36. Creatures Not of This World
36. CREATURES NOT OF THIS WORLD
RUSH
The mirror monsters trundled toward us with wide, waddling steps reminiscent of the pygmy ogres—only they made no sound, caused no rattle. Their bodies advanced silently over the broken floor when my boots crunched glass shards, if not worse, with every step.
I was in the middle of hoping they wouldn’t be able to affect us any more than they did their physical surroundings when one of them snagged a fleeing lady of the court first by her trailing nightdress, then by a shoulder. In one inordinately huge bite, the monster closed its lipless mouth around the entirety of her skull. When the monster’s mouth opened again, there was no sign of the lady’s aghast, screaming face. Her neck ended cleanly as if cauterized. Not a single drop of blood oozed from the lady’s body as it crashed into a pair of running goblins.
Fae couldn’t decide in which direction to flee since the mirror monsters were coming from all of them, herding us toward the center of the room. For the first time since my arrival at court, I was glad for the Hall of Mirrors’ extravagant vastness. It granted us time—just a little—likely not nearly enough to save us from this new danger.
Sneakles and feethles charged and slid between monsters’ legs before they caught on. A few made it through the front double doors; a pair sprinted for the open door to the tunnels. When others attempted the same, the monsters swept down, snatched them with meaty, brutish fingers, tossed them into the air, and caught them in their outstretched mouths. Their bodies didn’t so much as crunch as the changelings disappeared.
Parvnits skimmed the high ceiling, their wings a blur of speed. The first of them made it past the silver grabbing hands, but then the mirror monsters began to jump, heavy-feeling despite their unreasonably inert landings, which didn’t jostle a thing. They snatched the parvnits from the air, tossing them, as they twisted and beat their wings to get away, into their mouths two at a time.
More sneakles, feethles, parvnits, some numenits, and even a trio of arboramuses, whose leaf-like wings and twig-like bodies didn’t achieve great speeds, ran and flew toward the monsters all together, relying on the fact that they couldn’t catch them all at once; while bowmen, including El’s friend Reed, shot arrows at the monsters. Their swirling silver substance parted, leaving gaping holes through which the arrows passed unimpeded, lodging into the mirrored walls, where they disappeared when, in normal circumstances, the glass would have surely shattered. Whatever enchantment was affecting the mirrors was altering their very nature.
The chaos of fae scrambling to survive, along with their panicked screams, masked the monsters’ unnatural silence. My heart thumped wildly while Xeno’s dragon breathed fire upon two approaching monsters. Their bodies again dissipated wherever the flame would have touched them, allowing it to pass through to the other side. Shrieks sliced through the panic, and Xeno ceased his fire breath right away.
“Whatthefuckarethey? Howdowestopthem? Whatdowedo?” West asked in an alarmed, rapid rush, glancing at me and El.
He wasn’t the only one to be looking to us for guidance. We had, after all, just announced ourselves as their new queen and king. We were supposed to be protecting them, dammit!
My tattoos surged uselessly as someone threw an ax at one of the monsters to similar effect. The head of the ax glanced off an ornamental pedestal and hit Jolanda, dowager countess of Etherantos and Lennox’s mother, on the shoulder. Though it was the blunt end, she stumbled to her knees, her copper hair tumbling in messy sheets around her face.
“Stop trying to hit them,” I yelled. “Physical weapons don’t work.”
“By a dragon’s veins,” El uttered under her breath as she glanced desperately to all sides. “What do we do?”
“Ivar!” I barked, though the male wasn’t in my sight.
Almost immediately, he appeared beside me, his usual disdain absent from his stricken features.
Quickly, I repeated West’s and El’s questions. Ivar only shook his head, his bloody cutlasses useless at his sides, his eyes churning with a conflict I imagined reflected my own. His words were concise and clipped.
“Best guess? A spell Talisa or Braque wove into the mirrors. Conjured a new kind of creature not of this world.”
