DEVILS UNLEASHED
Igneous (adjective): of, relating to, or resembling fire.”
DAY 10, HOUR 10
Click. Click. Click.
The gold hardware on the kings’ ears levitated upward and separated into shards. Three gold crowns floated above their heads.
Snow whipped around them in a frenzy as the icy wind shrieked. The storm picked up, and the sky darkened.
Rocks groaned under the onslaught.
I bent my knees and leaned further forward as I tried to alleviate the weight on my back muscles. A part of me was shocked that we were really doing this right now. No preamble.
The wind and ice slammed against me, and I cursed the mercurial weather.
Silver, brown, and milky white eyes darkened to black, and talons lengthened on their hands, eerily similar to the serrated ice talons I’d donned when I killed my mother.
Gore in my mouth, blood dripping down my chin, Mother howling as I consumed her heart and stole her crown.
Malum’s baritone voice dragged me out of the memories as he proclaimed, “As the Ignis from the illustrious House of Malum, I invoke the power of my mates.”
He pulled the silver dagger from his throat and said, “As the crowned King of the Sun God, I invoke the power of my mates.”
“Venimus! We came,” Orion sang loudly as he triggered the sequence that unleashed their powers. The three of them went unnaturally still. They became mindless.
My eyes widened at the sheer beauty of his voice.
A petal slapped against my face as cherry blossoms mixed with snow in a swirling vortex of white.
It was magnificent.
It was terrifying.
Scorpius proclaimed, “Vidimus. We saw,” and the eye tattoo on his neck blinked open. It stared straight at me. His blind eyes glowed, and he turned his head like he was searching for people.
“Vicimus. We conquered,” Malum finished as flames poured off him.
My thighs trembled, and I put my hands on my knees to keep myself upright. Crystal feathers clattered against the rocks as my wings drooped.
I wanted to lie down.
Flames tumbled off Malum faster, like the air was kerosine, and somehow the frozen mountainside caught fire.
It should have been impossible.
Somehow the kings’ power broke the laws of thermodynamics.
I gnawed on my lip as I stared at the three men who were in a trance.
It hit me like a punch to the gut that this was an astronomically stupid idea.
How was I supposed to do anything to stop them?
Ice radiated around me, but whenever I tried to channel it into something different, nothing happened. It was like I was an inanimate frozen object, incapable of anything but misery.
No, I was not having a pity party.
It was called being aware of your limitations.
My knees knocked together, and it took everything I had not to sprawl down under the weight of my wings.
“Stop it,” I said and pointed my icy hands at the fire. Immediately I felt like a fool because nothing happened.
If anything, the warmth felt delicious, and I wanted more of it. Why would I try to put out the fire that was warming the chill from my bones? I wanted to flame it brighter.
“Stop the fire,” I repeated lamely to the kings and envisioned ice exploding from my fingertips toward the devils like it had when I’d fallen atop Jinx and stopped them.
At least, that was how I imagined it happening. It wasn’t clear to me how I’d stopped them.
I gnawed on my lip as the flames expanded across the mountainside.
Swearing under my breath, I visualized putting out the fire. My stomach twisted with apprehension.
No ice exploded off my hands toward the scarlet inferno.
If anything, frost receded from my fingers as the air warmed around me. I thawed and basked in the inferno.
I clapped my hands loudly and tried a different approach. “Snap out of it.”
The kings remained mindless beings of fire and death. The very unwell part of me was jealous. It would be nice if I could sink into a mindless craze and stop worrying about my actions.
Shockingly, they did not stop.
No one could say I hadn’t tried.
The mountain became uncomfortably warm as scarlet flames expanded in every direction. They leaped high into the air and formed a wall of fire.
I squinted against the brightness while I inhaled the heat greedily.
The kings were shadowy outlines, untouched in the middle of an inferno. Tools of death waiting to be deployed.
For a split second, I had the horrible sense that I was the one supposed to be doing something, and it didn’t feel like it had to do with stopping them. It felt like they were working an enchantment over me and lulling me into a trance.
What else could be the fire’s purpose?
There were no enemies around, and it was just the four of us up in the thin air of the mountains with snow and rocks all around.
My eyelids fluttered shut.
I was unbelievably tired, and the flames called to me. They melted me in the most intoxicating way.
The fractured, icy bits of my soul thawed.
The Necklace of Death and diamond bracelet warmed and vibrated until my skin buzzed.
It was heavenly.
Bending forward so I could get closer to the raging fire, I enjoyed the delicious warmth as it chased away the invasive chill that was always present in my bones.
I wanted to curl up like a cat and bask in the inferno.
I wanted to lie on a bed of ashes for eternity.
It was pure relief after years of being plagued by chattering teeth and goose bumps.
After a lifetime of ice, I finally knew what genuine warmth felt like.
It was everything.
I wanted more because it was so much better than I could have ever imagined.
My legs gave out, and I fell to my knees. The rocks were toasty against my chilled flesh, and I pressed myself into the ground.
Everything became hazy in the best way.
The heat intensified, and I sighed with relief as my lungs thawed.
I closed my heavy lids and drifted off.
Into.
Blissful.
Sleep.
