With no other ideas and no other options, I make my legs go weak.

“Walk!” she screeches, but I ignore her as I let my head loll back and my entire body sag. Then, using every ounce of willpower I have left, I close my eyes and make the gamble that she won’t kill me right here, right now. And then I drop to the ground, ignoring the searing pain in my scalp as I rip out what I’m sure is a whole handful of hair in the process.

Lia howls in outrage as she loses her grip on me.

The sound bounces off the ceiling and echoes around the room in a macabre warning that has everything inside me urging me to run, to crawl, to put as much distance between her and me as I can possibly manage. Even the voice inside me is screaming to get up, to get moving.

But even on my best day, Lia’s ten times faster than I am and twenty times stronger. Outrunning her isn’t an option even if I could move faster than the sad, pathetic crawl I’m currently limited to.

So instead of running, I play possum. Not running, not moving, not even breathing as she screams at me to get up. When screaming doesn’t work, she tries slapping my face a few times. And when that doesn’t work, she hauls me up herself, throws me over her shoulder and starts stumbling toward the altar with my head hanging halfway down her back.

That alone tells me she’s in a lot worse shape than she let on. Flint obviously did more damage than I gave him credit for. Good for him.

My injured shoulder is screaming at me in this position, but I ignore it even as I give myself permission to open my eyes for a second.

Everything looks exactly as it did when I ran from this place, including the jar of blood that’s still knocked over on its side. Lia steps around the glass containers and carries me past a stone lectern that has a book spread wide open on it. I have just enough time to wonder if it’s the same book she was reading from in the library all those days ago, when I have to close my eyes again and play dead—or at least unconscious—as she dumps me on the altar.

This is the best—the only—chance I’m going to have to get myself free, so I wait until she turns her back on me and starts trying to untie the knot on one of the hand restraints. Then I grab her hair and throw every ounce of my weight behind it as I push her forward and slam her head against the edge of the altar as hard as I can.

Lia howls like a banshee.

And since she doesn’t immediately strike out in revenge, I pull her head back and do it again, even harder this time. Then I scramble backward as fast as my bruised and battered body can carry me.

I don’t get far before she whirls on me with a growl worthy of a big cat episode on Animal Planet. It doesn’t stop me, though. Just makes me push harder through the pain. This time I’m not running for the door, though. Instead, I head straight toward the lectern—and the book Lia has resting on top of it.

It takes her a second to realize what I’m going for, but when she does, she lets loose a scream like nothing I’ve ever heard before. And then she leaps after me, clearing the altar with a single bound and landing right next to the lectern. But she’s too late.

I’m already there.

I grab the book, rip out the pages she’s got it open to—plus a couple on either side just to be safe. Then nearly cry in relief when Lia completely loses her shit.

She screams and lunges for me, but I use the last drop of strength in my body to jump backward even as I tear the pieces in half.

She’s on me in seconds, her claws and teeth tearing at me in a desperate effort to get her hands on what I’m pretty sure is some ancient spell. “Give it to me!” she screams as she rakes her fingers down my biceps. “Give it to me now!”

I hold on as tightly as I can, even as new blood flows down my arms. Then I do the only thing I can do to keep the paper out of her reach. I roll the both of us straight off the altar to the hard stone ground several feet below.

We land with a thud. Lia barely seems to notice the drop, but I’m half convinced the landing dislocated my shoulder all over again…and maybe even broke my back. Still, I’ve got one shot at foiling her plan—whatever the fuck it is beyond killing me as painfully as possible, so I ignore the pain as best I can and reach my hand out to one of the hundreds of candles burning around us.

And plunge the spell straight into the fire.

   61

Sticks and Stones

May Break Your Bones,

but Vampires Will

Kill You

The dry, ancient paper instantly goes up in flames, and the sound Lia makes as we watch is like nothing I’ve ever heard before. Crazed, desperate, inhuman, it chills me to the bone.

It also brings to light what I’ve known all along—that what little time I had left is now used up. And there’s nothing more I can do about it.

Lia dives for the paper, grabs the remnants of it despite the flames currently devouring it. Her skin sizzles at the contact, but it’s too late. Anything useful is already gone.

She whirls on me with a snarl. “I’m going to enjoy ripping the flesh from your bones.”

“I have no doubt.”

The voice inside me wants me to get up, to run, but I’ve got nothing left. I’m battered, broken, and without my parents—without Jaxon—to run to, I can’t figure out why I’m fighting so hard anyway. I’ve foiled her plan, kept her from doing whatever it is she murdered my parents to do.

It will have to be enough.

She’s on me in seconds, and I wait for the kill shot, for new waves of agony to roll over me. But instead of ripping me to pieces as I expect, she lifts me into her arms. Throws me back onto the altar.

“Do you think I need that book?” she demands, dragging me to the center of the stone slab. “I’ve spent months preparing for this. Months!” she screeches as she reaches down and tears a long strip of cotton from the shift I’m wearing. “I know every word, every syllable of what’s on that page.”

She throws herself down on top of me and grabs my left arm. It’s my turn to scream as she wrenches it above my head.

She just laughs as she ties me to the metal ring I was tied to before and sneers. “Payback’s a bitch.”

She rips another strip from my gown, and though I kick at her, we both know it’s not going to do any good. She doesn’t even bother to slap me back. Just shifts her weight so she can tie my right arm up as well.

“I spent months searching for you,” she tells me as she climbs to her feet. “And then after I found you, I spent weeks planning your parents’ accident and planting the seeds with Finn that would get you here. Then more weeks making sure Jaxon was ready for you. And now you think you can ruin everything by burning a little spell? You have no idea.”