“How do we kill them?” El pressed, while fae ran, screamed, fell, and huddled together. Her head whipped around constantly as if trying to register the myriad threats at once. “Talisa and Braque are both dead. Shouldn’t their spells have ended too?”
“Only if the spells were tied into their essences to work. So no.”
“Fucking great,” I muttered.
“Then what do we do?” West asked again, his head, along with Ry’s, Hiro’s, Roan’s, and Reed’s, who crowded beside him, swiveling to anticipate from which direction the monsters would first reach us—in a minute at most, I figured. If not for those valiant fae so intent on escaping the room despite the horde of monsters standing between them and any exit, they would have reached us already.
“Magic?” Ivar suggested, holding up Braque’s alchemist satchel, the strap of which he wore looped around his chest. “I know just enough about these to know what not to throw at them.”
“Good, do that,” I said.
Ryder leaned across me to look at Elowyn. “Do your light thing, like with Talisa.”
I looked at her too. My mate’s face was marked with the juice of the morand berry in battle lines and streaked with blood and grime. In contrast, her eyes were bright and clear, a softly glowing violet that suggested her power never left her now. Though her magic was so new to her, my love—so incredibly brave and so terrifyingly selfless—didn’t hesitate.
She sheathed her daggers, which led me to store my own blades, and clasped my empty hand. She gazed up at me. “Together?”
Though I’d been taught to use my powers since my earliest memories, I’d never done what she had. I’d never faced down darkness with no greater weapon than my light.
But if my mate could be courageous despite her own lack of knowledge, so could I.
As if the Mirror World weren’t caving in around us, I smiled warmly. “Of course, my beloved. Just tell me what to do.”
“Uh…” She shrugged and chuckled darkly, her face the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen. “We wing it?”
Then, far before I was ready to do something I’d never done before when it counted most, El spun around to face the greatest number of approaching monsters, squeezed my hand hard—hers so much smaller than mine—and bellowed, “Hey, you murdering assholes! Over here.”
I hadn’t believed them to be intelligent beyond a rudimentary sentience. But every single one of them looked up at her call.
As if they were ensorcelled to seek out Elowyn specifically— something both Talisa and Braque would have done. My heart squeezed with renewed fear when it was more urgent than ever that I banish it. Where was that insistent faith I’d experienced earlier? I knew: on the other side of seeing Elowyn safe, just out of my reach. My heartbeat thumped noticeably.
Their blank faces froze in mid-motion while the surface of their bodies rippled and flowed like water cycling through a fountain. If they already held someone in their grips, without turning to look, they tossed them into the mirrors. The surfaces shivered as if the monsters had plunked their victims into a still lake, the fae fading rapidly into their depths, then disappearing. The mirrors settled back into their unnatural, constant shimmering.
“Leave everyone else alone,” El yelled. “It’s us you want, isn’t it? We’re the king and queen of the Mirror World. Cease now and we’ll let you return to your mirrors unharmed.”
They could return to the mirrors’ depths and still be sealed inside them forever. Clever, my El.
The monsters only threw back their heads, opened their maws until they fully encompassed what should have been their faces, and shrieked that shrill, unholy screech. I shuddered as it rolled and rolled along my skin, seeming never to end.
“Enough,” I shouted.
Their screeching cries halted in unison, at the exact, same, precise moment, as if they were all linked. Their faces shifted ever so slightly to consider me as well as Elowyn.
“You have no power here. No authority. No right to harm anyone. Return to your mirrors at once.”
The monsters didn’t flinch. Didn’t shudder. Didn’t move at all.
“Your darkness has no place here,” Elowyn said into the quiet that had settled through the hall. “Whatever darkness created you, it doesn’t belong in our world. You shouldn’t be here.”
“Go now,” I said.
In perfect, disturbing synchronicity, the monsters tipped back their heads yet again, threw open their gaping mouths, and screeched—like scraping, creaking metal, like the cries of essences long tormented in the Igneuslands, pleading for a permanent death.
