Page 387 of Commanding Blood And Bonds

My chest seared with effort as I patched the damage, but we were still in the wrong goddamned place. If this was going to work, we had to lure them east—at least two blocks. That was where Freya had set the trap.

The army marching up behind the Horsemen would flank our position before we even had a chance to hold ground.

Fire erupted beside me—bright orange and blessed white—but I kept my focus on Marlana. On the base of our barrier, where the ground was rotting to nothing.

“August,” Alec warned, voice tight.

“I see it,” I muttered, eyes locked on the spreading black.

And Ansel, clearly feeling the tension spike, snapped down the line: Hold.

We would not buckle before Freya was ready. Had to make it mean something.

Marlana hissed, Ally cursed—and Adrastos fucking laughed.

“It’s rather endearing,” he said, his voice syruped with mockery, “that you all think resistance matters.”

I anchored deeper into the earth, tapping into the shared well Ally and I had built, drawing on her full reserves. Alec’s grunt of pain mirrored the strain lancing through my spine, but before I could stabilize it⁠—

Moros’s eyes turned onyx.

Just like the serpent’s.

My skull screamed. Pain spindled behind my eyes, pressure needling into my temples like nails made of fire. He stepped forward, smiling like a butcher, and set his hand on the edge of our shield.

I cried out, knees hitting the dirt as the agony ripped through me, like he’d driven a jackhammer into my mind.

Mentalist! Alec roared down the line. Shields up—move your asses!

Remember. This quarter’s lost, Ansel snapped.

I shoved back against the pressure, breath hitching. The ink-black magic clawed at every line of my concentration. Nobody else dropped. Moros had zeroed in on me.

Good. Let the bastard focus on the anchor. Let someone else flank him while he tried to crack me open. He’d identified the source. Now he was trying to hollow it out.

Good luck, asshole.

Wait for it, I gritted through the bond, thoughts fraying under the weight of his assault. Wait for Freya. Wait for the signal. Hold the fucking line.

It would’ve been easier to believe in the plan if my brain wasn’t being pulverized like a walnut under a boot. If the silver-haired witch wasn’t molting at our feet.

Marlana hissed and tipped her head to the moonlight, her skin sloughing off like silk as she shed it—revealing something massive and terrible underneath.

The snake rose.

Towering.

“Motherfucker,” Ansel muttered as we watched her ascend, mouths agape. A grunt sounded to my left—Ally hitting the dirt, scrambling up again as Adrastos followed. She’d gotten free. Both of them squared off, ready for round two.

Fire erupted. A wall of it roared between us and them—blazing high as the moon, a barrier of heat and fury.

The ground quaked. The soldiers—every last one—snapped their heads toward the city.

Now, Ansel barked.

And though every instinct in me rebelled at leaving the humans behind—we jumped.

SEVENTY-ONE