Chapter 32 #3
“You’re helpless with those gauntlets,” he said. “I want you inside.”
I dug in my heels. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“ Olnava !” a witch cried. Magic struck me in the center of the chest. My entire body went rigid, my eyes stretched wide, and my muscles went stiff.
Between one breath and the next, I was on the ground with Lorcan covering me.
He waited a heartbeat, then surged to his feet with his fangs bared and fury in his eyes.
He charged toward a female witch. “That’s my wife,” he growled, “and you just made your last mistake.” The woman flung another vor . Lorcan dodged it. Then he sped to her, spun her around, and savaged her neck.
I lay on my side, my senses sharp but my body useless. Footsteps pounded around me. Steel screamed against steel. The ground shook under my cheek. And then Lorcan was next to me, his eyes fully black and his fangs dripping blood.
He turned me onto my back and cupped my cheek just as the witch’s vor died with her, releasing me. My muscles contracted, and pain swept from my head to my toes in a blistering wave. I squeezed my eyes shut as my knees pulled to my chest.
Lorcan cradled my face in his hands. “Talk to me,” he ordered, a tremor in his voice. “Tell me you’re all right.”
“I am,” I said, shaking off the last of the vor . He pulled me to my feet, a pleading look in his black eyes.
“You’ll be safer upstairs.”
I shook my head. Inwardly, I cursed the gauntlets, which prevented me from touching his jaw. “This is my war now, Lorcan. I can’t run from it. I have to stand and fight.”
He stared. Then he gave a solemn nod as he brushed my cheek. “My brave queen.”
Not yet I wasn’t, but I gathered my courage and turned back to the fight unfolding around us.
More werewolves poured from the trees and sprinted toward the courtyard.
They clashed with Kristoff’s wolves, fur and blood flying as they battled.
Kristoff was right. Not every alpha in Nocta wished to join my cause.
But he’d evened the odds. He’d given me a fighting chance.
The battle raged, chaos reigning. It was impossible to tell Kristoff’s wolves from those who served the witches. Rasimir’s knights carved a bloody path through it all, several of their eyes turning black as they drained their enemies to death.
A high-pitched howl rose above the sounds of battle. Another wave of wolves poured from the forest, witches running among them.
“Rangvald Pack,” Kristoff said, appearing beside me. When I turned, blood gleamed on his bare chest, which heaved as he watched the new wolves sweep toward us. Sweat sheened his shoulders, and more blood splattered his face. He looked at me with hard yellow eyes. “They’re no friends of yours.”
Lorcan grabbed my arm. Vander emerged from the battle and stepped to my other side with a determined look on his face. “We’ll keep Corinthe safe.” The unspoken So back off hung in the air like a ghost.
Kristoff flicked a look at the gauntlets I held at my sides. “I can see that.”
Vander snapped his fangs at the alpha werewolf. “We need your wolves, not your eyes.”
Tension sprang up between them. Lorcan shifted forward as if he resented being left out of the brewing contest.
“Gentlemen,” I said, “we’re in the middle of a—”
The thunder of hooves cut me off. Maddox raced from the other side of the courtyard, his mane flying. Centaurs and kelpies ran behind him. The ground shook as a giant lumbered in their wake, his bare feet the size of boulders. Pixies sped through the air. Dryads with striated skin marched in rows.
Maddox neighed, his hooves eating up the ground. Somehow he’d summoned a Noctan army.
Vander turned and caught my eye. “That’s my horse,” he said, pride in his tone.
The two sets of newcomers smashed into each other. Werewolves snapped their jaws, biting and tearing. The giant flung wolves out of his way. I grimaced as he squished others under his feet.
Lorcan rushed forward and grabbed a sword from the ground. Flicking blood off the blade, he darted into the battle and began slashing at wolves.
A witch charged toward me and Vander. “ Sezat !” he cried, his vor narrowly missing us.
Instinct took over. Stepping around Vander, I swung a gauntlet at the witch’s head. The man dodged, and my gauntlet swung wide, the momentum nearly spinning me in a circle before I caught myself. The witch straightened with a mocking snarl.
“You missed, bitch. And you’re losing this fight.”
Power hummed through me, and I opened my mouth and let it fly from my lips. “ Irata !”
A copy of the witch appeared next to him. He paled as he stared at it, his eyes blinking in unison with his doppelg?nger.
Oh. My magic was weird .
The witch and his copy turned to me in unison. I swung my gauntlet harder, nailing the original in the side of his head. Both the witch and his doppelg?nger fell to the ground.
I huffed. “Didn’t miss that time.”
Vander gripped the original witch by the shoulders and dragged him across the stones to me.
“If you drain him, you can free the statues,” he said.
I dropped to my knees and plunged my fangs to the witch’s neck.
Blood pumped down my throat. The monster inside me howled.
Power beckoned, and I followed it down, down, magic sparkling in my veins.
An image of soaring cliffs formed in my mind, and the scent of salt and the sea filled my nose.
A woman threw her head back and laughed.
Gray towers rose above a vast city with deserted streets.
Tattered banners fluttered in the wind, the centers stitched with a snarling gargoyle.
The witch went limp. His heart stopped beating, and I wrenched my head back. On the ground, the witch’s copy winked out of sight.
“ Sezat ,” I gasped, and the vor was mine.
And now I had the key to unlocking Delphine.
“Come with me,” I told Vander, and he followed as I ran to the statue of a bearded centaur.
For a second, worry plagued me. I’d never used sezat in truth, let alone tried to reverse it.
But as I rested a hand on the centaur’s leg, power hummed under my skin, and a deep sense of knowing bubbled in my chest like spring water finding its way to the surface. “ Rix ,” I said, magic heating my palm.
The centaur’s coat turned from marble to a deep chocolate brown that matched his beard. He sucked in a breath as he clattered from his pedestal.
“Thank you, Your Highness.”
“You know who I am?” I asked, power crackling in my veins.
Sezat was mine, but so were the witch’s memories, and they swirled thick and unwelcome in my head.
Aggression swirled, too, along with hatred that seared my gut.
Neither were mine, but I owned them now, and I couldn’t shed them if I wanted to keep the witch’s power.
Claiming my root vor and shedding my mother’s ward hadn’t changed that.
The centaur nodded. “We see all from inside our stone prisons.” His blue eyes turned fierce. “You are not your father. I’ll fight for you.”
Relief rushed me, battering back some of the witch’s past. “I’m happy to have you,” I told the centaur. Then I ran to the next statue and repeated the process. I went down the line, reversing the petrifications as Vander guarded my back. Lorcan joined him, his borrowed sword flashing.
When I freed Delphine, she fell into my arms, her slender body trembling.
“Your Highness!” she gasped. “You saved my life.”
“You saved mine first,” I said in her ear. “Probably more than once.”
She looked at the gauntlets, her beautiful mouth twisting. “The king is a monster.”
“I know. I’m going to kill him.”
A group of werewolves charged from behind the next statue. Before Vander and Lorcan could meet them, I stepped forward and raised my voice. “You fight for the witches, but they will never respect you. The Greyskold Pack fights for me. Join them, and you’ll be treated as equals in Nocta.”
The werewolf in front shifted onto two legs. He dipped his gaze to my hands. “Why should we fight for a woman who can’t even free herself from steel?”
I lifted my chin. “I’m working on it.”
Another wolf shifted, and a woman with tight, firm breasts and long brown hair smirked at me. “Looks like your men are doing most of the work.”
“ Uci !” Rasimir’s voice cried behind her. “ Uci ! Uci !” Werewolves fell, dead before they hit the ground.
My father had arrived.