Sadie snarled and sprinted toward the men.
Fast.
“Now you can run?” I shouted as I sprinted after her. “Don’t you dare do this.”
“You!” Sadie ignored me and pointed at Malum.
He looked behind him and pointed at his chest with confusion.
“What are you doing, Princess?” Ascher asked as he stepped in front of Sadie.
Sadie hooked her leg around his and used her momentum and the element of surprise to send his tattooed body flying through the air. It was comical with their size difference, and I would have been proud if she weren’t having a full-scale meltdown.
That was the thing about my best friend.
She was my opposite—sunshine and happiness, full of jokes and laughter.
Until she wasn’t.
Then she was death incarnate.
When she snapped, it was like looking in a mirror. I recognized myself in her. She was unfeeling. Cold.
“Can we talk about this?” I yelled over the wind.
Sadie raised her arms forward and flung her blood at the kings.
Bone slammed against rock.
Malum, Scorpius, and Orion fell to their knees.
“Sadie, let them go.” Jax rubbed his hands over his face with exasperation. “We’ve talked about this.”
John and the demons backed away from Sadie slowly.
Cobra arched his brow and sauntered over to her. “What did they do?”
Sadie spoke slowly, and her scratchy voice was raspier than usual. “They’ve enslaved Aran.”
Cobra stopped walking. Like a snake, he went perfectly still, and his round pupils flickered to slits.
Before I could blink, Ascher and Xerxes stood on either side of me.
“Is that true?” Ascher asked me, and his horns expanded.
Shhhhhhhhk. Xerxes sharpened his daggers.
I rubbed at my temples. “It’s not like that. Lately, they’ve been better about it. I mean technically, yes, but—”
“Kneel. Kiss the ground. Beg for forgiveness,” Sadie’s booming voice echoed across the island.
Scorpius and Orion kissed the rocks.
Malum started to lean forward, but he stopped midbend. Flames exploded across his body. With veins popping out of his neck as he strained, he slowly climbed to his feet. Steel-grey eyes flashed.
“Release my mates,” he growled.
My eyes widened.
No one had broken Sadie’s weird blood mind control before. I was slightly worried that she was all-powerful. I mean, she was forged by the moon goddess herself for war.
Yet Malum was snarling before her.
Enraged.
The knife tattooed on his neck glimmered like it was real metal.
It took a second for all of us to process what was happening, then I moved in tandem with Sadie’s mates.
All five of us flung ourselves in front of her protectively.
“I’m sorry,” Scorpius said mindlessly as he kissed the ground. Orion whispered the same words and also kissed the rocks.
Malum’s flames shot higher into the air until he was an inferno.
Sweat dripped down my forehead.
The heat increased.
“Let them go,” I ordered my friend as Jax reached for her face. She blocked his arm and glared at the bowing kings.
“If he wants to fight—” Sadie laughed hoarsely. “—I’ll fight.”
I gritted my teeth.
Malum took a step closer, embers flew through the air, and the black rocks around him caught fire.
He was a storm.
Of fire.
Red flames expanded until he was an inferno.
There was only one thing left to do.
I swore.
And stepped forward into his path.
Chapter 37
Corvus Malum
INFERNO
Metamorphosis—Day 50, hour 14
I was going to kill the bitch Sadie.
She had my mates under her control. They were helpless. Defenseless.
My Revered and Protector were kneeling on the ground in an incoherent state.
Sadie dared to mess with an Ignis.
The bitch dared to attack what was mine.
She would learn.
I’d graciously let her live after she’d fucked Arabella, and now she did this? She was dead.
I also didn’t like that Arabella was standing so close to her. She reached out and put a hand on Sadie’s arm.
They were touching.
It was the final straw. There was no reasoning left.
Just retribution.
An inferno swallowed me whole, and the pressure under my skin mounted.
Sweat poured off my skin as I burned with a fever.
I couldn’t see, couldn’t think, couldn’t feel. If I didn’t release my flames, I was going to explode.
Control fell through my fingers like sand.
Disappeared.
There was no mind to calm down, because my mates were in danger. DANGER.
I would not fail them. I would not fail my Revered again. The bond sickness would not return, because he would not suffer. I wouldn’t allow it.
She would never touch Arabella. Never again.
I was flame incarnate.
Where the fire began, I ended.
There was no controlling the burn, because it was me.
Sadie would learn what happened when you pissed off an Ignis who didn’t have a completed mate bond to help control his flames.
I was chaos.
I was a king.
“Malum, calm down, please.” A garbled feminine voice filtered through the crackle of flames.
I opened my mouth to reply.
But there were no words.
Only fire.
It streamed from my mouth like a flamethrower.
Faraway voices swore.
My mates were under attack, and at the end of the day, I was nothing but a vessel to serve them. I was an Ignis. The Ignis of the House of Malum. My life’s purpose was to defend my mates, but I’d let them fall into harm’s way.
The pressure increased.
Red poured off me like every cell in my body was shedding fire.
Scarlet flickered to a dark purple.
I’d never burned so hot.
The pressure climbed, and there was nothing left to do but incinerate the world. I tipped my head back and opened my mouth.
Without the mate bond, there was nothing but a forest of quiet surrounding us.
Now it was the perfect kindling.
Peaceful.
Still.
It was the ideal landscape to release the pressure that tortured me.
Relief was in my grasp.
Arabella’s voice flickered through the inferno. “Malum, get control of yourself. Orion and Scorpius are fine. She let them go.” She sounded nearby.
That didn’t change the fact that she was close to Arabella. That they’d touched. Nothing solved that.
Muscle aches made me tremble, and a horrible sense of weakness made my head spin. I blinked, but sweat and flames clouded my vision.
“Focus on me.” Arabella’s voice was mere feet away.
I shook from the fever and wept.
It was so painful.
Disorienting.
I tipped my head back and screamed.
All my life, I’d lived with the burden of aching bones and delirium. For twenty-nine years, I’d suffered from fevers.
My life was characterized by blistering pain.
I was supposed to be the strong one.
That was my job.
The leader.
But I was so tired of hurting twenty-four seven. I was exhausted from the countless sleepless nights, the endless quest to push my body to an extreme where the dark thoughts couldn’t find me.
I ran to get away from the intrusive voice that constantly told me I’d never find my missing mate, I’d never have control, the fevers would never stop. Life would always be torment.