Page 60 of Beautiful Madness

There were no words for thatsort of agony.

But then my wolf was there, andI shifted in a way I had never shifted before. I was both the human and thewolf, and that was how I fought. I couldn’t see myself, so I didn’t know whatmy physical body looked like, but I believed I looked like a mixture of both.

For some reason, the image ofmyself looking like a tall, half-wolf, half-woman creature took away my fear.And finally, with the terror gone, there was only rage. And I could work withthat.

Ibecame the terror.

The enemy power seemed to feelit, then, and it became even more, pieces of magic breaking off to change intofigures of people and creatures, dozens of them, attacking me from all sideswith white and silver blades, fangs, claws.

There was no time to think. Isimply reacted. I moved faster than I ever had, faster even than I thought waspossible, and with each streak of power I flung, each slice of my blade, Ibecame stronger.

I was hurt—that was anindisputable fact. I was injured so badly that I shouldn’t have been standing,let alone fighting. I embraced the pain, absorbed it, looked at it as a curioussort of background noise, and I fought through it.

As I spun and cut and batteredwith my power, I began to feel something else. The thoughts of the enemy I wasinside. I began to see people who were dead. I fought those people. Axton, AvisVine, the seer Kaloni. They were there, and not just as white forms and puffsof shaped magic, but as flesh and blood. I cut them, and they bled. They cutme, and I bled.

They rushed from the walls ofthat swirling power, whole again, at least to me.

I cut them down. I killed them.

But the fuckers didn’t staydead.

The demon came. “I’ve come formy blade,” he roared, shoving spears of fire down my throat. He died, as well, whenI screamed with the voice of an angel and thrust my blade into his heart.

And he came back. They all cameback.

I had no concept of time, butwhen I caught a glimpse of the watchers outside the circle of power, I sawBastien. I saw all the vampires. They’d come with the night, but they could nothelp me.

Wolf stood with vampire, humanstood with nonhuman, and they all watched, and I could feel their huge blackhorror. They wanted to fight. They wanted to help me.

They could not help me, notyet—but I knew that because I could see through it, the power surrounding mewas weakening.

I fought on, because the onlyother choice was to die, and I would not die. I would kill the enemy. That wasmy purpose, and I couldn’t fail. If I did, my mother would die. My alpha woulddie. My friends would die. And eventually, all of humanity would die as thedaywalkers thrived, spread, and devoured.

And that renewed my strength.

Finally, I cut out the heart ofFrederick Axton, and his body exploded into dust, and he didn’t come back. Iwas edging away from the enemy. I was winning. The magic surrounding me beganto waver. To weaken further.

I couldfeelit.

I swelled with renewed energy,victory so close I could taste it, and I whirled to send a killing blast ofmagic into the zillionth Kaloni’s heart when the collective power of the circledecided to fight dirty.

The circle pulsed with laughterand whispers of glee from a thousand voices, and then, my father stepped fromthe wall of white power.

From the moment he’d died, I’dlived with the hope that his spirit would show itself to me. It didn’t matterwhat anyone said, or what he’d done, or how my emotions might have vacillatedbetween anger, disgust, pain, or love.

He was my father. I’d watched himdie. I’d carried the heavy, burdensome, useless guilt for not saving him, and I’dneeded one last moment for so very long. And now that wish was being handed tome.

He held up a hand, as though hebelieved I might try to kill him. And when I stuttered to a stop, able only tostare, he opened his arms.

“Sweetheart. Oh, my sweetheart.At last.”

I trembled, I burst into sobs,and my heart shattered, even as the power, the enemy, and the ones outside thecircle watched.

And finally, I was not alone—butonly because in my moment of weakness, Lucy found a way in. She reached out tome, and she slipped into my mind.

“Kait. Don’t. That is not yourfather.”

But I knew better. I knew itwas my father. His spirit, true, but still my father. “Dad,” I cried. “Dad.Forgive me.”