“I need you right now. I need you to come back to me,” I whispered.
All hell had broken loose outside, and I needed him to come with me willingly, but if he didn’t, I was willing to drag him kicking and screaming.
“Lily.” He seemed to see me with new eyes, and the swelling and active bleeding were washed away as my healing light grazed his face.
“Liam,” I sighed in relief and leaned forward, pressing a brief kiss to his lips.
Removing my hands, I stood and hauled him up. “Do you know where the crystals are?” I asked, wondering if we had time to go after them.
He winced as he stood and then nodded, eyes wide and full of fear. “They were going to use me for a spell… a sacrificial offering to bury the crystals deep in the earth, creating a grid. One that could never be dug up.”
What the, what, did he just say? Sacrificial offering made goosebumps break out onto my skin.
“Why haven’t they?”
Liam coughed, clutching his ribs. Clearly, I’d healed his face but needed to spend more time on his internal injuries. “It needs to be a willing sacrifice for the magic to work.”
Well, thank the fae for that. It explained why he was so beaten. They’d tried to get him to submit. I shivered at the thought.
“Alright, let’s—”
My words were cut off when Liam reached out and grabbed my upper arms, yanking me forward and then to the side as we both crashed to the ground. A green fluorescent ball of magic splashed across the wall where I’d just been standing, and my gaze flicked up to see Chrysanthemum.
The witch held both hands out as she grinned ferally. Her black, stringy hair hung at her sides in clumps. She looked worse for wear. Maybe Liam had worn her down while she’d interrogated him.
Without waiting for another attack, I lurched to my feet and stood before Liam protectively. She tortured him! I was going to tear her limb from limb. Reeling her arm back, she threw a ball of green magic at the same time that I thrust my hands out and shot sunlight to combat her. Her magic and mine met in the air and exploded like tons of tiny stars. I thrust my palms out, whipping my magic into her like a gale-force wind, but she must have done some protection spell because I heard her mutter under her breath as she stayed planted to the ground. I felt Liam stand behind me, but I was worried about him using any of his powers to fight her off while he still needed that energy to heal.
“I’ve got this!” I told him, advancing on Chrys with a glare.
She grinned. “Oh, honey, you can’t just become Queen overnight and expect to know what you’re doing with all that power.” She pointed to my chest as if she could see the power contained within me.
The electric current of power that was coursing through me at any given time was effortless like dipping my hand into a puddle or stream. I didn’t need to pull for it or strain to grasp it, but I did now. I yanked that power toward me, feeling it reverberate in my chest, and then threw everything I had at her. She grinned, throwing some type of shield up as visible sparks of yellow light exploded against her shield. I was so busy getting frustrated over my inability to just kill her like I wanted that I didn’t notice the green magic until it crashed into my stomach.
“Lily!” Liam cried out, and a wall of ice came between me and the witch, shielding me as I fell to the ground, heaving and feeling on the verge of vomiting.
What did she do? Melt my insides? Poison me? Make me go bald? Who knew what she just hit me with? I waited for the effects to show up, but other than feeling like I’d been punched in the gut, nothing happened.
Standing on shaky feet, I let the full weight of my fury settle into my bones.
Maybe I was just playing at the whole Queen thing, still learning and doing things by trial and error, but I was still going to wipe the floor with this bitch.
“Drop the ice,” I growled to Liam, pulling both of my throwing daggers from my thigh holsters.
She cackled from the other side of the ice, and Liam did as I asked. The ice went from a solid six-inch wall to powdered snow in moments, and that’s when I struck.
With one hand, I threw a dagger at the wall about two feet from her face, purposefully missing. Her eyes followed it for a fraction of a second, and that’s when I threw the other dagger, along with a sunlight bomb. The knife slid into her neck a fraction of a second before the sunlight burst over her skin, lighting her on fire. The stairs splintered into chunks of wood as the explosion rocked the house.
Heat blasted outward, and Liam and I had to stumble back a few feet so that we wouldn’t be burned.
“Holy shit, Lily,” Liam breathed. “You got the Queen’s power.”
Yeah… I did.
With a horrifying wet gurgle, the witch screamed, clawing at her skin as she burned alive, and I knew it was time to leave. Without a word, Liam and I kicked off the ground, flying up into the air. Ducking our heads under the overhang, we flew up the stairwell and back into the house.
“Let’s just go. I don’t want anyone to get hurt,” I told Liam. I could come back for the crystals later after I dropped Liam off with Kira and we regrouped.
He landed in the living room of the house, shaking his head. “It’s now or never. All the crystals have turned dark, and he’s burying them. If he didn’t
