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voice, and watched with satisfaction as he dismissed them. He d gotten better at reading my moods.
     
    The three of us took up stance, Daphne and Breandan managing to position themselves a step ahead of me. As the vampires ran toward me there was no sense of fear, and I could not bring myself to be concerned about that. I calmly tracked their movement with my eyes.
     
    Turning to Daphne, I jerked my head to the dilapidated building beside her.
    Go inside, away from the windows.
     
    She kept her attention on the advancing vampires.
    Rae. &
     
    Ignoring the caution in her voice, I drew deeply on the Source. The amount of energy that gathered was small, too small. I pulled deeper. Light flickered across my palm, crackled between my fingertips. I grunted, struggling to draw the magic. It was there, I was just too tired to channel it, to manifest it into the weapon I needed.
     
    Breandan clasped my hand, held it tightly as he gave me his own failing strength.
     
    Inhaling on a gasp, I raised my palm and a blade of light sliced through the air. The vampires shrieked as it passed through them, burning them with sunlight. Two stumbled and one simply keeled over. The rest shook it off and ran on. Unwavering, I conjured a stronger slash of light. The vampires dropped and crawled forward, but one was too slow, and took the blade of light to the neck.
     
    Spheres of blue flame raced beside the blades of light I conjured, and smashed into the necks of those in the centre. Breandan had another energy sphere in his hand, hovering steadily as he picked his next target.
     
    I summoned my own, and it appeared as a rough ball of flames.
     
    We picked off another two, disintegrating them into ash, but still the Nest charged. There were no more than twenty left, but how many had Breandan and Daphne killed already? Would they never stop coming?
     
    Magic flooded me, but I wasn t channeling enough. The pressure built in my temples, at the base of my spine, and burned my fingertips. Untapped power bubbled in my gut, and made my knees weak. Sensing I needed to release it, or it would burn me from the inside, I fixed my attention on the coming attack. I grabbed all the power and threw it towards them with everything I had left.
     
    The world exploded in ripples of dazzling light. Breandan was wrenched away from me, and Daphne screamed. A lash of searing heat licked the walls and set the air on fire. The inferno swept over everything until the rain soaked street hissed, and the smell of burning flesh clogged the air.
     
    The fire collapsed leaving smoke and a faint crackling.
     
    In the middle of the charred street, I stood alone. Wide-eyed and breathing hard, a cold sweat breaking out on my brow. The ground moved beneath me. Oh, okay, not the ground, my legs were wobbling. I gasped, and my legs buckled as I tried to take a step forward. I fell into a heap, my palms slapping the concrete loudly as I used them to break my fall.
     
    Ugh. Dizzy, nauseous, and cold.
     
    I ran my tongue over my teeth and tasted bitterness. Clumps of hair clung to my skin and hung over my face like scraggly ropes. I tried to slow my racing heart by breathing in a long, jagged breath, and exhaling slowly.
     
    Breandan was suddenly there, scooping me up from the floor. He hooked one arms under my legs the other across the middle of my back. He curled me into his chest and nudged at my face with his nose until I looked him fully in the face. His silver-blue eyes traced over my features, lingering over my eyes, making was sure I was still lucid. He nodded and peered around us curiously.
     
    I rested my forehead against his chest. My brows pulled together sluggishly his skin was hot, too hot, I needed to be more careful.
     
    Daphne hovered nearby, wary. The corners of her eyes were pinched in pain and her body stiff. I grimaced, my stomach lurching at the sight of her.
     
    Half of her face was blackened and burnt, as was the side of her neck, and the back of one