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STELLAN

Adrian’s wrist broke in my hand.

The dagger turned away from my heart as he shouted. I drove my shoulder into his chest and carried him off the dais.

We hit the floor together. Pain tore through my wounded side, but I kept hold of his arm and slammed it against the stone. The heartblood dagger fell between us.

I had lost too much blood to heal at my normal speed. The wounds in my chest and side opened with every hard movement, sharpening Bryony’s fear. I tightened my grip on Adrian and kept moving. She had already done her part.

Adrian struck my throat with his free hand. His fingers found the half-healed cut and ripped it open.

I caught his jaw and threw him towards the throne.

He hit the lowest step, rolled and came up on his feet. His broken wrist hung at the wrong angle, but it had already started pulling back into place.

“The house is closed to you,” Bryony said from the dais. “Your guards can’t reach this room, and you can’t command the ones we freed.”

Adrian looked at the Crown on her head. “You’re holding power you don’t understand.”

“I understand that you’ve lost.”

He moved for her.

I hit him from the side before he reached the first step. We crashed into the base of the throne hard enough to shake the Crown’s white light.

Adrian drove his thumb into the wound over my heart.

My grip failed long enough for him to seize the back of my neck and smash my face against the carved stone. Blood ran into my eye.

I twisted under his arm, caught his injured wrist and bent it again.

Bone broke a second time.

Adrian snarled and buried his fangs in my shoulder.

I locked one arm around his head and dragged him closer instead of pulling away. My fingers closed behind his neck. One hard turn would break it, but his knee struck the wound in my side before I could finish.

The impact threw us apart.

The dagger lay near the edge of the dais. Adrian saw it at the same time I did.

We reached for it.

His fingers touched the hilt first. I stamped on his forearm and heard another crack, but he hooked the weapon towards himself with two fingers.

Red light crawled over the black blade.

“Stellan,” Bryony warned.

I stepped back as Adrian slashed. The point missed my stomach and opened the front of my shirt. He came after me with the dagger in his left hand, healing wrist held close to his body.

Lenora and the freed guards held the room behind him. White wards covered their chests while they watched the closed passages for another attack. Bryony remained near the throne, keeping the doors sealed and the Crown’s power away from my body.

She had left the fight to me.

Adrian attacked again before I could clear my vision.