'You can fool yourself but you can't fool me.
You're horrible. You sent Dax to kill me. You don't want to kill me here, where my father can sense it, but you're fine with killing me at home. You failed. Dax failed, because I turned Darkling and kicked his butt.'
Her expression tightened. 'I would have liked to have known that earlier, but it doesn't matter anymore. In a few short moments you'll be-' She tilted her head to study me. 'What is happening to your eyes?'
'My eyes?' I raised a hand in front of my face and saw the red glow reflecting off it, then I looked back at her. 'Nothing out of the ordinary.'
She looked so confused then. 'What is going on?'
'I guess you could say that I have my father's eyes.' I looked down at him. He, too, looked confused, but then the realization of what I had done must have dawned on him. He squeezed my hand.
Elizabeth shook her head. 'I don't understand. You drank the potion. I saw you. Your Darkling should be destroyed by now. You should be forgetting everything.' She looked at her brother. 'The potion. Did you give her a placebo? It wasn't a real potion at all?'
'No, it was very real,' he said.
I breathed out and concentrated all of my energy on my dragon's tear bracelet. My father had given it to me to help focus and control my powers. It had worked with breaking open the door to the dark room my aunt had locked me inside and it was helping me now.
My canine teeth began to elongate and sharpen. 'I told you I wasn't going to drink the potion, but I didn't tell you that I'd actually made that decision earlier.
You're the one who told me to trust my heart and that's exactly what I've been doing all this time. Trusting my heart. And my heart told me to flush the potion down the toilet at my Winter Formal. I filled the vial with fruit punch and that's what I just drank. When I saw it was the exact same color I decided it was fate. I'm believing in fate a lot lately.'
She held a hand up to her mouth as she watched me painlessly shift to my Darkling form, an expression of disbelief and shock turning her beautiful face ugly.
My black wings unfurled behind me and I felt my father's weak gaze on me. I looked down at him. 'I thought I'd hate you when I met you. But I didn't know who you really were and what happened so long ago to make you leave us. I love you and I'd never destroy the part of me that makes me your daughter.'
He smiled up at me. 'You make a beautiful Darkling.'
'Princess, watch out!' Michael yelled.
I looked up to see Elizabeth lunging for me, her own talons extended and aimed directly for my throat.
Despite her initial attempts to stay calm and collected on the surface, my aunt had now brought forth her demon form to try to rip out my throat.
She grabbed hold of me and we went flying over to the far side of the room.
Her skin was now leathery, but not black as my father's was-instead, hers was a dark red. Her ears were almost as sharp as her black, spiraling horns.
She glared out at me through red slitted eyes. Her chest had sunken in and I could see her ribs, as if only a skeleton was covered by the red skin underneath her dress. Her black lips peeled back from her razor-sharp teeth and she hissed at me.
While I looked half demon and half me in Darkling form, Elizabeth was definitely fully demonic-and scary as hell.
'Shouldn't have done that.' Her voice was dry and edged with violence. I tried to hold her back but I felt the edge of her talons scrape against my throat.
'Should have done what I said. It didn't have to end this way.'
'You're evil,' I managed to say through clenched teeth.
'You're only sixteen. You don't know what evil truly is.'
'You know what? I don't think I ever would have been clued in if I hadn't spoken to your boyfriend,' I hissed. 'He's so transparent. But even then it didn't matter. I'd already flushed the potion. Where's the antidote, Elizabeth?'
Her eyes narrowed. 'You're a fighter.' 'If I have to be.'
I managed to grab her arms and hold her back, stumbling away from the side of the bed. She was so strong. One of her talons moved to scratch my shoulder and the pain was intense, but I forced myself to ignore it. If I let my concentration slip, the next talon would go through my jugular.
And then Michael was there, trying to drag Elizabeth off of me. 'Leave Nikki alone!'
His eyes flashed as green as his amulet and I could sense he was summoning power to blast her away from me, like he'd done with Dax yesterday in the park. But before he had the chance, Elizabeth whipped her head up to glare at him and with a shove she effortlessly threw him across the room. He was up on his feet in a flash and came right back at her.
'No, Michael-be careful!'
His expression was fierce as he attempted to protect me, but he was still weak from losing form earlier. Elizabeth grabbed him by his T-shirt.
'Love hurts, doesn't it?' She threw him to the side even harder than before. He hit the wall and slid down to the floor in a heap. He wasn't moving and his eyes were closed.
'Michael!' I yelled, fear twisting inside me. I wasn't sure if he was unconscious, or injured, or. . dead.
Elizabeth's attention returned to me. 'Your Shadow is weak, Nikki. He can't protect you anymore.'
My moment of distraction had given her the chance to curl her taloned, leathery hands around my throat. Her red eyes glittered.
'Let go of her, Elizabeth,' my father growled. He'd forced himself up to a sitting position in his bed. 'I'm warn- ing you… if you harm her, you'll be the one who dies today.'
Her lip curled back from her sharp teeth. 'You have no power anymore, Desmond. I can't be stopped now.' She shook her head. 'She won't be queen.
She's not capable of it-it's impossible. She's too young. Too human.'
I felt the life being squeezed out of me. She was choking me.
'Please,' he said, and now his words were less fierce as his strength faded again. 'Let her go. I beg you, Elizabeth. Don't hurt her.'
I didn't want to die. But the air was being squeezed from my body. She was so strong. Stronger than me.
I was scared.
'Darklings don't fear anyone or anything,' the king of the faery realm had told me in the forest. I'd seen the fear in his eyes.
And in the field Dax had confided that Elizabeth was afraid of me, even before she knew I'd been able to turn Darkling.
I gasped for breath, but I tried to concentrate. I tried to look past the fury and the rage I saw in Elizabeth's red eyes. I looked past it and deep inside all I could see was fear.
I clutched at her wrists and my hands glowed red. Her brow lowered. I focused a line of energy through my hands and she jumped back from me, much like I'd jumped back from Michael's amulet.
'You're afraid of me,' I gasped, holding a hand to my nearly crushed throat.
'I'm not.' The look in her eyes betrayed the truth. 'You're the only one standing in my way. Your father can't help you. Your Shadow can't help you. Nobody can help you now.'
'You're wrong.' I clenched my fists. 'I can help me.'
'Dax,' Elizabeth barked. 'Please restrain her.'
She looked over but Dax had left the room completely. I hadn't even noticed when he ran away but I wasn't all that surprised. He'd lied to Elizabeth about my turning Darkling-or at the very least, he'd withheld information from her-and he would have expected a serious punishment after that. Obviously he didn't want to stick around to
