The Hunter pales. “You killed her? Why?”
“Does it matter? What exactly were you intending on doing with her?”
He shakes his head and now I am intrigued. I don’t think he was here to harm her, more like to save her.
“She was an old pro. I can see why you would have been swayed.” I laugh at him just to twist the knife even more.
“Silence, filthy creature!” he bellows at me, clutching at the gate and getting electrocuted in the process.
“Fuck off,” I say jovially, now unconcerned about him, but I don’t turn my back on him. I watch him seethe for a few seconds before he clamps his lips together and does exactly that. “Interesting,” I mutter to Thia who is gurgling away and rooting around my breast. She is hungry, but sadly I have nothing to feed her with. “Dammit.”
I sit on a nearby wooden bench and jiggle her gently, tapping my foot and wondering what the Hell I am supposed to do now. The ground underneath my impatient feet shakes and I gulp.
Wait. Definitely wait.
As I sit here, I suddenly get assaulted by a barrage of flaming arrows coming over the top of the wall.
“What the…” I look up and then duck as one comes through the ward and straight toward us. “How is that possible?” I ask Thia, but of course I don’t receive an answer. Instead, we disappear in a shimmer of bright light to the opposite side of the castle. “Err…” I glance around, unsure of who moved us. Sure wasn’t me that did the transporting. I look down at Thia, who is giggling in delight and I gape at her. “You? You moved us?” The thought makes me so proud, but also a little scared. She could move herself to anywhere in the World and we wouldn’t be able to find her. Shit.
“Arathia needs to be careful,” I croon at her. “Yes, she does.” I rock her with a bit more gusto now as she is getting hungrier by the second. This is ridiculous. Surely, things aren’t t
hat bad in there? Note my hesitation. Who knows what’s going on, because I am out here hiding like a child? Okay, with my child, but still. It burns.
“Do you think you can protect Mama?” I ask her, not really expecting a response. Of course, it shocks me when she erects a force field around us that glows a deep, pretty pink. “Wow.” I am amazed. “You are just perfect, aren’t you?”
Thia beams with pride as if she knows what I am talking about, and then without warning she Astrals us inside the castle, right into the thick of the action. And by action, I mean CK, using all of his power to hold Rosalina in mid-air, while he tortures the life out of her.
“No!” I shout at him. But he ignores me. “CK!”
All I get back is the cries of agony from Rosalina and I run. I make it past Devon and Lincoln, who are still holding their own against the Clerics, up the stairs where I place Thia in her crib and tell her in no uncertain terms to not drop the shield. I back away slowly and it holds. I hover for a few more seconds, just in case, but she seems to know exactly what she is doing. Clever girl. I waver for just a second, not wanting to leave her, but she’s got this. CK needs me to talk him down or he is going to kill his sister.
I race back downstairs and to my relief the Clerics have been subdued. I get a thrill shooting down my spine when I see that Lincoln has one of them by the throat, and that Devon has the other one in much the same lock. I shake it off as the gory sight isn’t supposed to excite me. But it does. I want to stop and bathe in the blood spilling over the stone floor.
Only Rosalina’s wails bring me back to myself and with a lurch, I make myself move forward. Why, all of a sudden, do I feel so blood-thirsty?
“Constantine, don’t do this,” I say to him, but even I can hear the hollowness of my words.
“I won’t let her take my daughter!” he shouts out and it hits home, stabbing me in the chest. Why am I so prepared to defend the woman who not only raised my killer, but now wants to steal my daughter to replace her?
“Do it,” I say quietly, but he can hear it as loud as if I had shouted it in his ear.
I stand back and watch as he funnels another load of power into her body and she shakes uncontrollably. Her screams echo throughout the castle and then she slumps in mid-air, hovering like a macabre piñata in the library.
Chapter 5
Ponte, Italy, January 2015 - Aefre
CK lets the magick go and Rosalina drops to the floor with a horrible thump. I go to him immediately, but he is like a statue.
“You did what you had to,” I murmur to him.
“I know that,” he says, coming to life and turning away from me. “Do you?”
The query is in his eyes. He needs to make sure that I understand what he did.
“Completely. She was threat to Arathia. We cannot tolerate that,” I say steadily.
His eyes fill with love for a brief moment as I give him his absolution, but then he brushes it off and he is back to business. “I need to deal with this.”