Flashing little white stars were covering the image in front of me—an image I was having a hard time registering, despite the strong hands tightening against my throat and cutting off my air supply.

I knew Blaze didn’t want to do this. Mind-bending was a powerful tool, especially in the hands of a giggling psychopath like Rewa. I caught a glimpse of her grinning with satisfaction as she watched from the edge of the stairs.

“Blaze… please, you’re hurting me…” I croaked, unable to breathe.

My hands covered his, and I used all my strength in a desperate attempt to pry them from my throat. It was impossible. He was too strong. There has to be a way…

“Blaze… you don’t want to do this…”

I could feel darkness creeping up on me, my consciousness slowly slipping through my fingers. But what really broke my heart were the dark blue flames burning in his eyes. Beneath the glassy façade of hypnosis, Blaze knew what he was doing to me—and he couldn’t stop it.

It was up to me to put an end to it. Rewa’s snickers reached my ears, as my eyes were beginning to roll back in my head. I found one last ounce of energy to look at her, and I realized that there was one way, one surefire way to stop Blaze, so I could get my lighters back from the ground where I’d dropped them when he’d first grabbed me.

My knee came up fast and rammed into his groin. His face contorted with pain, and he immediately let me go, falling to his knees. Both his hands covered the affected area. My legs were just as weak, and I nearly landed flat on my face, coughing and wheezing, my lungs readjusting to normal breathing.

“I am so sorry, Blaze,” I whimpered, then looked around for my lighters, which were only a couple of feet away to my left. Blaze had rolled to his side in a fetal position.

I only had seconds before he’d recover and come at me again, Rewa’s mind-bending still in full effect. With one last push, I managed to grab my lighters, then flipped them open as my gaze shifted to Rewa. That smug smile on her face vanished when she realized what was coming next.

“How’s this for crispy?” I smirked, then shot out a flurry of fireballs at her and the other Lords.

She squealed, then dodged along with the others, my flames barely brushing them. I was too weak, still trying to come to my full senses. But Patrik reacted fast, just as Blaze was in the process of getting up. Patrick’s fist nearly dislocated his jaw, but the impact was strong enough to knock him out.

He then helped me to my feet, firing blue flames at the Correction Officers coming at us.

“Make sure he stays down until we get out of here,” he breathed, then went back to fighting more Maras.

I briefly shuddered, shaking my head in an attempt to regain my focus. The Lords were scrambling farther up the stairs, but none wanted to leave. They scowled at me and continued watching the fight. I wanted to go after them, but several Correction Officers reached me, and I had no choice but to focus on them.

Fortunately, not only was my inner fire itching to burn them all to a crisp, but the rest of my team was also kicking major ass. From the few glimpses I caught of Scarlett and Fiona, they were mowing Maras down like training dummies. I could hear bones breaking, yelps and screams of agonizing pain, and bodies hitting the ground, unable to withstand the strength and speed of the Novaks.

I slipped to the left, dodging the sword of a Correction Officer, and fashioned my own flaming blade, the incandescent concentration of pure fire that I’d recently learned to master. The Maras didn’t want us dead, since they were after our souls—except Rewa, who had a bone to pick with me… I did hold hope that the other Lords would hold her back, though, since our souls were supposedly rare and “extra tasty”. They were aiming to hurt us severely enough to allow our capture.

It gave me a slight advantage, as none of their hits were going for any of my vital organs. I, on the other hand, was going straight for the kill.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” Avril’s voice shot through.

I rammed my sword through a Mara, his flesh sizzling from the fire blade, his eyes popping out as he stared at me in disbelief. I kicked him back to retrieve my precious flaming weapon, then saw Avril and Heron joining the fight. They didn’t stop to think. They simply reacted and started blocking hits, and chopping the limbs off any Maras who tried to get close to Blaze. Their orders were probably to snatch him while he was still unconscious.

“I’m not even going to ask what’s going on here,” Avril quipped, bringing her sword down on a Correction Officer. “But just so you know, the Maras are eating souls!”

Her opponent collapsed in a puddle of blood, and she didn’t give him a chance to get back up. Her blade whistled through the air before it removed his head from the rest of his body.

“Yeah, we just figured it out ourselves,” I shot back, dealing with my own side of hostiles.

Their numbers weren’t shrinking fast enough, as more Correction Officers poured in from the upper levels, but we had enough anger pumping through our veins to take them all on, even without Blaze.

“So I take it we know who the bad guys are,” Heron said sarcastically as he drove his sword through a Mara’s neck, severing his spinal cord. Another came at him from behind, but Heron executed a swift and flawless hundred-and-eighty-degree turn with his blade perfectly angled to decapitate the Mara.

“And here I thought you were the slow one in the bunch,” Avril snorted as they moved back to back, Correction Officers gathering around them like hungry vultures.

I almost smiled, but my new opponents were determined to keep me busy. I brought my flaming sword up, allowing it to cast its warm light on my face, before using it to bring death to the creatures that had so horribly betrayed us.

We had to get out of here, of course, but we also needed to leave them with enough casualties to keep them busy for the next couple of days, until we got a chance to regroup and once again come up with a new plan.