Magda laughed. “You’re the one who isn’t facing reality, sweetie. In a way, I actually feel sorry for you.”

“Aw, bless your little black heart.”

“Whether you like it or not, that link I have with him makes me closer to him than he is to you. And you hate that, don’t you? He still wants me. That’s why he’s so desperate for me to leave. He doesn’t trust himself around me…and neither do you.”

“You know, I really wish I’d brought my Gullibility Test Kit with me. I’ve got a feeling you’d have passed with flying colours.”

I could always count on this mental case to react in anger. Growling, she charged at me. I could have ducked and swept her feet from under her with one whip of my leg. That had been the plan, anyway. But what I hadn’t known was that at that very second, an all familiar agony would assail my entire body. Helplessly, I fell to my knees, narrowly missing the blade aimed at my chest. But I didn’t miss the spike that pierced through my shoulder.

If I hadn’t already been in unbearable pain, I might not have screamed, but with so much agony tearing through me, I couldn’t hold it in. I knew that no one would know about the other more excruciating pain, I knew that they would all simply think Magda was defeating me. Hell, she was defeating me. But there was nothing I could do.

My peripheral vision picked up Dexter lunging at her. More pain – this time, emotional –seared me as I saw her backhand him with the blade, sending him crashing into the wall. Instead of darting at her again, he remained limp. Oh I’d f**king kill her if he was dead – even if it meant somehow coming back from the afterlife, I’d f**king end the bitch.

I screamed again as she repeatedly twisted the spike, tearing into the wound and preventing it from closing. I could feel the blood spilling down my dress, just as I could feel tears filling my eyes. To add to that, I had the sensation of invisible hands clawing their way into my abdomen, ripping me open, snapping my intestines, and trying to pull my stomach out of my body. Only twice before had I felt anything like it; in the bungalow, and that evening when I’d woken, paralysed, by torturous sensations.

Abruptly, Magda yanked the spike out of my shoulder. “Fight me,” she hissed.

Even through the pain, I understood why she’d pulled back. The duel would be ended if it looked as though she was attempting to kill me. No one would intervene as long as it looked like nothing more than a battle of strength.

“Get up,” she spat.

I told myself the same thing, but my legs couldn’t support me just then. Not while those invisible hands were still ravaging my insides and poking around in my head. Unexpectedly, a harsh kick to the face sent me tumbling onto my back. Blood gushed from my now-broken nose. Twat! What bothered me more than the blood was the nauseating crunch I’d heard as the cartilage snapped.

Looking up, I saw a spike once again aiming for me. Somehow, I rolled onto my side out of the way, still clutching my abdomen. The spike missed me, making Magda curse with frustration. Apparently, it also inspired her to deliver a hard kick to my back. Oh the witch!

“I told you I’d beat you. Look at the great Sventé Feeder curled up like a foetus on the ground. You’re nothing. And now they’ll all see that. Now Jared will see that. He deserves better than you, and he’ll see that too.”

Striving to ignore the relentless aching, I struggled to get back onto my knees. But I must have looked feeble, because she merely laughed, sure of her dominance in the duel.

“You tell yourself that you don’t believe that he wants me, Sam. But truthfully, it plays on your mind, doesn’t it? It plays on your mind that maybe, behind all his anger, there lies some lingering desire for me, even some lingering feelings. Oh you believe he means it when he says that he doesn’t want me. But you worry that he’s only kidding himself, don’t you? You worry that he’s trying to convince himself as much as he’s trying to convince you.”

Each word was like being stabbed at with a hot poker. The cracked cow was right. I hadn’t acknowledged any of this until now, but it was true. I’d always worry that I’d lose Jared, because that was what happened when you loved someone, when you knew you’d be a shell without them. It wasn’t distrust. It was fear, pure and simple.

Hating her so much in that moment, I used every ounce of energy that I had into making my body move. Trying to set aside the pain somehow, I sprang to my feet. But a shoe slamming into my kneecap had me back on my knees only a second later. Then there was even more pain as the spike drilled into my uninjured shoulder. As she had with the other, she twisted it this way and that way.

