The Hunter's Prey (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 5) by Katherine Sparrow Page B

shriekers and a dread knot. I spoke the Welsh words that would activate each of the seven of them, a hurried mumble under my breath.
    The vampires stumbled back as the spells sprang to life. The only one with any strength was the exploding balls. They blew off one of the vampire brother’s pretty faces, and a moment later he dissolved into an inky cloud that fell to the ground.
    The others jumped to their feet: itchy, hot, and filled with dread, as well as raging that I had just killed their brother.
    “I could use some back up any time now,” I said to the air.
    In response, the plain rock sitting ten feet away shivered and turned into a wizard.
    “Over here, bloody lads,” Merlin called out. He leveled his wand at one of them and muttered.
    That one exploded.
    Three brothers attacked me and two flew toward Merlin.
    I threw pure and horrid magic at the vampires, drawing it up from the faerie ground and pouring it straight at them. It wasn’t spell-making, but something more primal. The magic inked through the air and struck one hard. He was dead within seconds. But the other two moved too fast. One of them struck me in the head. The other barreled into me from behind.
    I fell to my knees and pulled up more magic, flinging it in a deadly arc that surrounded me. It cast a dark clouded circle around my form and I couldn’t see beyond it.
    I felt two things batter into my magical circle.
    I heard screams. And then whimpering. And then silence. I waited for a tense moment, and then dropped the magic and let the dark clouds sink into the ground. Where it had been, three smoldering ruins of dead vampires remained.
    Satisfying, that.
    I turned toward Merlin.
    He sat in silence as well, near some smoldering wreckages of dead vampires, though he did not wear any kind of smug expression.
    Instead, he pressed both of his hands to his side where blood leaked out around his fingers, staining his shirt and pants.
    I ran to him.
    “Show me.”
    “Merely a flesh wound,” he said through clenched teeth.
    “We are all and only flesh. Show me, love,” I whispered, for all my breath had left me.
    He carefully removed his hands, and I saw the white of rib bones and the raw meat of his insides. Without help it would bleed out, or with luck, fester and grow infected. Our mortality would let it pus and swell, dragging Merlin's life away with some paltry wound. But I would not let that happen. I took a smooth peridot stone out of my pocket. It wasn't much of a healing spell, but it was all I had. I placed it in my palm and pressed my hand over the wound.
    Merlin winced, but didn’t move away from me.
    “ Gwella, gwella, gwella, ” I murmured, twining strands of different kinds of healing magic from within me and pouring them into the stone and then into Merlin. I closed my eyes, “ Gwella, gwella, gwella.” I braided strength and resilience into a figure of eight and added it to the flow of healing energies. Beneath my hands, I slowly began to feel his bones knit back together as the skin around the meaty wound pulled in and tightened.
    Merlin kept his eyes clenched shut. He groaned and swore with every layer of healing I put into him. I kept at it even after his wound was fully sewn back together. I flowed great strands of white healing light into his side, for what if some small amount of dirt or vampire effluvium lurked within? It might yet still fell him and that could not happen. It must not happen. I doubled and then tripled the magic into him, even as I felt my breath slowing and my pulse growing fainter. I had to do this well and fully. Merlin needed to be in the world, in my world, hale and hearty.
    Strong hands wrapped around mine and pulled them away from his side.
    “Stop, witch. That’s more than enough. Stop.” Merlin wrapped his fingers around mine. “You need your strength today. I’ll give some of it back.”
    I sat back on my knees, feeling wan and weak, but didn’t let it show. “How do you feel?”
    “Fully