Crimson Truth (Onyx Assassins 4)

And when she’d come three times, I wrapped her in my jacket and carried her to our bedroom, where I started all over again.

20

Jocelyn

My heart beat with a steady, almost calm, rhythm as we waited outside the manner. The moon shone bright and full in the midnight sky, and it washed over my soul like the best kind of energy booster. My powers simmered in my veins, poised and ready to burst.

I should’ve been more nervous.

I should’ve been shaking with adrenaline or terror or a combination of both. We were about to go into battle, for Goddess’s sake, and aside from some one-on-one combat, I’d never been gearing up for anything of this scale in my life.

But, thanks to one of Luka’s well-placed werewolves intercepting a message, we knew the Sons were planning an attack on lycan territory tonight. And, thanks to my magic now being on steroids because of my new hybrid status, I’d been able to trace my mother without any effort, and she was on her way to Lycan territory too, just like we’d assumed.

And, even though we’d planned this and strategized it to death, it didn’t change the fact that any second we’d get a signal from Luka and I’d be wending to kill my mother.

Not my mother. She stopped being anything more than the witch queen the second she tried to shred me to pieces just for challenging her archaic approach to gain more power.

Fuck her. She’d regret ever trying to kill me, and if she so much as looked at Benedict the wrong way? Goddess, I’d make her suffer.

“Are you ready for this?” Benedict whispered in my ear. He’d already asked me the question a dozen times, and I answered him the same way each time.

I looked up at him, interlocking our fingers as I let him see the absolute calm over my face. Maybe I was some sort of twisted for not trembling with panic right now, or maybe all that would come later, but right now? All I was ready for was to get this over with. To ensure the safety of my new family, and my sister when it was all said and done.

“We’ll finish this,” I said. “Together.” I squeezed his hand for emphasis. He’d worshiped me all of last night, barely giving either of us time to breathe.

I could sense his worry through our bond, despite him knowing full well I could handle myself. And I couldn’t blame him, because I hated that he’d be in the line of fire tonight too. Not just with whatever the Sons’ brought in way of weapons, but from my mother. I had no idea if she was bringing any other witches with her or not, but if she did? It would certainly be more of a challenge.

Benedict nodding, and the rest of the Assassins and the Hunters who were with us adapted a lethal like calm that radiated on my skin. After tonight, things would change one way or the other.

I just hoped like hell they went the way we all had planned.

A sharp ring sounded from Alek’s leather jacket pocket, and the vampire king had the cell phone out before I could blink.

“It’s time,” he said, pocketing the cell phone, and my heart jumped a little.

Oh, hi there, panic. Nice of you to show up.

Benedict tugged me to his chest, and without so much as a whisper from the Assassins, we all wended.

We fell through space and creases in the night, slipping like shadows on the wind. There was a certain sort of peace in wending, a lulling energy that cradled the very being of my soul and whispered promises that everything was going to be all right.

Or maybe that was Benedict, speaking to me down the bond even as he wended us across territories.

My boots hit the soft grasses of lycan territory, and the second I blinked into reality, the breath stalled in my lungs.

Gunshots broke the quiet night air as more than forty humans stormed and charged against a line of five lycans, one of them easily recognizable as Luka with his intense black fur that almost looked blue in the moonlight.

Crackles of sharp energy and magic buzzed in blues and purples and greens, offering the humans—the Sons—shields or spears of power.

And standing on the high ground, wielding that magic?

Mommy dearest, flanked by Gemma Cricketfire and Norman Cornswallow. They all stood well away from the actual battle, choosing to hurt and kill from the safe distance of the high hills.

The sound of flesh tearing snapped my attention back to the battle—which the Assassins and Hunters had already joined—and I gaped at the scene. Luka was ripping apart the Sons one by one, tossing legs and arms over his shoulders like it was no more effort than pulling weeds up by their roots.