Scorched

He placed one long finger on her chin. “You took it. You shed your blood on my box. It always tells me who steals my treasures.”

Constance met his eyes, shame flooding her body. “I confess I did it, but Mac has the key. He used it to unlock Sylvius’s chains.”

Atreus let his hand drop. “The key is the only tool in the Castle that can circumvent silver chains. Then the guardsmen have it, I am trapped, and all is lost.”

I won’t believe that! Gritting her teeth, Constance reached over, grabbed the bar that held the chains, and yanked it from its moorings. “Then we cheat.”

Mac surrendered to his demon. He meant to turn to dust. Instead, he burst into flame.

Bran reeled back, shock blanking his expression. Mac levered himself up, grabbing the sword someone had dropped when the door to Atreus’s cage fell from the ceiling. Flames licked down the length of the blade, making it one with Mac’s hand.

Then his mind went empty. All his demon was meant for, designed for, was to fight.

He took a step forward, and it became a killing dance. Suddenly, his body was immune to pain, immune to the fatigue of carrying Reynard, to blood loss, to the knowledge that he was one against the entire force of guards.

With a sweep of the sword, Bran was dead, his reactions too slowed by the euphoria of Sylvius’s blood to even block Mac’s blow. And then the sorcerer leading the ritual. Wherever the sword touched, flames burrowed, their searing, intimate touch making sure no healing followed. Blood puddled where they fell. The others fell back.

Mac followed, and then flames followed as he scythed through his attackers. He was pure demon. He didn’t feel joy, revulsion, elation, or pity—just satisfaction, like a thirst finally quenched. It was the pure poetry of combat, violence stripped of excuses. No honor. No grudges. Just the killing act.

Perhaps this was what Reynard had meant when he said Mac’s demon would eventually get the upper hand. He was fire. Brutal. Cleansing. Mac gave the spell to restore the Avatar many deaths to feed on, fulfilling the words that he himself had spoken at the council.

Conscious only of cut and thrust, of the geometry of the sword, Mac moved around and around the pack of guardsmen. It seemed to swell only to have him mow through it again. That was fine with Mac. To the demon, one guard was much like the next.

The smart ones went looking for weapons that could be used from a distance. An arrow nicked him. The two he had already taken were slowing him down. He could feel his own blood beneath his shoes, slippery, treacherous. Though he felt no weakness or pain, his injuries were still taking their toll.

Invincibility, even in a demon, is illusion. There is always a way to die.

The whole place stank of magic from the pond. It was growing thicker by the moment, egging him on, feeding his killing trance. Only his darker side remained, burning to sear away every trace of the guardsmen and their ritual.

Even swallowed up by the demon, Mac tried to protect the one he loved and the ones she loved. Though many fell, Sylvius remained safe, untouched, and secure.

But in the end, there were too many enemies, even for a warrior made of fire. Already wounded, bleeding out, his energy consumed by bright flames, Mac couldn’t watch everywhere at once.

Death surprised Mac for the moment it took him to die.

Constance tore the bar from the cage and let it drop, as she had the door, on an advancing guardsman. The links that bound the cuffs together dangled free with a sinuous, snakelike motion.

Atreus stretched out his arms, testing the play of the chain. “Brave, Constance, but it is still not enough.”

“What do I need to do?”

“Silver drains my power and defies your strength.”

She’d heard that part already. She grabbed his wrist, twisting the cuff around so she could see how it closed. “I have a knife. Maybe I can pick the lock.”

“That would take time.”

Constance glanced down. Sylvius had crawled away and was hiding beneath the scaffold, away from trampling feet. With a sick lurch, she saw the trail of blood he had left in his wake.

Then she nearly fell out between the gap-toothed bars. Horror and wonderment hit her like strong liquor, forcing her to grab the cage for support.

Mac had become a creature of fire. A halo of pale flames covered him like a second skin, moving and swirling as he fought. She watched him dodge and thrust, his big, strong body lithe and quick as the blaze itself. Mac, what have you done?

“He has become his demon, a perfect killer,” Atreus said, answering her silent question.

No. The man I love is still in there. And if he was going to stay in one piece, the battle had to end. Now. There were too many guards for even a demon to fight.

There was no doubt he needed Atreus’s help.

Defiantly, Constance slid her thin fingers beneath the rim of the silver cuff, pulling the hinges apart. The edges of the silver cut into her skin, coating the metal with slick blood. Her grip slid.

“This is useless,” Atreus snapped. “If these shackles could be so easily bent, no one would bother making silver chains!”

“Let me try!” she snarled back. She resettled her grip, closed her eyes, and threw all the force of her vampire strength behind it. Please! Please!

She strained, ducking her head and using her shoulders. The hinge pin snapped, allowing the cuff to bend. Atreus pulled his arm out of her bloodied fingers and ripped at the metal.

“Huh,” he said, clearly annoyed she’d proved him wrong. Immediately, he brightened. “This silver can’t be pure. Of course you can get the better of it, my girl!” One hand now free, he held out the other, his black eyes bright as stars. “Break the other. Bless you for claiming your vampire blood, Constance, you’ve saved us.”

Now filled with confidence, she had the second cuff off in a moment. Atreus hurled the chains out of the cage, stretching out his arms in triumph. Constance felt the rush of his gathering power. It seemed to swirl around them, whistling through the bars as it gained speed.

Sylvius, Mac, we’re coming!

She moved to jump out from where the door had been and launch herself down below, but Atreus caught her sleeve. “Stay one moment,” he said, barely turning his head. “It’s safer here.”

Constance stiffened, something in his words sounding ominous. “What do you mean?”

His attention was fixed on the knot of guardsmen below, Mac burning bright among them. “The guards will never touch my son again.”

He rose to one knee, leaning out of the cage. The whoosh of energy grew to a cyclone, rife with a mad, restless energy so like Atreus himself.

Constance had wanted the sorcerer to help. Now she was suddenly terrified. I used my powers to free him. Did I make a terrible mistake?

“Stop!” she cried, but the word died in the sudden absence of air.

White lightning filled the cavernous hall, nowhere and everywhere at once. It flicked like the tongue of a serpent, touching pillars, the scaffold, the balcony where Constance had stood. She fell against the bars, flinging her arm over her eyes, praying Atreus could keep it from the metal cage.

Thunder cracked, shaking her through and through, rattling dust from the ceiling. She bit her tongue, the taste of blood confused with the smell of hot stone and the crisp tang of storms.

Atreus stood at the very edge of the cage door, conducting a rising wind as if it were a band of musicians. Blinded by tears from the brightness, Constance barely blinked her vision clear in time to see the lightning gather itself into a bright, throbbing glow, a single ball poised above the battle below. Her eyes sought Mac in the confusion of milling bodies.

All the guardsmen, including Mac, battled directly below the burning globe of energy.

“No!” she cried, grabbing at Atreus. “You’ll kill them all! You’ll kill Mac! You might kill Sylvius.”

But her words were lost in the funnel of wind that held the ball poised on a cushion of air. Anger rushed through her like Mac’s red-hot fire. Atreus was laughing. Constance jerked the sorcerer’s arm hard, forcing his