necessarily a bad thing. Because that power, thatmagic, it didn’t belong to or come from the council or the vampires.

It belonged to my birth mother.

I exploded out from under thedaywalkers, and I killed, happily and energetically, any daywalker standingwithin six feet of me. And then I flew toward the alpha, and I touched the wallof magic surrounding him.