Kate Pearce - Death Bringer

“I could do it for you.”

“It’s okay, I think I can handle it.”

“You’re just worried I’ll blow your arm off.”

“Having seen the way you use my power, it had crossed my mind.” He let his palm hover over the wound and said the necessary words. Once the head of the arrow came free, the pain quickly eased. He wished it were that easy to control the pain in his heart.

“Your magic is extremely hard to manage. I completely blew up a troll the first time I used it.”

“That was probably quite messy.” He glanced over to where the arena had been and saw that someone had already tidied everything away. The room looked perfect and far removed from the violence that had erupted earlier and taken four lives...

“What’s wrong?”

“I was wondering where they’d put the bodies.”

“Let’s go and find out.”

She headed for the huge doors, and he followed her as meekly as a lamb.

Ella tried not to look up as Vadim walked alongside her, but he was being rather too quiet for her liking. Had she really offended him by stepping up and slaying Adam instead of letting him do it?

“Are you still mad at me for killing Adam?”

“No.”

He kept walking. It bugged her that she had to take the occasional skip to keep up.

“That’s it?”

“You did what was necessary, and for that you have my gratitude.”

“Oh. That’s okay, then.”

Maybe her emotional attachment to him had misled her into thinking he was more vulnerable than he truly was. He might only want to see the bodies to make sure his brother really was dead this time. She paused at the door to the trophy room, which stood open, the guards dismissed. Hopefully there were no black dragons lurking around either.

“Can we go and look in here?”

“Of course.”

He waited for her to walk past him into the vast room.

“I thought most of this stuff would’ve disappeared with the death of the sect.”

Vadim turned in a slow circle, taking it all in. “I suspect there are still other members. We just don’t know about them yet.”

“Good point.” She carried on through the room, heading for the back wall.

“What are you looking for?”

“My face.” She sighed. “I’m going to kind of miss it, and then there’s all that hassle of getting a new driver’s license, passport...”

“Ella—”

“Hey!” She spotted Brad Dailey’s face. “It worked!” She looked over her shoulder at Vadim. “Was Ciaran a blond version of you?”

“Yes.”

“I hoped so.” She whistled. “It was a bit of a risk, but I’m so glad I went for it.”

“For what?”

There was a hint of impatience back in his voice, which made her feel much happier. She moved out of the way so that he could see the three faces on the gold plinths.

“Adam’s replaced you.” Vadim said slowly. “Did you expect that to happen?”

“Well, I thought it might work. The only thing is, what happened to my face? I hope I didn’t end up on your brother. We definitely do need to check out those bodies.”

He caught her hand. “You chose to kill him because you hoped you’d exchange faces?”

“Yeah, I guessed there needed to be a group of three to spring the spell, and as the Fae Royal thing wasn’t going to happen and Brad and Ms. Phelps were already dead, I reckoned Adam needed one more victim. I still didn’t get my face back, but it did stop him adding me to his list of trophies.” She shrugged. “I bet he didn’t think he’d be the one doing the dying this time.”

“Why didn’t you share this theory with me?”

He was towering over her now, his beautiful blue eyes narrowed.

“I wasn’t quite sure which configuration was going to work. Originally I thought he wanted you, Nia and your father, but when that all changed, I substituted my own plan.”

“And didn’t tell me.”

Each word was spaced out and radiated fury. She gazed up at him and tried a smile. “You were rather stressed at the time. I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Stressed... And when, exactly did you come up with this idea that Adam was attempting to complete a hat trick of Fae royalty?”

“Dude, I told you that ages ago. When we were in that protected glen. When Adam had me up in the air back there, my theories kind of coalesced.”

“You mentioned only that you believed Adam wished to rule Otherworld.”

“Well, how was he going to achieve that unless he got rid of you and your father, who are both more powerful than he was?” She rolled her eyes. “Men are so dumb sometimes.”

His hand shot out and he pinned her to the wall. “So you were not trying to save me from having to kill Adam. You were merely carrying out your half-baked theory to get your face back? ”

His tone was withering. She smiled into his storm-filled eyes. “Oh, no, I was trying to save you all right. The theory part was just a bonus.”

She held her breath, but instead of kissing her, he dropped his hand and turned away from her. She frowned at his broad back. Why wouldn’t he kiss her?

“We should go and check out the bodies.”

She pushed away from the wall. “Sure.”

He didn’t say a word as they walked down the endless hallways; his mind was closed to her as well, which was starting to tick her off. In the main hall, she spied Rossa in conversation with one of the gatekeepers.

“Hey!” She waved at him and he strolled over.

“You’re both alive! You look great now, Ella.” He grinned at the unsmiling Vadim. “It’s awesome that you beat all those guys. I knew you could do it.”

“What are you doing here?” Vadim’s question was distinctly uninviting.

“Your mother called me in to keep an eye on the place while everything’s up in the air.”

“She called you?”

“I have skills.” Rossa raised his eyebrows. “I also happened to be right here, so she didn’t have much choice. Were you looking for her?”

“No, we were wondering where they’d put all the bodies.”

“Oh, right. They’re in the place of worship, which is down this hall and then to the left.”

“Thanks.” Ella smiled at him. “And thanks for everything.”

Rossa preened. “It was nothing, babe. Anytime, for you.”

As they moved on, Vadim said something under his breath in Fae, but she chose to ignore it. After a moment he cleared his throat.

“He didn’t exactly do much, Ella.”

“He was very helpful to me when I first got here.”

“Because he’d been ordered to keep you safe.”

“I know that.” She kept her gaze on the hallway. “But he was terribly sweet about it, and he did help me get into this place.”

He resumed muttering in Fae.

It seemed to take forever to get to the chapel, or whatever it was called. The doors were gold and marked with a myriad of religious symbols from both the human realm and Otherworld. Inside, portraits of members of the sect lined the wood-paneled walls, the most prominent being one of Adam that hung over the ceremonial table at the front. About two hundred candles had been lit, and the waves of heat coming off them were extreme.

“Oh my, the cult of Adam. All bow down.”

He was blond in the picture and looked far too benevolent for her liking. To the side of the main altar was a row of four open coffins. Vadim had already moved toward them and stood looking down into the last one, his expression unreadable.

“Is that Adam?”

He nodded but didn’t take his gaze away. Ella went to join him.

“Well, that’s definitely not my face.” She angled her head to one side. “He would’ve looked odd with it anyway, and I don’t think I could’ve brought myself to try and take it off a corpse.” She shuddered.