“Damn. I didn’t think it would be you who ended me,” was the only thing she whispered as life left her. I flipped her off me, and yanked the blade out, as I turned to face the other two. Shaking hard, I barely managed to keep on my feet. But I did.

They will be wary now.

“Got it. Who’s next?” I flicked some of the mud off, like that was my only concern. Let them think I was overconfident. Inside, I was trembling with what was coming. Two more deaths.

Let me have the strength of heart to do this.

The man with the black hair stepped forward. He was devastatingly handsome, his green eyes piercing, reminding me no small amount of Doran. Before everything that had happened, this would have made me blush and trip over my own tongue. He held a hand out to me, as if I hadn’t just stuck a knife into his companion’s chest. “Witch. This is not your fight. Leave and you will live.”

I shook my head, bits of mud flicking out around me. “My family makes their stand here, against Orion. You’re either with us, or against us. You don’t want to be against us.”

He smiled and spread his hands, but I was ready for him. Or so I thought. The earth softened beneath my feet, the mud giving a burp as it gulped at me, and I knew he was an earth elemental. How did I stop him?

The clouds dotting the sky weren’t perfect for lighting, but they would do. I raised my hand as I sunk. As if I had all the time in the world. I refused to be rushed. Refused the fear and mud that grabbed at my ankles and slowly swallowed me.

Lightning danced and struck the ground chasing him, bolts that he dodged with ease. The power swelled in me until I thought I would burst with it, but I held back. I needed him to think I could only send one bolt at a time. I was to my waist in the mud, but still I didn’t hurry. “Leave. And I will let you live.” I repeated his words back to him.

He stumbled back as a lightning bolt arced into the ground between his legs. He narrowed his eyes at me, mere green slits.

“Magma was a fool. You got lucky with her. But you won’t with me.”

A laugh bubbled up in me. “I have no desire to get lucky with you.”

His jaw dropped and I called down three bolts at the same time. He dodged the first on his right, but that put him into the path of the next two. They hit him one after the other, a double strike that arched his back and split his leather suit like a sausage casing.

I didn’t hold back but flicked my fingers three more times, sending the electricity through his body. He would hurt those I loved. He would kill them if I didn’t stop him. Blaz was right; I didn’t want to do this. But I wouldn’t hold back, now the course was taken.

A slow clapping of hands stilled my body. The white-haired man watched me, eyes roving my body. I pushed myself out of the ground, the mud starting to cake on my skin, pulling on it. None of that mattered. I was almost done here.

“My name is Nimbus, I feel like you should know my name before we do this. It is an intimate thing, to kill another person. To feel their soul leave their body, to know you held that power over them. Like a god.”

I clenched my jaw. “It is not power, but a curse. I do not want you to know my name.”

He ignored me and continued to talk as if I hadn’t interrupted him. “And what the others failed to see is that you have some of our blood in your veins. It is what makes you the powerful witch you are.” He strolled around me in a loose circle.

Air elemental, Pamela. He will be the most dangerous.

How could air be the most dangerous? He continued to circle me, like a lion stalking its prey. I followed him, turning in time with his steps so I never lost sight of him. “What, you aren’t going to try and make a deal with me? Tell me we can be friends? Tell me that you’ll let me go if I just step away?”

His grin was slow and looked genuine. “No. Because you are a fighter. As am I. This will be to the death. You know that. And I welcome the brutal reality of it.”

I nodded and the knowledge settled on my shoulders. “At least you are honest.”

He shrugged. “No point in denying the truth. You will die.”

“Then you will have to go through Blaz. And he will tear you apart.”

“Why not let him do it now then? Why do you fight alone, without your supposed friend to help?” His pale gray eyes glittered with maliciousness. He was trying to turn me on Blaz. I was not going to fall for that kind of shit again.

I straightened my back, knowing for the first time my place in our family. Understanding it to the core of my heart and soul. “I am the first line of defense. If you make it through me, then you can introduce yourself to Blaz.”

“And me,” Eve called.

“And me,” Marco echoed.

But what warmed my heart was the full-bodied roar that came behind them.

Peta.

The snow leopard stalked toward Nimbus. His eyes widened and he stumbled backward. “No. She cannot be free. I have not felt her prison break.”

The distraction was what I needed. I used the earth elemental’s trick and softened the ground below Nimbus.

I grinned. Dangerous my ass.

But I was too cocky, far too soon.

And it was about to cost me.

CHAPTER 25

Rylee

“I see light,” I said, shimmying through another tight corner.

“Thank the gods,” Berget mumbled. Her breathing was heavy and close to hyperventilating. But she’d stayed the course and made it through with me.

Breathing out, I pushed myself toward the light and promptly got stuck. The rock on either side of me pinned my pelvic bone. “Berget, I’m fucking stuck.”