Chapter 502: Detonated
The words Violet spoke sent shivers down August’s spine. Was she truly suggesting she would try killing her again? She was admitting it in front of all of them?
"I cannot help the hatred I have for her. It will not go away. If I am alive, I will seek to destroy her. I vow it," she growled, her eyes sliding up and landing on August, bright gold flames dancing in her eyes once again.
Finn was gone. He didn’t have to witness her like this. And she didn’t want him to ever have to. He was the one friend she felt like she had, and she didn’t deserve him either.
Graeme snarled, the instinct to protect his mate roaring to life. He lunged at Violet, grabbing her by the throat.
"Why, Violet?" He said. "Why have you let this darkness consume you? Why did you choose this path over any other that you could have taken?"
Instead of reacting with fear, a smile curved on her face. "Because you were mine first," she said, looking at his lips. He was so close to her. Closer than he had been in a long time. "And your heir was mine first. I cannot let another live. I cannot bear it."
With those last words, her lip curled up over her teeth. She was being true. The hatred was rolling off of her. It was so strong, she could barely contain it, and her fingers twitched behind her back, wanting to be set free to complete the death she had attempted before Neoma had gotten in the way.
She would have been successful, and August would have been gone. But the bitch was still living, still breathing and still glowing with that false blessing from the Goddess. August had only just gotten here, but Violet had lived here her entire life. How could no one else see that she was an intruder? It was obvious. She was the result of an experiment, for Goddess sakes! She was here to destroy their pack!
"I am sorry I allowed you to believe I was yours," Graeme growled low, shaking his head miserably. This began with him—with his mistake.
"Don’t be sorry," she scoffed. "I was the best choice. You should have stuck with me."
With those words, she twisted out of his grip and pushed away from him, the fury that had risen to consume her once again burning through the enchantment around her hands and allowing her arms to break free. Graeme, Greta, and Sam flew away from her like an explosion had gone off, the force of it throwing them through the air. But it was only Violet’s power, her ability to use the Veiled clearing the way so that she could attack August one last time.
"Violet, no!" Cressida yelled from the door, having returned to check on what was to be done with her daughter after the nightmare she had created today.
Violet threw another dark spear toward August, aiming it for her heart this time as she followed after it, running to attack her. August blocked the threat with the flick of her wrist, sending the invisible weapon to disappear into the Veiled where it turned back into dispersed energy.
And then Violet was on her, knocking August to the ground and rolling around on top of her, trying to get a handle on her neck where she could choke her with her bare hands if she had to. She didn’t need the Veiled. Her hatred was enough that she could take care of the witch this way.
Sylvia and Charlotte tried getting a handle on Violet’s shoulders while Maggie was attempting to create a barrier around August, but the two were rolling around on the ground too much for her to be able to get a clear enough line of sight. Violet sent another wave of that powerful force that sent them flying through the air and slamming against the walls of the chamber.
August and Violet were snarling so viciously at each other, it sounded for sure like one of them was going to rip the other’s throat out. The threat from Violet like this was not something August had faced before. There were no trees or life around to produce the vines like she had used to stop the vampire, and with Violet attempting to choke her, cutting off her air, she couldn’t bring herself to think of what else to do. She had not practiced enough with the Veiled to so quickly be able to use it like this.
Victory shone bright in Violet’s eyes as she saw August begin to panic. The Luna may not have the darkness in her to bring about someone’s death with the Veiled, but she sure did. She had been waiting for this moment, planning it, practicing different enchantments... imagining just how she would take August out if she were given the chance. And now she had it.
She lifted one hand away from the Luna, a dark orb springing to life in her palm with all the hatred she had living inside of her chest and her heart for this female who had taken everything from her—Graeme, the right to be by his side, the blessing of his child in her womb—it all coalesced into this ball of fury that would detonate when Violet commanded it, and if she could just push it inside of August’s field of energy, it would scramble that bitch from the inside out, destroying her once and for all.
"You took everything from me," Violet snarled, the thumb of the hand around August’s neck digging into Graeme’s mate mark as they continued to tumble along the ground.
Everyone else in the chambers was back on their feet, rushing to the spot where August and Violet were rolling around the ground, their snarls echoing off of the walls. Violet had her hand raised as if there was a threat there waiting to be released any moment.
When she saw everyone coming for her once again, Violet sent another forceful wave to clear them from approaching, but this time it didn’t affect Graeme who felt the threat to his mate like a hand squeezing the very heart inside of his chest. He shifted into his wolf. He was going to reach her before Violet had a chance to do anything else. There was no way he was going to lose her. She was everything—everything, and nothing else, no heavy weight of guilt from the past, no prior self-doubt was enough to cloud out that one truth.
A wall of flames erupted to life around the females before him—Violet’s one last attempt to keep him from reaching them so she could have this chance to end his mate. He ran into it without any hesitation, the flames licking his fur and singing it, burning it down close to his skin that began to char from the heat. The wall of fire was so thick—how was he still running through it? It should have been one leap to get to the other side where August was.
August watched in horror as Graeme seemed trapped in the flames that Violet had erected around them. It was some kind of trick—some horrifying enchantment that was like a shield keeping him out indefinitely. And he was burning—she could feel it scorching her as it was him. She screamed—the force of that sound, of that breath from her lungs alone sending Violet flying off of her and into the flames that she had created.
August got to her feet and ran straight for Graeme, pushing into the fiery wall of Violet’s enchantment and sending its flames scattering around her like she wore something that repelled them—a fire resistant garment in the Veiled that it couldn’t touch.
"No no no!" she exclaimed, wrapping her mate in the protection of her aura and pulling him out where the flames couldn’t reach him.
She kept him wrapped protectively in her arms as Violet’s blood-curdling screams rose to fill the chamber. She was trapped in her own enchantment—burning alive in the wall of fire she had created. And then the black orb that Violet had cradled in the palm of her hand detonated, and her screams evaporated into a black plume of smoke that rose to the circular skylight above, carrying the entirety of Violet’s essence along with it.
August watched the plume of smoke go, and a black bird that had been perched on top of the sky light cawed once before ruffling its wings and flying away into the daylight.
