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

as though his original body drew him like a magnet. I glanced over the square, where enforcers continued to launch their attack from behind the wards.

Where were his followers? Kresnik couldn’t have absorbed them all. Were they still inside the other locations throughout London he’d set up as traps, or did Kresnik deem them useless against the enforcers?

Just as Kresnik reached the base of Nelson’s Column, he fell onto his hands and knees, panting, unmoving, his head falling to the ground. The fire of his fingers spread through the gaps between paving stones, reaching the enforcers and turning the ground beneath their feet into pools of lava.

Their screams made my stomach lurch, and I jerked my head away. Guilt formed tight knots through my insides. It was too late to save them, and I couldn’t face seeing them die.

Thunder roared—at least that’s how I interpreted the sound, but when a cloud of powder and debris engulfed Trafalgar Square and flew through my flaming body, realization hit me like a clap of lightning.

That sound didn’t come from freak weather.

It was the destruction of Nelson’s Column.

Knowing Kresnik, he had probably absorbed all those attacks to release them in a gigantic burst. Clouds of detritus obscured the entire square, and I stepped to the edge of the roof, ready to take flight in case the explosion had affected the wards.

A hand threaded through my feathers, yanking me into a hard chest. “Good girl.” Kresnik ran a rough palm down my back. “I commend you for waiting so patiently for your master. Now, it’s time for us to fly to the Realm of the Gods.”

As the dust settled, the face that grinned down at me didn’t belong to an ifrit or the younger, more sinister version of Father Jude I’d been tricked into resurrecting. It didn’t even belong to the red-haired man Kresnik had morphed into a day later.

Kresnik was now an exact replica of the sun god whose features had graced the portraits in Kenwood House. Dark skin, blazing amber eyes, high cheekbones, and an unearthly beauty that could only belong to an immortal.

A tight fist of terror clenched my insides. This was the body of Prometheus.

Chapter Two

Before I could pull my magic back into my chakras and shift into my regular form, Kresnik pumped me with so much power that I cried out. This time it was hotter, more determined, more potent.

My fiery plumage expanded, and I grew several inches in height and girth until we stood at eye level.

“Much better,” he drawled. “Now you’re a mount better suited to a being of my stature.”

Without bothering to turn into an ifrit, he grabbed beneath my beak with his bare hands, not even wincing as his immortal flesh burned, and turned my head toward the east, where a streak of purple and green hung above the high-rise buildings of Canary Wharf like a concentration of aurora borealis.

A shudder ran down my spine. Before, Kresnik had the soul of a Greek god trapped in the body of a mortal. He was the real thing, now, and could regenerate.

“This is where we’re headed,” he snarled. “My people and I have spent days opening this rift into the Realm of the Gods, and it’s the first time I’ve entered it with a physical body.”

“Huh?” I squawked.

“I warn you not to struggle during the flight. The nature of magic has changed over the eons, and I can’t guarantee your survival if we don’t concentrate.” He punctuated those words with a threatening shake of my beak.

I clenched my jaw, wanting to claw at his new body until his bones snapped. With the amount of his magic flowing through my flames, I couldn’t even caw at him to bugger off.

My heart sank into the pit of my belly. I had no choice but to wait until something else distracted him before trying to escape.

Kresnik swung a leg over my back, mounting me like he’d already broken my spirit and I wasn’t a creature that would burn him to ash if given the chance. Wrapping one hand around my neck with a grip that threatened to cut off my air, he smacked me hard on the side, even though the action was unnecessary.

I could understand the spoken word, and even if I wanted to ignore him, I was completely under the control of the new power coursing through my flames.

My body launched itself off the edge of the portico, and my wings spread. We flew over the rubble covering Trafalgar Square, over the demolished fountains, the lions, and even the statue of Charles I across the road.

Not a single enforcer stopped us, and nobody shot up into the sky. The air didn’t even thicken as we passed the border of the square and flew over Charing Cross.

“Wonderful,” Kresnik drawled out loud. “You see how the Supernatural Council trembles behind the wards of Logris. They sent weaklings to apprehend us, and they’ve all perished.”

“Did you kill Valentine?” I asked, hoping that the new surge of power had reconnected our minds.

I stared down at the landmarks we passed—Victoria Embankment, the Royal Festival Hall, the Oxo Tower, the Millennium Bridge—all of them reminded me of places I’d dined with either Valentine or Beatrice.

A scream caught in my throat. Something had happened to Valentine as he’d followed us over Hyde Park, and Beatrice… I had to focus on what was happening right now.

“Hello?” I shouted into my head. “Can you hear me?”

When he snorted, I took that response as a yes.

We passed London Bridge, Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, before rising over Wapping toward Limehouse, where the glowing rift drifted over the patch of river that bordered Canary Wharf. I supposed this was why he had fought alone. His people were too busy carving through realms and readying Kresnik for his grand departure.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked.

Kresnik yawned in my ear.

Annoyance made my flames flicker, and the pulse between my ears pounded loud enough to drown out the roar