29. Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Nero
Death waited for them.
All of them stood still, silent and flush with rage, while their enemies flowed into formation across from them. Every couple that’d gathered around Key held for her word.
Tension slid across Nero’s skin like an oil slick. It registered from both those who’d come to kill them, and the allies standing at his side.
Apprehension, anxiety, anger: the emotions reached inside him through his abilities and pulled, forcefully enough that he gritted his teeth to keep from being overcome. He was exceptionally proficient at blocking emotional signatures, but the sheer volume and force of the feedback left him reeling.
“We can’t survive against this many, Key,” Kaien whispered. “There have to be over a thousand of them.”
“One thousand, three hundred, and forty-two.” Key spoke in halting language, as though she wasn’t fully with them in the present. “Have faith, Kaien. You promised me your trust, and you need to hold firm.”
Slowly, the force across from them began their advance. Nero trusted Key, but if they didn’t begin their countermove now, they’d be fully on the defensive. His panther roamed close to the surface, snarling.
“ Kiyonne .”
Zeke’s voice was tight with warning while Nero’s attention focused unerringly on the force accelerating their advance.
“Jeremiah and Zia are dropping now— wait. ”
Hers was a scathing command, spit as though she’d made it a thousand times. And perhaps she had. Everything about this was as Key had foreseen, the events so far aligning perfectly with her description.
Then, Key’s telepathic voice sounded directly in Nero’s mind. Sovereign, Lock Zeke as soon as I call the first counterattack. Do not delay — our very survival depends on it.
Nero gave her a mental acknowledgement as the pieces on the board shifted once more. Out of nowhere, Jeremiah and Zia appeared, dropping to the ground while the Elemental’s attention went to making their battle invisible. The tangible pulse of his power bit through the air.
Shouts filled with anger and fueled by adrenaline preceded the approaching army. Key had yet to move the immortals into position. Skittish now, Nero shifted on his feet, the panther beneath his skin leaping forward to look through his eyes.
His attention was split. Part of it was focused on ensuring Eden’s survival. The other half dreaded the moment he’d have to Lock Zeke.
And then, Key spoke the three simple words that changed the course of the immortal world forever: “Don’t look back.”
At the sound of her voice, Nero’s magic roared to the surface. It flared out to grasp hold of Zeke’s abilities and lock them away inside him. He didn’t register Key’s words until after his part was finished. He turned with horror to the woman who’d said them.
That command— Don’t Look Back —hadn’t been detailed in any of the strategies she’d outlined. Only two of their ranks didn’t seem to share in the confusion. The Raeths who were born of destruction had teleported in front of her.
Isaiah and Nina.
Standing a bare three feet apart, the sovereigns did what Nero had never witnessed firsthand. They reached directly into the well of their power and pulled , seeking the Light.
It was a death wish.
Somewhere along the Citizens line, a voice barked, “Fire at will!”
“Shields, hold!”
Key’s voice, stripped of all the confidence it’d once been infused with, sounded above the sudden hail of gunfire that burst apart on the shield before them.
As Zeke recovered from the unexpected Lock and the shock of seeing his mate on the front line, he leapt to his feet.
“This isn’t the plan!” Zeke shouted.
“This was always the plan.” Key’s voice was distant, as if she wasn’t truly here, and her attention never waivered from the pair of Raeths before her.
Nina and Isaiah were funneling the entirety of their devastating abilities to the surface in a choreographed move that betrayed months and months of careful preparation.
Zeke took a step forward, only for Nero’s grip to restrain him. “But you said—”
“I know what I said, Ezekiel,” Key continued in the same eerie, far-away voice. “The sole purpose of that plan was to conceal my true intent and move forward without your oversight.”
“They’ll die!”
The utter devastation in Zeke’s voice was a knife to Nero’s heart. It held an unimaginable trauma of his mate dying a slow, painful death while he was unable to hold her or help her in any way.
Matte white eyes pinned Zeke with a glare. “If you stop them now, we all die.”
As Isaiah and Nina began to subtly glow, Key continued, “We’ll become their prey. Our children will be hunted to extinction. The immortal races will be eradicated. Isaiah and Nina are the only way.”
Zeke stepped forward again, despite the crescendo in Key’s otherworldly tones.
“I told you one of your decisions would change the course of the war. What will it be, sovereign of the Danada? We all live or die by your word.”
Key turned to Nero. “Unlock him, sovereign of the Osé. He alone must decide our fate.”
For one single second, Zeke’s every emotion flooded into Nero, paralyzing him. Fear, panic, misery, horror: all of it washed through him unbidden, and he drowned in bleak despair.
It was how he knew that Zeke had already accepted his mate’s fate—and his own.
Nero released the other sovereign’s abilities. The shell that’d once housed his friend fell to his knees, watching his mate with empty eyes.
