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Katie’s POVThe void around her shrieked in response, twisting in agony, folding back on itself to protect its mistress.“You cannot kill me!” Celeste’s voice howled as her body began to fragment into shards of dark glass. “You can’t kill what’s eternal!”“Maybe not,” Victoria spat, flames wreathing her hands, “..but I can hurt you enough to make you crawl.”She brought her hands together—an explosion of white-gold light engulfed them both. The shockwave rippled across the battlefield, flattening debris, cracking stone, and forcing the rest of us to shield our eyes. Even made the void glitch for a couple of seconds.When the glare faded, Celeste was gone—her laughter echoing faintly as she slipped back into the void, her voice thinner, weaker. “You burn so bright, little one. I wonder… how long before you consume yourself?”Victoria staggered. Her knees buckled, and Vlad caught her just before she fell.“I told you,” she rasped, chest heaving. “She talks too much.”Vlad didn’t reply,
Katie's POVDraven’s laughter lingered in the air long after the sound faded, like poison still clinging to the lungs. Every instinct in me screamed to run, to pull Vlad back from the way his shadows surged toward the tear—but I knew better. He wouldn’t retreat.Not with Draven here. Not with the threads still pulsing faintly around us like veins feeding into something larger. And now it is becoming more and more visible to our naked eye.The void shimmered behind Draven’s shoulders, deep and endless, an ocean of nothing. The edges of it bled smoke and fire—Celeste’s fire, that cruel, cold flame that burned without warmth.“She’s clever,” Draven purred, as if reading my thoughts. “You should’ve seen how beautifully she fractured this place. A thousand little cracks, and all I had to do was… hmm, widen them.” And then the asshole had the gall to wink!Vlad’s dark red shadows spiked, but his voice was iron. “Where is he?”Draven tilted his head, feigning confusion. “Who?”“The King.” V
Katie's POV Our current surroundings stank of char, sweat, and blood. My head throbbed in rhythm with the chaos that had just ended, though the silence afterward was almost worse. The silence gave room for everything we’d seen to take root — Celeste’s face, Draven’s taunts, Victoria nearly going up in flames.But for now, the fire was gone. Tori sagged against her twin’s steady shoulder, chest heaving, and though her eyes were still bright with fury, her hands had stopped trembling.Vlad was the only one who hadn’t allowed himself to falter. His red shadows had receded, his glyphs dimmed, but his stance was still that of a king holding his line — head high, shoulders unbowed, even though I knew every muscle of his body was taut with restraint.I reached toward him without thinking. My hand brushed his, and only then did I realize how badly I wanted to anchor myself to him.He squeezed once — brief, almost hidden — before turning back to the others.“Regroup,” Vlad commanded. His voic
Katie's POV The battlefield was a wreck—blood-slick ground, splintered stone, smoke curling from half-burnt banners. My pulse still hadn’t slowed from Draven’s last taunt, but the air was finally—mercifully—free of his presence. Vladimyr’s shadowed aura was pulling back, the glyphs across his skin dimming, though his grip on my arm hadn’t loosened.We were still standing in that tense quiet when a shimmer tore the air in front of us—light bending, distorting, before snapping back into place.Two figures stepped out of it like they’d just walked through a doorway instead of a tear in reality.And of course it is Tori and Rori.They both froze when they took in the scene—Vlad’s jaw bloodied, my shirt slashed and stained, Fenrir clutching his side, Sebastian’s shoulder hanging at an awkward angle.Victoria’s eyes—sharp amber, brighter than the fire licking at the edges of her aura—landed on Fenrir first. But when her gaze swept to Sebastian, she stopped cold. The air between us seemed t
Katie's POV The “black” wasn’t unconsciousness.It was instinct.Reflex.Before Draven’s fingers could close around me, I rolled hard to the left, boots catching on the torn edge of the tent floor. My hand was already at my belt. The familiar weight of my titanium whips slid into my grip with a comforting hiss.A snap of my wrist and the first coil lashed toward him, catching the faint light as it split the air. He stepped back, faster than I wanted, but I still caught the edge of his coat. The metal tips sparked against whatever enchantment he’d lined it with.He laughed—low and rich, like we were sparring instead of dancing on the knife’s edge of murder.“Ah. The little wolf bites back.”“Bite this,” I spat, spinning into a low crouch. My dagger came free from my boot and I launched it at his throat.The blade should’ve buried itself in flesh. Instead, it stopped mid-air, quivering as if an invisible hand had plucked it from its path. His eyes darkened further, like I’d just given
Katie's POVThe world returned to me in fragments—heat at my side, the faint scent of iron, the ragged thump of a heartbeat that wasn’t my own.I expected the first thing I’d hear to be Vladimyr’s voice, low and scathing, ready to tear into me for waking at the wrong time or for stepping into his fight and not just staying behind to watch over our people.But instead…Fingers brushed my cheek. Not harshly. Not to check for wounds like a commander inspecting his soldier, but soft—almost reverent.“Easy, my heart,” he murmured, as though afraid the sound might splinter me. “You’re safe.”Safe..I blinked up at him, confused. His hair was a wild mess from the battle just seconds ago. There was blood drying along his jawline, and the faint red glow in his eyes told me Lucifer hadn’t gone entirely back to sleep. As if that devil of mine would.By all logic, this should be the moment he lectured me until sunrise.Instead, he held me like I might vanish if he let go.“You should be furious,”