West winced and covered his ears, yelling, “I’m guessing that’s a fuck you .”
I barely heard him or the whimpering cries of the fae huddled closest.
The strident shrieking went on and on.
Eyes and cheeks crunched together, wishing I could plug my ears, I glanced at El. Her face was bunched up too, her teeth gritted .
“Ready?” I asked.
“No.” She chortled grimly. “But let’s do it.”
Whatever exactly it was…
“You take the lead,” I said, while El tipped one ear to press against her shoulder, taking in the monsters who wouldn’t shut the fuck up and really, really, really fucking needed to. My eardrums might be bleeding. Even my eyeballs ached with the need to get away from their caterwauling.
Elowyn released my hand. My mouth dropped open to ask her why she’d do that when we were going to do this , this nebulous thing, together, but in the next instant she’d woven her hands around my neck. She jumped, linking her legs around my waist, above my laden weapons belt.
Our blades clanked while I hastened to catch her, settling my hands under her ass and cupping it to hold her against me. “What?—?”
Her lips settled onto mine.
At first I tasted the blood that coated our faces. Beyond that, my initial thought was: She’d better not be kissing me ‘cause she thinks it’s our last and she’s about to do something dangerous and self-sacrificing, ‘cause I’ll kill her myself if she does anything to risk herself .
Then her insistent kiss swept me away. It decreased the volume of the grating screeches. It erased the frightened cries of those we were trying to protect. It took away every taste but what was inherently Elowyn. It whisked away even my fear, despite the fresh reminder of all I stood to lose .
The bond-beast inside me, somewhat settled since our frenzied lovemaking in the forest beyond Talisa’s cabin, awoke with a fury. It roared, clawing at my ribcage, urging me to let it free as my arms clenched around my mate so tightly I had to loosen my hold lest I hurt her.
Her tongue slid across mine—hot, wet, and demanding. I no longer registered what I did, only that I feasted on her, on our love, on our bond, on this desperately passionate kiss.
I no longer cared that monsters were bearing down on us, or that we had an audience that was probably disappointed we were making out instead of fighting to save them.
I didn’t care about any-fucking-thing except more, more, more, and ever fucking more of this incredible female who’d chosen me above all others, whose body was wrapped around mine, whose legs were pressing my pulsing dick against her molten center, whose hands were tangling into the strands of my hair that hung loose along my nape.
I wanted her, her, her—I wanted her and nothing else. She was enough. She’d forever be enough.
I heard only her breathing and mine, her moans, which I hastened to devour, my grunted groans and growls that made me sound like a beast even to my own ears. My heart beat in my chest, in my head, in my ears—and not just mine, but hers too. Our hearts beat as one, in harmony .
My bond-beast bayed, howled, and purred, yearning to join with her in every way possible.
My cock was harder than it had ever been, her kiss and body the sweetest ecstasy I’d ever tasted.
She was, now and forever, my olvidian. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, beyond her and the intoxication of her taste, the feel of her all over me. I wanted to climb inside her, to explore and claim every facet of her.
My dick throbbed, pushing against my leathers, straining to break free and feel her from the inside. And even then it might not be enough. I needed more, more, more, and fucking more!
But…
But … there was something pressing we had to do beyond the two of us. Wasn’t there? Dazed, my eyelids fluttered open.
I couldn’t see her face, and by the Ethers I needed to gaze upon her face. Her beauty was like magic, like the enchanting, melodic song of woodland fairies, the tinkling, burbling of a brook that delivered instant satisfaction.
Where I should have gazed upon her visage, there was only light. So much light, I couldn’t even discern her eyes, and I had to see her eyes.
She glowed.
I glowed.
There seemed only to be our combined light.
It shone as brightly as if the sun and moon had joined together as one .
My tattoos were alive, shining along the entire length of my skin. Beneath my leathers, my skin tingled as they arced over my body.
