“Icaral demon,” my mouth seethes, my voice deepened into Vogel’s chilling, male tones as she keeps me pinned to the ground. “I see you.”

Ariel grins, baring teeth, her eyes widening with wicked delight. “Oh, you see me, do you?” She flicks her wings out to their full, powerful span and leans in close. “Well, take a good, long look, Marcus.” Her smile sharpens, her eyes two lethal embers. “Go straight to hell, you rotted piece of Mage filth. You made a mistake when you failed to break me.”

Vogel laughs in the back of my mind, and a swell of violent outrage rises within me. I painfully wrench in my lines, regaining a sliver of agency.

“He’s laughing at you,” I rasp against Vogel’s grip as Ariel keeps my arms pinned with her knee and expeditiously rips a strip of dark fabric from the bottom edge of her tunic.

“Oh, go ahead and laugh, priest,” Ariel snipes, flashing him a belligerent grin as she yanks my wrists together and binds my hands tight. “I still won’t let you take her.”

Vogel roars back into me, shooting agony through my lines and wresting hold of my lips. I bare my teeth at her. “I’ll rip your wings off,” I hiss with a vicious smile. “And feed them to you, demon spawn. Then I’ll shove nilantyr down your throat until you beg for more.”

Horror flickers through Ariel’s eyes at the mention of the powerful drug, a growl rising from her throat as I rage against Vogel’s cruelty and tense my lines against his unbearable hold, wresting tenuous control over my voice and body once more.

“Ariel,” I roughly force out. “I can’t hold him back.”

“Then we’ll find a way to break his hold on you,” Ariel viciously counters, the golden conflagration in her eyes rising.

“Destroy me and get to safety,” I insist. “Get back to Naga. He’s coming for me.”

“No,” Ariel snarls, and I’m stunned by her foolish tenacity. “I’m going to bring you back to my horde. Naga can burn him out of you.”

Vile winged thing!

Hot tears glaze my eyes, Vogel’s dead tree pulsing against my vision. “I can’t risk him getting full hold of me again,” I vehemently press. “I almost killed everyone in Voloi. The Prophecy is right, Ariel. My magic...it’s evil. And if by some miracle Yvan survived, I need to be struck down so that he can be the one to prevail and fight.”

Vogel’s rage explodes inside me.

“I don’t believe in prophecies!” Ariel lashes back with blistering defiance.

“It doesn’t matter whether you believe in it or not!” I cry out. “It’s real!”

Ariel’s look is a scorch of lightning. “Then subvert it!”