Master of Smoke

“Miranda has done nothing to betray anyone, much less Warlock!”
    He seemed to swell in his rage, towering over the fragile figure of his wife. “Don’t you dare lie to me, you stupid cunt! Calista Norman called—she told me all about what you did. How could you let Miranda anywhere near a Knight of the Round Table? You knew she’d talk!”
    Calista, you bitch, Miranda thought, steadying herself against the wall as the room rotated slowly around her. Stars flashed in her vision, and she strongly suspected he’d given her a concussion.
    “We had no idea the knight would be there,” Joelle said, talking fast, as if trying to get through to him before he killed them both. “The ladies were holding a Grieving for Joan Devon, and ...”
    “Joan Devon!” Gerald mocked in a high, singsong voice. “Why do you think Joan’s husband is dead, you idiot? She gave him up to the knights! Just like she”—he pointed a curving talon at Miranda—“gave up Warlock!”
    “No, no you’re wrong!” Joelle wrung her hands and darted a frantic glance at Miranda. “She told them nothing. Did you, darling?”
    “Not a damn thing.” Miranda forced herself to meet her stepfather’s furious yellow gaze without flinching. “The woman tried to give me a communication spell, but Mother knocked it out of my hand and told her to stay away from me. So we left.”
    Her father’s long muzzle twitched, drawing in her scent.
    Oh, shit, Miranda thought. I should have talked around it. He’s going to smell the ..
    “You lie!” He sprang at her, knocking Joelle aside with a sweep of one furry arm. Miranda skittered back, calling her magic as she retreated from his snapping jaws. Her transformation raced over her body in a wave of fur, muscle, and bone contorting like soft clay in the grip of her power.
    “You dare change?” As she met his frenzied gaze, she realized he’d lost control completely. And he intended to kill her. “You dare fight me? You dare?”
    Fear iced her veins, but she made herself sneer. She was tired of cowering from these bastards. “Oh, I dare. And if I get the chance to talk to Belle again, I’m going to tell her everything.”
    “Then I’ll have to see you don’t get the chance, you traitorous bitch!” He drew back a clawed hand as if to rip out her throat.
    Joelle threw herself between her daughter and the blow. “Ger—”
    His claws ripped into her face before she could get the rest of the word out of her mouth. She flew sideways, her body slamming into the base of the stairs with a crash. Something snapped.
    The sound seemed to echo in Miranda’s skull. “Mother!” Forgetting her father, she leaped to her mother’s side, landing beside her in a coiling crouch.
    Her mother’s head lay at an impossible angle, the life draining from her eyes.
    Oh, God. I finally got my mother killed, Miranda thought in dazed horror.
    FOURTEEN
    Numb with horror, Miranda started to snatch her mother into her arms, only to freeze, afraid to touch her and hurt her even more. “Call 911!” she yelled at her father.
    “It’s too late.” He sounded indifferent. “She broke her neck. She’s dead.” He bared his teeth, stalking toward her on clawed feet. Grabbing her by a fistful of mane, he hauled her up away from Joelle’s body, drawing back for another open-handed swipe of his claws. “And I’m not done with you.”
    He didn’t notice the short sword shimmering into her hand, but he did when she rammed it into his chest. Miranda’s lips peeled off her teeth. “Well, I’m done with you!”
    She jerked the blade out of his chest, and he fell onto his knees, gagging at the sudden pain. Miranda felt nothing at all when she swung the weapon up and took his head in one swing.
    He won’t be healing that, she thought, feeling a wave of ice roll across her mind.
    Tossing the sword aside, she knelt by her mother and let the tears fall in a hot tide of guilt and grief. In her pain, she was barely aware of changing back to human form.
    Miranda cried until her eyes were swollen, cried until there were no tears left. Until there was nothing left, in fact, but an aching emptiness and a small voice that asked, What’s the point?
    She was done.
    Warlock would find her even if she ran, and when he did, she would die. Either he would kill her himself, or he’d send so many assassins even her magic would not be enough to protect her. She might as well dig a hole and wait to be pushed into it.
    But even as she