And Elowyn … my love. I sensed her body as easily as I felt my own. Her skin was covered in a sign of her connection to the dragons. With the other few, select scaled fae in our history, the glowing dragons’ scales had faded after their initial bond to the magical creatures. But not with Elowyn. Her skin pulsed with luminescent scales—a mixture of Saffron’s golden yellow, Einar’s black, and a sapphire-blue from the she-dragon. And lighter, softer, almost imperceptible, green and burnt-orange scales glowed too. They blazed along her skin and mine, from the dragons I’d bowed to in the dungeons, I realized with a burst of shock.
She and I were so intrinsically bonded that what dragons I’d attempted to connect to had also connected with her.
Then there was my handprint pulsing between her breasts, above the scar I’d sliced into her precious skin that she called the Kiss of Death, all concealed beneath her own fighting leathers. All trace of the map that signaled Talisa’s abuse of the fae was absent.
Joined in our embrace, Elowyn and I shone.
It was magic. She was magic.
Our combined power would bring down the darkness that lingered beyond Talisa’s and Braque’s deaths. My clever El, she’d known our greatest power lay in our mate bond. In our love. She’d guided me through it. I didn’t dare loosen my hold on her by so much as a fraction. With our chests pressed together, our hearts beating against each other, I craned my neck to one side to be able to make out anything beyond our glow. Our diffuse light made the room hazy, like looking through wispy clouds, but I could see enough to make sense of our circumstances.
The monsters were still there— shit . My heart stuttered, as did El’s.
They currently lurked at the edge of the mirrors that had spawned them though. Okay, okay, that was progress. The dragons joined the warriors and some courtiers in pushing them back amid pulse after pulse of Elowyn’s and my light.
With their physical weapons and dragon breath useless, the fae beamed their own power—substantial certainly, though compared to ours they were like sparks from a bonfire while we were the raging flames.
Still, fae glowed and pulsed and pushed. The mirror monsters backed up, more of their kind lined up within some of the mirrors as if still anticipating joining the others in the fight.
“It’s working,” Ry yelled behind us. He laughed, a bit manically. “It’s fucking working.”
“Don’t ya let up now,” Roan added, also from wherever Ryder was. “Keep going.”
Buoyancy burbled up my chest. Hope , is what it was. I laughed and bounced El in my arms, her ass landing heavily in my cupped hands each time. Faith burgeoned, renewed. We were doing this. Talisa was already dead, and all we needed to do now was finish off the last pieces of her.
Elowyn’s responding laughter was a balm that soothed my battered heart. Her lips were lowering back to mine when an instinct I’d honed during countless hours of training and battles niggled at my nape. Her fingers, clasped around it, only made the instinct scream louder.
My mouth whispered along hers as I turned my head past them to search for my brothers.
An even greater number of monsters hunched menacingly at our backs. My brothers and our friends were trying to protect us with their insufficient defenses. Their own magic glowed brightly. My brothers, they were incredible, their loyalty and companionship unrivaled.
But the monsters … our combined magic was forcing the darkness from their bodies and into the mirrors at their backs. Like vines whose thorns would stick to flesh at the barest graze of it, threads of black tugged on their roiling, silver bodies, not letting go.
Reed had an arrow sticking through his shoulder he hadn’t stopped to break off, yet he joined Hiroshi, West, Ryder, and Roan in beaming light at the monsters. Ivar stood beside them, uncorking potions, sniffing them, and then hurling select ones at the mirrors, which swallowed them up. I couldn’t decide if they were helping or not, but Ivar kept going, pulling potions as quickly as his hands could handle without risking dropping the thin, delicate glass vials. Dozens of goblins, led by Pru and Edsel, formed a line to one side of our friends, adding their own light, mostly orange or green, to the fray. Parvnits shot beams of their magic into the mirrors like little jagged bolts of lightning in all colors. And from the other side, I thought I recognized the bellow of Xeno’s dragon. From beyond the walls, thunder rumbled in what I’d begun to understand was Einar fighting with us.