“Beg me to stop, Sam. Beg me, admit defeat, and I’ll stop.”

Not bloody likely. She had to be off her rocker. Pain or no pain, she would never get that from me.

“Do it.”

Instead, I peered up and scowled at her. “Fuck you, you demented, unhinged crank.”

The spike went deeper into my shoulder, scraping bone and tearing through more muscle. I squeezed my eyes closed against the pain, thinking that I might actually pass out with it. But then something happened. The torturous abdominal agony…it went. The sensation of invisible hands went. The feeling of being torn inside out went.

Where all that had been, there was something else in its place: power.

CHAPTER TWELVE

(Sam)

Strength blasted through my veins like a hot wave, invigorating me, energizing me, galvanising me. My eyes snapped open with the shock of it. Whatever Magda saw on my face made her gasp and back away, taking that sodding spike with her. My nose quickly snapped back into place, and each of my wounds swiftly closed over. It was then my turn to gasp – that kind of instant healing shouldn’t have been possible for injuries as severe as those. I’d had giant holes in my bloody shoulders, for God’s sake.

I inhaled a long breath, filling my lungs, as I took stock. Physically, I was fine. More than fine. In fact, I felt better than I’d ever felt. But inside…inside I felt…different. More.

Effortlessly, I jumped to my feet. Lifting my hands, I saw that they were literally sparkling with energy. That wasn’t all. Those same silvery-blue glimmers of energy played around the surface of my entire body. As I wiggled my fingers, tiny sprinkles of it peppered the air. It was like I was dripping silvery-blue fairy dust.

I didn’t know what any of this meant, but I knew two things. One, something very fundamental had occurred. Two, I was so much stronger than I’d been before. But it wasn’t bad strong. Not like when I Merged with someone and felt engulfed by the power or threatened by the measure of it. No, I was simply…more. That was the only way I could explain it.

Testing myself, I played with the energy that was spilling from me, shaping it into my much beloved whip. It buzzed against my skin, leaving tingles as I threaded it through my fingers – God, I’d missed that. Hence my huge smile.

Two things, however, were quite different about the whip. Not only was it longer, but it had occasional flashes of ultraviolet – whatever the hell that meant. Curious as to just how long the whip was, I spun it around my body again and again, as if preparing to crack it at Magda. It was able to loop around me three times. This was just bloody brilliant.

Still experimenting, I lashed the whip at the ground. Tremors practically rumbled along the earth – nothing that would cause a crack, but enough to unsteady a person. Seeing the utter shock and horror on Magda’s face made my smile widen. She knew she had some payback coming. “Didn’t see this coming, did you?” I cracked the whip at her, leaving a diagonal laceration from her collarbone to her hip.

She jumped and gave a loud cry at the burn of the lash. With stunned eyes, she peered down at the tear in her dress, as if expecting it to be an illusion or something. She cried out again as the whip slashed her thigh.

“Fight me,” I insisted, just as she had me.

To her credit, she straightened her shoulders and met my gaze. But that boldness disappeared when the whip caught her cheek. Without giving her a second to recover, I slashed at her mouth, watching in satisfaction as blood dripped down her chin. I noticed then that her wounds weren’t healing as quickly as they should – or as quickly as wounds from my whip had in the past anyway.

“Come on, Magda. Where did all that bravado go? Of course, if you’ve had enough, you can always just admit defeat and beg me to stop. But I won’t stop, so it’s hardly worth it.”

I cracked the whip again. This time, I wrapped it around her waist, using it to slam her against the ground a few times. When I released her, she dragged herself to her feet, coughing and cradling the back of her head. Then the psycho actually launched herself at me, aiming that spike at my stomach. Bad move. In under a millisecond, I allowed my whip to fade away and remoulded the energy into a shield. She ricocheted off it, ending up on her backside.

“Ooh,” I said with false sympathy. “That hadn’t been wise, had it? But, then, none of this had been wise. You should have known that.”

