Page 220 of Bedeviled

Hold fast, Empress, Memnon calls from down our bond, and he sounds victorious. I’m coming.

I smile at Eislyn. “Your people have already been stopped at the palace. Your efforts today were in vain.”

Her expression is unreadable once more, and yet I’m sure I’ve gotten under her skin.

“They won’t be in vain so long as you end up dead,” she says, her eyes glinting. “Then I will make it my life’s mission to bond Memnon to me once more. And when I do,” she says, leaning forward, “I’ll make it a hobby of mine to fuck him over your grave.”

Now that pisses me off.

Lifting a booted foot, I kick her square in the chest, shoving her back. I hear the air leave her as she hits the ground.

What little power I have left in me, I gather in my hand. I lift my palm to her.

“Annihilate.”

She rolls just in time, and the spell explodes next to her, carving a crater into the ground and sending mud flying in all directions. It splatters against that perfect hair and that perfect skin of hers, just as bits of it speckle my clothes and skin.

Releasing her hold on her sword, she reaches behind her back. When she withdraws a small gun, I freeze for an instant. The sight of it is incongruous. Supernaturals fight with blades and magic, not guns.

Then reality catches up to me, and I dive.

BOOM!

My body jerks as I hit the ground, and it feels like my chest is caving in, but the ward holds strong⁠—

BOOM! BOOM!

Again and again my body spasms.

BOOM!

I choke as a bullet tears through my chest. I can’t tell what it’s hit, but I can barely breathe around the fire that’s consuming my entire upper torso.

SELENE! Memnon’s voice is an infernal roar as my free hand goes to my chest. Warm blood slips between my fingers, and I stare at it in horror.

Empress… The Hungering Ones rouse as my blood hits the earth.

We can sense you…taste you…

More…we want mooore…

Eislyn rises to her feet and levels the gun at my head.

I release a shaky breath as I stare down the barrel, not daring to cut my eyes away from it, even when I see the shadow behind her stalk forward.

She has no final words for me. She doesn’t waste her breath gloating before I see her trigger finger move.

Nero leaps onto her back, sinking his teeth into her neck.

Eislyn screams.

BOOM!

My hair stirs as the bullet whizzes past my head.

I barely have a moment to register that I haven’t actually been hit when Eislyn’s own scream fills the air.

The fairy aims the gun over her shoulder.