Page 59 of Beautiful Madness

Zach’s face was impassive, andthere was a sort of acceptance in his eyes. Remy winked and offered me asmile—and I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. I was a nonhuman. Maybe he’d beokay with the magic taking me out. Maybe he wouldn’t. I simply couldn’t readhim.

And Joe…Joe loved me, and mydeath, if it came, would hurt him. It would change him in a place the magiccouldn’t touch. His heart. I could only hope Max would be there for him. “HugMax for me,” I told him.

He frowned. “You’ll hug himyourself, Kaity Bug.”

It was funny, really, standingthere talking while behind us, Jared’s wolves fought the daywalkers who weretrying to break through to get to their charger, and the charger itself glowedand bulged and pulsed with a magic that would soon try to annihilate me.

Sam stood beside my mother, andhe was similar enough to me to maybe lend her a little comfort. And she knewme. She knew what I needed from her, what would make me smile, despite thehorror. She straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, and let me know thatshe, too, believed in me. “Kick ass, home skillet! And you,” she said, givingSam a little shove, “Get back over there and protect our ankle biter.”

They were all bloody, battered,injured. But it was nothing to them. They were used to it. “Fight thedarkness,” I told them. “If I can’t destroy it, you fight that darkness. In theworld, and in yourselves. Don’t let it win. Don’t let it change you.”

Remy was the one to reply. “Wewon’t, Silver,” he said. “Because we all know that you’ll always be somewherewatching us, and it doesn’t matter what you are. We don’t want to fuckingdisappoint you.”

For a second we exchangedgrins, hunter to hunter, and finally, I turned to the alpha. I pressed my bodyagainst his, allowing myself to falter for just a moment. He wrapped me up inhis arms and lifted me against his chest, shuddering when I pressed my lips tohis. “Keep them back, Jared,” I whispered finally into his ear. “Don’t let themtry to help me. They would die.”

“Don’t worry about them,” hetold me, his voice low, his stare fierce. “Kill the fucking thing, Kait, andlet’s go home.” But before he released me, he kissed me, hard and deep. “We’reforever. Don’t forget that, no matter what happens.” He took my hand and heldit against his chest, right over his heart. “I will be with you in this fight.”

“I love you,” I told him. Isaid no more, because really, there was nothing more to say. He released me,and finally, it was just me and the magic.

I shut everything out andturned to face it. Behind it, almost as though she were floating in the silverflames of the magic, stood Nicole, my angel.

I knew why she was there.

“You’re not getting me today,”I told her.

Then I shoved my thoughts awayand let my instincts guide me. I raced toward the enemy, my arms pumping, myheart pounding, and I called everything inside me to rise up and help me in mybattle.

And everything inside me came.

I thought it might kill me withthe rush of power that tore through me like lightning and fire, unendingblackness and blinding light, and suddenly, I was everything I needed to be.

Everything.

That would have to be enough.

I leaped, flew through the air,and the very second before I dropped into the middle of that massive, pulsatingorb of magic, I felt it burn the flesh from my bones. Or maybe that was my ownmagic doing that.

Regardless, when it opened itsmouth and swallowed me,devouredme, I was as it was.

Sheer power.

I landed hard enough to shakethe floor, and it was like falling from a great height. It seemed like my bonesshattered, then reknit immediately. I’d experienced a fall worse than that,though, after Lucas the angel had taken me high into the sky, and this onedidn’t scramble my brain. Good thing, because the power was a monster, athinking, breathing, incredibly powerful monster, and I was in its belly.

And I had no time at all toregroup.

My demon blade was in my righthand, and my magic swirled around it, lending whatever extra power it mightneed. My left hand held a different magic, one that was both familiar andstrange, but power wasn’t in my hands alone. It was in every part of me—I justhad to direct it.

It came through my eyes, mymouth, my hair, even. I was made up of power from everyone I’d ever touched orkilled, and I would use every drop of it.

I would have to, for I felt thepower in the world of magic surrounding me, and it was terrible. Not only wasit created from the vampires, but from the daywalkers, as well. It was like Istood in the center of the sun, and it blinded me even as it burned my verybones.

It was made up of the demons,too, and that added a whole different kind of fire. The evil fell upon me, andit had teeth and claws and wanted to destroy not just me, but the world. It wasmade up of demons, and humans. There was awful, soul-crushing power, and Ididn’t have a name for it. I stood in a vortex of madness, and I doubted mymind could withstand it.

And maybe most frightening ofall, I felt the magic of the council. Of the elders. How or why that hadhappened was not something I could even guess at. It just was. But it made mewonder—whose side was the council really on? Had their magic been stolen, orgiven?

How could I possibly fightthat?

The enemy battered me, wrappedme in massive fists and squeezed the breath from me, reached inside me to ripme apart. And I burned, and burned, and burned.