Bonds of the Vampire King (Blood Fire Saga Book 7), Bella Klaus [best classic books .TXT] 📗

more into wings. A sob tore from my throat, and tears filled my eyes. I’d failed, and now he had more control over me than ever.

Trafalgar Square was seconds away. Unusually deserted of tourists, the only activity on the paved plaza came from a pair of fountains spraying water illuminated by LED lights set within their geometrically shaped pools.

To our left stood the National Gallery, a huge stone building the size of a palace. At its entrance was a grand portico of a triangular roof supported by two-story columns, and behind it, a dome and turrets ran along the building’s vast roof.

“Here we are,” he said, his voice breathy with excitement. “Watch me reduce this shit-hole to rubble to answer the call of my body.”

Dread settled through the lining of my stomach as we drifted toward the space between the fountains. It was stupid to worry about what Kresnik would do to a centuries-old landmark when the fate of the world was at stake, but I’d grown attached to London and didn’t want it to change for the worse.

As my feet landed on the paving stones, I didn’t dare glance at what stood behind the fountains on our right. Not at its stone-and-bronze pedestal, not at the four bronze lions surrounding it, and definitely not at the statue hundreds of feet above, housing the immortal body of Prometheus.

Poor Theodore had told Kresnik the body was beneath the square. I needed Kresnik to waste time looking in the wrong place at least until Valentine could catch up with reinforcements.

He slid off my back. “Can I trust you not to fly away while we hunt for my true body?” He chuckled, threading a flaming hand through the noose of fire surrounding my neck and lifting me off my feet. “The body you occupy belongs to me, and my power over it is absolute. Do you hear me?”

Up close, Kresnik was molten lava. Thin streams of fire curled from his bulging muscles, making the air around him ripple. His eyes glowed the pale yellow of candle flames with pinprick pupils that resembled wicks.

His cruel mouth split into a grin of brilliant white teeth. “Do I need to tether you to the ground while I search for my body?”

I stared into his flaming eyes, breathing hard, and trying to shake my head. As much as I yearned to move, his magic wouldn’t release its hold over my body.

Gunshots rang through the air, and Kresnik convulsed. Dark spots appeared across his chest as the bullets soaked in his magic. All the air left my lungs, and my eyes darted from side to side.

“Miss Griffin,” shouted a voice from afar. “Run.”

A cry caught in the back of my throat. The bastard still had control of my motor functions, and I couldn’t move.

Enforcers streamed from the cafe and the restrooms opposite the fountains on our left and from behind Nelson’s Column on our right. I gulped. Valentine and Hades must have told them where Kresnik would be headed.

A stray bullet or two clipped my shoulder, making my stomach lurch. Did these people think I remained here because I was his accomplice?

He turned with his arms outstretched, thrashing from side to side, grunting with pain as the gunfire landed on his ifrit form. His fire dimmed, but he didn’t move from his position. Was he shielding me?

“I am your god.” He hurled cannonball-sized fireballs at the marksmen, making them scatter.

A missile flew in from the direction of the National Gallery on our right and landed in his gut, making the magic encasing my spine vanish with a snap.

I sucked in a breath. This was my chance.

Uncurling my wings, I raised them above my head and leaped. I sliced downward, letting the air propel me upward, and curled my knees to my chest.

With every ounce of my strength, I flapped up, up, high above the stream of bullets, over Kresnik’s floundering body, and over the lower structures of Trafalgar Square.

Shouts and screams and gunfire filled my ears, mingling with the boom of explosives, but I didn’t stop. Nelson’s Column loomed ahead. Atop it stood the admiral’s stone statue posing with the sleeve of his right arm tucked into his jacket.

As I flew parallel to the top of the column, the air above thickened, signifying a ward.

“Damn it.” I stretched out my wings, gliding over the edges of the square, trying to find a way out, but the wards encased us on all sides.

The enforcers had probably erected it so Kresnik wouldn’t escape. I flew over to the National Gallery and perched atop the roof of its portico to watch the battle.

Kresnik stumbled toward Nelson’s Column, swinging his torso from side to side the way someone would struggle against the might of a hurricane. The enforcers continued to riddle his body with bullets, and dark patches appeared in his fiery form, only to disappear.

“You cannot restrain me,” Kresnik bellowed over the sound of gunfire. “I am the undying.”

My breath came in shallow pants. Those bullets were supposed to contain firestone to absorb his power, but it seemed like he had an endless supply. How many of his followers had he absorbed to be able to withstand such punishment?

Ducking down, I shifted back into my regular form. Icy wind blew across my bare skin, and I inhaled a shocked gasp. The halo of fire encircling my neck solidified to something brittle like pumice stone. With a snarl, I yanked it over my head and tossed it aside.

As soon as it smashed against the roof, I shifted back into a phoenix to watch the one-sided battle below.

“Stand down, Kresnik,” a voice shouted over a megaphone. “You are surrounded and outnumbered.”

He held onto his sides with a hollow laugh that reminded me of wind howling through a tunnel. “That’s what you think.”

I clacked my beak. What the hell was he talking about?

Kresnik tilted his head up toward the statue of Lord Nelson, and the blood in my veins turned to sludge. It was