More creatures and fae than I could take the time to recognize battled with us, erasing senseless divisions Talisa had done her best to carve out between us. We weren’t foes standing on opposite sides of a conflict, but fae joined against a common enemy.
And yet my instincts squirmed.
Elowyn reached for my lips again, and just as I was about to give in to the lure of her and our joined power to end this, the monsters shrieked—their nightmarish cries echoed into the mirrors this time. Their arms stretched forward and bulged. Their thighs grew larger too, pulling against their bindings that appeared to be made from the same shadow that had conjured them. Their mouths opened impossibly wider, locking open, and their screams rippled along the mirrors at their backs. In unison, the monsters took one gargantuan step.
My breath stuttered.
They took another.
I had to kiss Elowyn! Before they could bite off any more heads. We had to merge our power again to end the mirror bastards with our light .
But I delayed—just a few fucking, miserable seconds, needing to see the fate of those who’d stood at my side for long decades secured.
Several things happened at once—too quickly.
Lennox appeared, a dagger raised against Elowyn. Liquid smoked from the edge of his blade, a telltale sign of s?ngmortarán poison, rarely used in open attack since it was so vicious that it betrayed its nature.
She jerked her head around toward the new danger, reaching for her own weapons belt. I released a hand from under Elowyn and pulled one of my throwing knives. Lennox glanced away for a split second, right as I buried my throwing knife deep into his chest. Then I followed where his attention had gone. Jolanda had been yelling at him—not to attack us, it seemed. Her eyes widened in horror at the blade protruding from her son.
A sizable serpunta, a male, based on the nubs of horns to either side of his head, bared fangs, dripping with poison nearly as lethal as the s?ngmortarán’s, leapt and sank them into Lennox’s thigh. Lennox’s eyes rolled back.
Xeno’s dragon stomped into my line of sight, bellowing loudly enough to vibrate the ceiling, raining down more plaster.
A deep, masculine scream had my attention whipping the other way, scanning for more danger. I couldn’t very well kiss Elowyn if someone else was going to try to stab her while I couldn’t see beyond our light .
Hiroshi, Ryder, West, Roan, and Reed linked arms, forming a wall against the monsters’ advance, standing between them and us.
“No,” slipped from my lips. My arms shuddered around Elowyn.
“No,” she whispered.
Our friends, the goblins, the parvnits, so many creatures … they snarled and grunted and beamed what magic they could.
“Come on, Rush,” Elowyn urged on a hitched breath. “We’ve gotta do more.”
I started to turn my face back to hers?—
A monster reached two meaty arms toward West.
With Elowyn in my embrace, I started moving toward West, stepping over Dashiell’s legs, or maybe someone else’s; I didn’t glance down.
Hiroshi freed his arm from Reed’s to lunge in front of our brother.
But Ryder was already there.
He leapt in front of West just as the monster’s arms would have closed around him.
The monster’s hands clamped on to Ryder instead, gripping his shoulders so hard that his leathers, hardy material from the wompa tree, punctured around the fingers of swirling, roiling silver darkness.
Ry had the chance only to grunt in pain before the monster was tossing my fucking brother over his head and into the mirror.
I skidded to a stop a step before barreling into the others, my cry of despair melding with theirs .
Ryder’s wide eyes and mouth were there one moment, in the mirror behind a line of monsters, and the next … he shrank to the size of a twig, then to a dot, and then … then he was gone.
Panic, desperation, and utter devastation jumbled together as I considered what the fuck I could do to save him now.
I should have seen it coming. Really, I should have. We weren’t brothers by blood; our bond was even stronger.
As my heart spasmed, urging me toward action, something, anything, to save him?—
Hiro sidestepped the grabby hands of two other monsters and dove into the mirror after him.