Their Fireheart

Chapter Thirty Seven

Aelin 

My words stopped the Wing Leader in her tracks, her back to me. For a moment, time stood still.

Then one of her lieutenants whirled around, golden hair flying. "What do you know of Baba Yellowlegs?"

I chuckled darkly, even as Rhysand growled in warning. At me or at the witch, I didn't know, but there was no turning back now. They'd already taken the bait.

Slowly, Manon looked back at me over her shoulder.

With a smirk plastered onto my face, I tugged down my tunic, revealing my lasting reminder of the encounter. The wind shifted as soon as the sun began to warm the necklace of thin scars - the scent carrying the evidence of what I was, what every Ironteeth witch would know me as.

A Witch Killer.

The white-hair witch's nostrils flared, the faint scent that wouldn't quite dissipate - of iron and stone and pure hatred - hitting her with all the force of a boulder. And I saw her lose herself to the lust for vengeance, to the promise of blood and gore.

Just as I already had.

"You're dead," Manon snarled.

And then she lunged.

Only to slam face-first into an invisible wall.

And freeze entirely.

It only took a second before her wide-eyed sentinels were rushing towards her, but by that time I was already snatching up my twin blades. Dragging Chaol with me, I bolted towards the trees.

Not to flee.

Oh no, with an opponent like the white-haired witch, I wouldn't run from a fight like this, even if I wanted to. But the Wing Leader wouldn't be frozen in place for long, not with Chaol's human blood holding the spell, so I needed him out of range before the real fun - the bloodletting - began.

"Get him out of here," I half-shouted at Aedion, shoving Chaol deeper into the shadowed woods alongside my cousin.

My mates closed rank behind me, grumbling under their breath the whole time. They knew as well as I did that this was far from over.

They could bitch me out for it later.

"The ravine," Aedion said, not looking back from where he sprinted ahead with Chaol.

The temple. Not only the safest way out, but it also wasn't a half-bad backdrop. I'd have to compliment Aedion later.

Assuming he knew what I was planning, that was.

We hurtled through the trees, the witches still in the meadow, attempting to break the spell that had trapped their Wing Leader. And being slow as fuck about it.

"Really, Aelin," Rhysand sighed as he ran beside me. "Did you have to taunt her?"

I shot him a feline smirk as I leapt over a fallen tree, only to be met with four rumbling growls in response.

"Please," I scoffed at them, "you can't tell me you're not the least bit interested in seeing if she's even half as dangerous as she looks."

Their damning silence was all I needed to hear.

I hadn't believed for one moment that the witch would have let us walk away without a fight. I just made it a little more interesting. Besides, we were all predators at the end of the day, and there was nothing more thrilling to us than asserting your dominance over another.

Than proving your superiority over your opponent in the heat of battle. The more fearsome, the better.

Finally, a roar of fury exploded from the meadow, so loud it set the birds scattering from the trees. I ran faster, determined to reach our destination before the witches did. Another scream shook the leaves on the trees. The Wing Leader was pissed. Really pissed.