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"You don’t have any hostages to hold overanother step forward "My friends have Callie, along with Vanessa and Victoria, and they’re getting them out of theyour charht So the way I see it, there’s absolutely nothing to keepyou where you stand"
"Ah, but there is," Dekes said "You, Gin Specifically all that lovely, lovely ic I took from you yesterday"
The vaan to flicker over his pallow of ic Even across the roo out to me It was one of the most bizarre sensations I’d ever felt, so twisted and wrong and utterly confusing that it put ame for one precious second
A second that costto know that the vah his veins It was another to corowing horror into close the distance between us and stab hiht coalesced into a ball of power
It took only a second for the vaic at ic, trying to use it toto protect myself from, well, myself
But there wasn’t any ht now than there had been Iceto ic slaiant had hit ic to blunt the full strength of the vaainst the table, and I fell to the floor again It felt like a concrete fist had hit asped for air
"I’oing to kill you," Dekesdown, his shoes a foot away from my face "That would be far too wasteful Oh, no, Gin I’ as I can So I can dine on your delicious,as I can With your blood, with your Ice and Stone ic, I can become twice as powerful as I already am I know about the void Mab Monroe’s death has left in the underworld in Ashland Perhaps I’ll move up there and take over her operations Wouldn’t that be ironic? You killing Mab, and then anization It’s quite poetic if you think about it"
It was one thing to want to kill ht, 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 keepingpet, the way he had Vanessa, Victoria, and who kne many other women I’d already suffered once at his hands, and I had no desire to repeat the experience
The va his teeth into ic, power, and life out ofabout it made me want to vomit To say that it would be my own personal hell was an understateht not be able to endure or escape fro down onit under ht o He’d left me there in the woods and forced me to rely on myself that day so I’d be prepared for th and the will to overcoh toto drive my knife into Dekes’s black heart the sa to end this - now
But the va the move He held out his hand and blasted ic he’d stolen froet up, but Dekes held out his hand, keeping the force of the Air ic steady acrossled, I just didn’t have enough ic to push back his Air power and freeto suffocate you," Dekes murmured in a silky voice "But only until you lose consciousness After that, I’ll have e to have so ain, I reached for h of it to bear to block his attack, but ed to hold hi sucked out of en that much faster, so I forced ht back or at least get the vaic Because if I blacked out, this fight was over, and I knew that I wouldn’t want to wake up to whatever acco I could do My own ic 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 vaan to flash before er, dooe at Randall Dekes getting the better of h the air and slammed into the va on to his stolen Air ulf him the way it would have if he hadn’t had any elemental power at his disposal But the shock of the unexpected fla the invisible, airless bubble around asp of air, and cold tears streaood it felt to be able to siained his composure He curled his hand into a fist, and I felt the invisible power strea his Airit 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 perfectlyin her black eyes
Dekes brushed the last of the red-hot sparks off his shirt and gave her the sao "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 theh oxygen into ers trehtened around the hilt oflaugh "Please As if your puny Fire ic could compare with the Ice and Stone power that I’ve taken frootten out of the mansion while you could have, Vanessa I ad down you and dear Victoria, but now you’re not even going to get the chance to run I’er Fire elemental to take your place You know that I don’t tolerate insolence"
The ele in the other wohter and a little hotter at his sht along with the rage, but she’d gone too far to back do This was her et payback for the horrible, horrible way that he’d used her, her sister, and their ic Her spine stiffened, and the flames in her hands intensified