Footsteps thundered behind me. I had just enough time to leap behind a tree before a stampede of Unseelie knights came sprinting in my direction. If not for their silver body armor, I might have thought these were seelies. Their hair were wild colors like mine and Mei-Ling’s and their eyes no longer were as dark as night. They were, however, as soulless as before, just now in pretty colors. I scanned the forest ahead of me, expecting my Coven-mates to pop out and defend Seelie, when tree trunks shot up from the ground to make a wall up ahead. The Unseelies slid to a stop and tried to flee but another wall of trees shot up to the sky. I crept around the trunk of a tree to get a better view just as Saffie dropped from the sky in front of the Unseelies she’d trapped within her tree-walls.

“You made a mistake coming here,” she snarled and threw her arms up, causing her long red hair to whip around her petite little frame. Thick green vines as wide as my thighs burst through the ground, with three-inch-long thorns running along the edges. She curled her fingers, twirled her wrists, then flicked her hands forward. The vines obeyed like they were extensions of her magic, coiling around the Unseelies’ bodies at the same time. Saffie arched one red eyebrow as she stood there looking tall and terrible, her voice cold and steady. “This is my land, and you’re not welcome.”

The vines tightened around the knights, causing them to shriek and hiss in pain. They writhed across the dirt. Purple blood spilled into the grass around them. Saffie narrowed her lavender eyes and vines sliced through their limbs. The knight in the front managed to get to his feet and start for her while throwing magic in her direction. She flicked her wrists and a wave of dark-green dirt rose from the ground and swallowed the magic whole. Thorned vines pierced through the standing Unseelie’s feet and grew through his body. He screamed and tried to move but he was pinned. His back arched, forcing his head to fall back and his mouth to drop open. A wild tremor ripped through his body before a vine shot up into the sky from his mouth—with his heart impaled on it. Purple blood gushed from his mouth. His hair turned black again and his skin returned to that pale grayish-blue color, like she’d forced all of his life force out of him.

“You should’ve stuck to the civilians.” Gold glitter magic coiled around Saffie’s hands. “I shall turn your flesh into food for the bugs to feast on.”