The Serpent and the Wings of Night (Crowns of Nyaxia, #1)

by Carissa Broadbent

Power seeped from his every pore, and death stained his every breath.

Oh, sun fucking take me.

Death isn’t frightening when weighed against an insignificant existence.”

I bit back a silent curse for my useless magic and groped around for my blades, praying they had made the journey with me. If I had been dumped in here unarmed, I was dead. Searing pain sliced across my hand. FUCK. I clamped my lips down on the cry. I’d found my blade. By the sharp end. Fucking idiot.

For a moment and an eternity, the demon and I balanced together, dancing on the blade’s edge of death.

I had gone back to old bad habits, opening little paths of blood over my skin and watching how easily it tore, how slow it healed. I hated that my body was so weak.

It had overtaken the apartment. White flames leeched the color from the floors, the walls, the curtains. The fumes made my lungs sting, as if each layer of tissue was shrieking a dying wail.

I blinked and tears streamed down my cheeks. Whatever I had cracked open inside myself to access that power bled like an open wound.

“I’ve lived through some injustices in the last couple of centuries. Seen some fucking travesties. But one of the biggest, Oraya, is that anyone taught you that you should become anything other than exactly what you are.”

I imagined that if I killed him here, that smile would linger. “Your heart is beating fast,” he murmured. “You must be very concerned for my well-being.”