She quickly got to her feet, but before she could make another move, I was directly in front of her and shoving her hard in the chest with the palm of my hand. She zoomed across the arena and crashed into the far wall. I heard stunned gasps all around me. Of course they were surprised. So was I. A Sventé vampire should not have that kind of strength.

Apparently deciding to copy my move, she bounded at me in vampire speed so that she was up close and personal. Having dodged the fist that was fast heading for me, I spun and kicked her hard in the face. Maybe it was a little cruel to be so satisfied at the sight of her broken nose, but ‘tit for tat’ and all that.

Movement in my peripheral vision snatched my attention. A fierce looking Dexter had joined my side and had elevated his head and a third of his body from the ground. Focused on Magda, he flattened his neck and opened his mouth – exposing the inky black discolouration – before emitting a hollow hiss. Yeah, he was well and truly pissed. I cocked my head at the neurotic woman who appeared to be contemplating lunging at me again. “You know what, I think I’ll let Dexter have you.”

I took a small step backwards, handing power over to him. Before Magda had a chance to properly process my words, the snake abruptly struck and bit into her chest. Wow, Wes hadn’t been kidding when he said that this breed was fast – the movement had been a complete blur.

She cried out in what seemed to be a mixture of shock, anger, and pain. Still, the dumb crank came at me with her blade flying high. Using more of the natural energy that was coating my body, I directed a flame of fire at the blade – a flame that was wilder and hotter than any I had released before. She squealed and quickly cradled her arm against her chest, which was now back to skin and bone…and blistering again.

Noticing how her now bloodshot eyes were going in and out of focus, I gave her a falsely sympathetic smile. “That’s stage one coming on: temporary blindness.”

Panicked, she stumbled backwards with her arms spread wide. “What’s happening?”

“It’s Dexter’s venom. It can do some extraordinary stuff…as you’ll soon find out.” I could tell that her eyesight was now totally gone. Dexter, who was weaving in and out of my legs, hissed repeatedly at her while his tail rattled like crazy. “I could be wrong, but I’d say that ticking off a venomous snake was a really bad move.”

Suddenly she started to sway and stagger, holding her hands to her head.

“Oh that’s just stage two kicking in: temporary mental disorientation.”

Making strange keening noises, she continued to stumble around for a minute until eventually she fell flat on her back. “Make it stop.”

“I couldn’t even if I wanted to. You didn’t stop when I was in excruciating pain, did you? Maybe a nice, compassionate girl would, nonetheless, try to help you. But I’m not a nice, compassionate girl – especially when it comes to people like you. And especially when you seriously hurt my fiancé. I have a huge f**king issue with that.”

It would be true to say that if she hadn’t Turned him, he wouldn’t be mine now; that if she hadn’t betrayed him, he might never have left her. But I was just selfless enough to prefer for him to have never gone through that pain than for him to be here with me.

Seconds later, she wasn’t moving at all other than to breathe. The little devil on my shoulder thought that that was a real shame. “It appears that now you’ve reached the third and final stage: temporary paralysis. Horrible that. I had a taste of it a few evenings ago. At least you’re not in severe agony at the same time. It’s always best to be grateful for small mercies, I think.”

I crouched down beside her. “Do us all a favour; bear something in mind for future reference. Being sly doesn’t get anybody anywhere. In my opinion, you should know that by now. It lost you Jared, and it lost you this fight, and it’ll also lose you the long-term fight. Maybe you were right in what you said before; maybe he does deserve better than me. But I ain’t going anywhere. Get used to it.” I stood then, addressing the entire arena. “All of you get used to it. Or piss off home, whichever.”

(Jared)

Back at our apartment, all I could do was squat in front of the sofa and stare, open-mouthed, at my beautiful fiancée…and wonder what in God’s name was going on.

The crowd had barely begun cheering when I’d teleported to her and then took us both home. Watching her duel with Magda, watching her in agony, had been an agony all on its own for me. It had taken Antonio, Luther, and Wes to keep me from intervening. Of course I’d understood their actions; if I had interfered in what Magda had implied was nothing more than a friendly challenge, it would have greatly undermined Sam. That would have seriously brought her suitability as a future ruler into question, making things ten times worse than what they already were.