Jennifer Estep - By a Thread

It was one thing to want to kill me outright, to want to carve me up into bloody bits the way I’d done to so many other people. I could understand that. Hell, I could even respect it. But Dekes was suggesting keeping me around as his fucking pet , the way he had Vanessa, Victoria, and who knew how many other women. I’d already suffered once at his hands, and I had no desire to repeat the experience.

The vampire biting me over and over again, driving his teeth into my neck and wrists, and sucking the magic, power, and life out of me for years, maybe decades, on end. Just thinking about it made me want to vomit. To say that it would be my own personal hell was an understatement. It would be a waking nightmare—one that even I might not be able to endure or escape from.

Once again, I felt cold, cold fear pressing down on me, smothering me, paralyzing me, but I ruthlessly pushed the feeling aside, squashing it under my own rage. Fear was a useless emotion. Fletcher had taught me that with our trip to Bone Mountain so long ago. He’d left me there in the woods and forced me to rely on myself that day so I’d be prepared for moments like this. So that I’d have the strength and the will to overcome my fear and take down anyone who was stupid enough to mess with me.

I drew in a breath and surged up, trying to drive my knife into Dekes’s black heart the same way that I had the giant moments before. Trying to end this—now.

But the vampire was expecting the move. He held out his hand and blasted me back down to the floor with the Air magic he’d stolen from Victoria when he’d taken her blood. I tried to get up, but Dekes held out his hand, keeping the force of the Air magic steady across my chest and arms like an invisible lead weight pinning me down. No matter how I strained, cursed, and struggled, I just didn’t have enough magic to push back his Air power and free myself.

“And now I’m going to suffocate you,” Dekes murmured in a silky voice. “But only until you lose consciousness. After that, I’ll have my giants make the necessary arrangements to keep you safe and secure. Oh, Gin. We’re going to have so much fun together.”

Once again, I reached for my Ice and Stone magic, trying to bring enough of it to bear to block his attack, but my reserves were even more depleted than before. I managed to hold him off for maybe five seconds before I felt the air being sucked out of my lungs. Struggling would only use up my oxygen that much faster, so I forced myself to lie still and try and think of some way to fight back or at least get the vampire to release his hold on his stolen Air magic. Because if I blacked out, this fight was over, and I knew that I wouldn’t want to wake up to whatever accommodations Dekes had in mind for me.

But there was nothing I could do. My own magic was too weak to counter Dekes’s power, and now I didn’t even have the energy or freedom to try to raise the knife in my hand and drive it into the vampire’s foot. White, then gray, then black spots began to flash before my eyes, warning of danger, doom, and death. If I could have, I would have howled with rage at Randall Dekes getting the better of me not once but twice now—

A ball of Fire streaked through the air and slammed into the vampire’s chest.

Since Dekes had been holding on to his stolen Air magic, the Fire didn’t immediately erupt and engulf him the way it would have if he hadn’t had any elemental power at his disposal. But the shock of the unexpected flames shattered his concentration, making the invisible, airless bubble around me pop open. I rasped in a gasp of air, and cold tears streamed out of the corners of my eyes at how good it felt to be able to simply breathe again.

But Dekes quickly regained his composure. He curled his hand into a fist, and I felt the invisible power stream out of his clenched fingers. Now, instead of using his Air magic to smother me, the vamp was using it to douse the sparks that had singed his perfect gray shirt.

“Leave her alone,” a voice called out.

A second later, Vanessa stepped into view. She stood there facing Dekes, another ball of elemental Fire in her hand. The flares and flickers perfectly matched the hate burning in her black eyes.

Dekes brushed the last of the red-hot sparks off his shirt and gave her the same mocking look that he had given me just moments ago. “What do you think you’re doing, Vanessa?”

“Killing you,” she snarled. “Finally, finally killing you for everything you’ve done to me and my sister.”

On the floor between them, I sucked down breath after breath, trying to get enough oxygen into my lungs to get back into the fight. My fingers trembled, twitched, and then finally tightened around the hilt of my silverstone knife.

Dekes let out another light, mocking laugh. “Please. As if your puny Fire magic could compare with the Ice and Stone power that I’ve taken from Gin. You should have gotten out of the mansion while you could have, Vanessa. I admit I would have had fun tracking down you and dear Victoria, but now you’re not even going to get the chance to run. I’m going to kill you where you stand and find a stronger Fire elemental to take your place. You know that I don’t tolerate insolence.”

The elemental Fire flashing in the other woman’s hand burned a little brighter and a little hotter at his smug tone. Doubt and fear flickered in Vanessa’s eyes, right along with the rage, but she’d gone too far to back down now. This was her moment to finally stand up to Dekes, to finally get payback for the horrible, horrible way that he’d used her, her sister, and their magic. Her spine stiffened, and the flames in her hands intensified.

Dekes responded to her silent challenge by holding out his palm. Once again, a ball of silvery magic glowed in his hand—pure Ice power this time. Vanessa’s face tightened, and she couldn’t stop the tremor that shook her body. She could feel the power Dekes was wielding just like I could, and she finally realized exactly how strong my blood had made him.

Dekes smiled at her, relishing her shock and increasing fear. “Good-bye, Vanessa.”

He drew back his hand to hurl the ball of Ice at her—and that’s when I drove my knife through his right foot.

Since I was still lying on the floor, I didn’t have the best angle in the world, and I was still too weak and light-headed to put as much force behind the blow as I would have liked, much less reach up and sever his femoral artery as I really wanted to do. But the vampire’s howl of pain and surprise still made me smile.

I ripped the knife out of his foot and drove it into the side of his calf, twisting it in as hard and deep as I could.

“How do you like that, you sick son of a bitch?” I snarled.

Dekes staggered away from me, my knife still stuck in his leg, and the ball of Ice magic in his hand flew over his head and back into the fireplace. The magic—my magic—slammed into the stone there, freezing it in places, shattering it in others, and causing jagged cracks to zip out from the center of the blast. The force of the blow also rattled the mantel above the fireplace and the five items that had been arranged there in a perfect row—my knives. The ones that Dekes had made me put down before he’d savaged my neck last night. The ones I’d vowed not to leave the mansion without.

But instead of freezing or shattering like the stone around them, the knives lit up with the silvery glow of my Ice magic, burning so cold and bright that I could see the spider runes stamped into every one of the hilts. The symbols glowed like tiny stars for a second. Then, just as quickly, the magic winked out, and the runes and the knives were a dull silver once more.

My eyes narrowed, and a knowing smile curved across my face. I couldn’t beat Dekes, not when he was using my own magic against me, and I was still so weak from the loss of it in the first place. But I didn’t need magic to kill the vampire. He bled, just like the rest of us did. I just needed something to keep his power from immobilizing me while I went in for the kill shot.