“Wake up!”
Someone bellowed down at me, and I batted at them. “Shut up,” I mumbled as I tried to sink back into the warm darkness.
It was divine.
“She’s fine.” A different person sighed with relief, and I shivered as cold battered my face.
“No, she’s clearly not fucking fine.”
There was a smacking noise and what sounded like a fight.
“I am fine,” I said sleepily as I curled tighter into a ball and mourned the exquisite warmth because, yet again, everything was uncomfortably cold.
“More heat,” I begged.
There was silence.
Then someone broke into laughter. “Hear that, Corvus. She wants more heat. Sun god fucking damn it, I can’t do this.”
“Arabella, wake up right now,” Malum ordered as he yanked me to my feet.
I narrowed my eyes at the angry devil snarling in my face and immediately wished I was sleeping again.
“What?” I asked petulantly.
Scorpius filled my vision, and his jaw was tight with anger. “Why did the three of us just snap out of our powers to find twelve hours had passed and you were sleeping peacefully in the middle of a fucking fire?”
My eyes shot open as memories rushed back. The blizzard had stopped, and the night was cold and still. More stars were visible than in the valley because we were halfway up the mountain.
I stumbled out of Malum’s embrace.
My wings had retracted, and the awful weight was gone. In its wake, energy strummed through me.
I felt better than I had in a long time.
Alert.
Strangely healthy.
I felt limber, and the pervasive cold was gone.
It felt like I’d come out of a monthlong coma with a new lease on life. For the first time in forever, I didn’t feel a crushing emptiness.
I was satisfied.
“Wow,” I said slowly because the once snow-covered rocks were now scorched black as far as the eye could see in every direction, as if a fire had raged for hours.
“Once we unleashed our powers, what did you do?” Malum’s deep voice snapped me out of my thoughts.
He glowered at me, a dark god in a barren wasteland of scorched earth and anger. Snow whipped angrily back and forth.
Silver eyes narrowed. “Tell me you used one of your wings to stab me or that you tried to counter my fire with ice. Because that’s what we expected you to do.”
All three of the kings were standing uncomfortably close as they waited for me to speak.
I kicked a rock, ducked my head, and mumbled, “I was going to get to that.” My cheeks burned with embarrassment, and I couldn’t look at them.
I had no idea why I’d fallen asleep instead of trying to stop them.
It was bizarre, even for me.
A rough sound escaped Malum’s throat, and Scorpius sneered, “Please tell us. What part of the stopping us did you get to?”
I ripped a flap of skin off my lower lip.
Threw it to the rocks.
Lifted my nails to gouge harder, but Orion grabbed my wrist and brought it to my side, his long lashes fluttering as he looked down at me with concern.
“You’re upsetting her,” he whispered. “Take a step back. Give her some space.”
Shockingly, Malum and Scorpius obeyed.
“Here, let’s get you dressed,” Orion mouthed as he grabbed my undershirt and pulled it over my head.
Still reeling from my own strange behavior, I stood still and let him dress me. He zipped up my coat and brushed snow out of my hair.
“There,” he whispered. “Are you feeling warmer?”
I nodded stupidly.
He smiled down at me, and a new warmth prickled in my chest. “I took a nap in the heat,” I blurted out.
There was a long pause as they processed what I’d said.
A muscle in Malum’s jaw ticked, and he opened his mouth. I turned my head to the side to avoid his censure, but my eyes widened.
Rocks were scorched black miles down the mountainside and stopped inches from the valley.
Holy sun god.
Sadie. Jinx.
They’d almost been murdered because of my idiocy.
Emotion and energy burst through my veins, and I vibrated from the onslaught.
Malum said, “What do you—”
I didn’t catch the rest of his sentence because I darted down the side of the mountain, intent on getting back to camp.
Boots pounded against rocks as they sprinted after me.
Malum bellowed at the top of his lungs, “What the fuck do you mean? You took a nap?”
“I don’t know!” I yelled over my shoulder as I ran faster. “I got really tired.”
“Excuse me?” Malum’s voice was so deep that the hair on the back of my neck stood up. He didn’t like my answer.
Neither did I.
Scorpius swore. “You’re going to be the death of us.”
“I don’t know what came over me,” I shouted into the night as I kept running. “It was weird.”
“Do you think this is a joke?” Malum’s voice was closer. “Do you think all this is a bloody fucking lark? Do you know what’s at stake—I was really worried about you!”
I sprinted with all my might.
Pretended not to hear him.
Nothing was funny.
It was all falling apart around me.
Crumbling.
Memories of Orion chasing me down a marble corridor played in my mind as black boots slammed against icy rocks, and I slid forward.
My arms pumped.
I threw myself down the side of the mountain, half sliding, half sprinting as fast as I could with my heart hammering in my chest. I was going insane.
The storm picked up.
My muscles were warm and ready to be used, and I exploded forward with unbridled adrenaline.
Adrenaline pumped through my veins.
Snow whipped my face, and my eyes watered from the frozen air.
For the first time since we’d started to train together, I outran the kings back to the camp.
For hours, they couldn’t catch me because fear was truly the best motivator.
But I wasn’t running from them.
I was running from myself.
