Page 132 of Bedeviled

“Murderer,” she says, echoing the very words the Hungering Ones used to sometimes whisper to me.

Black dots appear at the edges of my vision.

A sound is working its way up my throat. With a cry, I lunge forward and shove my blades into Eislyn’s gut.

The fairy shrieks, stumbling back into my computer chair. Gone is that ethereal beauty—when she glances up at me, her sharp cruelty has taken over her features.

“Yeah,” I rasp out. And then I bring up a booted foot and kick her right in her injury. “I am.”

She slides from the chair and collapses on the ground. I stalk after her, something ancient and ruthless welling up in me.

She lifts a hand.

Something slams into my head, Nero snarls, and then it all goes dark.

CHAPTER 29

“Brave, foolish woman…” The words are spoken in Sarmatian with such familiar sweetness.

My eyes flutter open, and my throat works as I stare up at Memnon, who cradles me in his arms and smooths my hair back, his eyes flickering.

“There you are,” he says affectionately. “Fighting our immortal enemy. Drinking her wine,” he emphasizes, giving me a look.

My cheeks heat. Now that Eislyn is gone, I feel sheepish to have done something so brazen, especially when I know better. She is capable of atrocious things. But at the very least, the distracting tingling in my veins has settled.

I press my hand over his, trapping it against my face, even as a little of my pale orange magic seeps out, shimmering as it drifts past my eyes. “What happened?” I ask dazedly.

“Judging by the state you’re in, I imagine you fought her,” Memnon says.

My eyes move over my soul mate’s face, and I notice a smudge of blood over his eyebrow.

I draw in a sharp breath. “You’re hurt,” I say, alarmed.

I reach for his wound. As I move, however, I feel something sticky tug at the back of my head.

“I’m not hurt,” Memnon says as I reach back to touch my hair. “You are.”

My fingers come away red. And now I very, very dimly sense Memnon’s anger, and again I see his power flicker, then linger in his eyes for several seconds before snuffing out again.

“She has terrorized us for the last time,” Memnon says, iron in his voice.

“I had her right here.” My gaze drifts a little as I speak. “I could’ve ended her, but I⁠—”

My words fail me entirely when I see Nero lying in a pool of his own blood on the ground next to me.

A choked cry leaves my lips as I lunge for him.

“Wait—wait,” Memnon says gently, catching me. “I’ve patched him up. He’s fine, just sleeping off his blood loss.”

I frown, staring at my familiar, my body trembling. I had meant to take him away from Henbane, where it wasn’t safe for him. I’d been too slow, and once again, my fearsome, loyal panther paid for it.

I reach out and run a hand over his fur, blinking back tears as I stack my mistakes up in my mind.

“She let me live,” I say, more to myself than Memnon.

That’s the strangest part of all of this. Eislyn, who had attempted twice to kill me in the deep past and who had all but confirmed she sent demons after me and my coven sisters, decided not to kill me when I lay here unconscious. I don’t believe she did so out of the goodness of her heart.

I would kill you now if I wouldn’t so relish a better death for you, she’d said.