Key’s ethereal stare had never wavered from the two sovereigns before her. Reaching out, she grasped their shoulders. With a single, unifying grind, she linked their Reaper abilities.
It was the thing they’d been waiting for.
Both sovereigns raised their hands toward the oncoming force, a threat Nero had temporarily forgotten. A blinding white light flared out from where Isaiah and Nina’s palms were held before them.
The brilliant light beamed outward across the moving army, but instead of illuminating the oncoming force, it began to destroy them. Wherever the light touched, bodies slowly dissolved. Horrified shrieks sounded from across the field, echoed by the stunned silence of the immortals at Nero’s back.
“What— what is happening?”
“Key is a Link; she can combine abilities.” Nero heard himself respond through numb lips. “And she just merged the two deadliest ones.”
It had created an entirely new ability no one had seen nor heard of before. For years, Nero had known the rule: Links couldn’t latch onto Reaper abilities.
Key had just proven it wrong.
Tentacles of energy wrapped around Nina and Isaiah’s limbs; their features were obscured by the burning flame that’d ignited before them. So oppressive was the energy wielded that even Nero couldn’t look directly into the shining beam.
They had sought the light—and found it.
Connected as he was to Key, Nero sensed the building web of emotions within her. The woman was barely treading water. Linking Isaiah and Nina had stretched the cord of her power so taut it’d break under the strain should even another ounce of the burden fall on her shoulders.
Moving in uncanny tandem, the two Raeths of Destruction eliminated the force before them. The power share, equal parts projected from both, had inspired panicked dread in those that’d come to kill immortals.
Nero hazily registered that Circe had accessed her new Shielding gift. She stood side by side with Remmus and maintained the protection around every immortal except the trio in front of him. Nina and Isaiah remained Linked by Key, continuing to destroy the rest of the Citizens’ force, even as the foreseer’s hands left their shoulders.
Meteors began to light the sky, tails of fire streaking across the midnight blue. The sunset seemed so far away now. For a moment, Nero’s attention was captured by the largest yet, a flare of brilliant red that crossed over their heads and dissipated only seconds later.
“Six.”
Key’s voice shook Nero out of his stupor.
“Five.”
Every immortal except Isaiah and Nina fixed their attention Key.
“Four.”
Key’s hand reached behind her.
“Three.”
Her fingers locked around the merjha handgun she’d tucked into a holster Nero had failed to notice until now.
“Two.”
Nero held his breath.
In the span of a millisecond, the traitor Raeth Rayn teleported beside Isaiah and Nina’s location. Profound hatred twisted the man’s features as he leveled a gun to Isaiah’s temple.
“One.”
Swifter than Nero’s eyes could track, Key fired a single merjha bullet into Rayn’s shoulder. Before he fell, he was yanked telekinetically to Nero’s feet.
“Lock him!”
Nero didn’t think twice. His abilities flared out once more and locked away the powers of the bloodied Raeth writhing at his feet. Rayn, the clanless Raeth aligned with the Citizens they knew nothing about, had been stopped.
“I’ll kill him!”
The traitor didn’t seem to realize he was now powerless. So consumed by his venom, he writhed against the grass in bone-breaking frustration, as if he could defeat Nero’s captive hold on him.
Key’s head swiveled around to glare at Rayn, her eyes pure white. “Don’t think you were any different to Torrin. As soon as you’d played your part, he was going to put a bullet in your brain. I’ve seen your death as often as I’ve seen this battle.”
“I don’t care—he needs to die! I’ll kill him!”
The foreseer showed no signs of shock. “You’re a traitor to your own kind, Rayn, and you’ll die as one. Keep him human, sovereign. Never unbind his abilities.”
A feminine gasp startled Key back to the scene before her. Nero sensed the fear that shook through her through their clan bond. It was an immediate, devastating dread the eclipsed all else.
“No—no!” Key cried tearfully, panicking now. “ Please —we are so close, Nina! Please keep going!”
Every pain-filled cry hollowed out a piece of Nero’s soul. Projecting their Reaper abilities this intensely meant unimaginable, draining pain, impossible to hold for very long.
Key didn’t give up.
“I know you’re losing the battle, Nina. You have to keep going! We’re so close!” Key begged. Then, the foreseer spun, her focus shifting to those behind her. “Shields, push!”
As the Citizens soldiers had attempted to run, the shields had pushed them into a kill zone, containing them before the linked sovereigns to ensure a smaller playing field.
“Gideon: funnel!”
Nero recalled the strategy from the playbook, as did the Elemental monarch. Dropping to his knees, Gideon’s hands sank into the earth. The ground shifted slightly, warping the field beneath their enemy’s feet to essentially funnel them toward the center of Isaiah and Nina’s projected ability.
Rocks and earth moved swiftly to contain the last segment of soldiers and militia, their horrific screams wreaking havoc across a battlefield of slaughter.