Chapter 45
Gregory
Fire and ash swallowed the world.
Where was I? The eastern ridge dissolved into smoke before I could catch the details. I tried to stand, tried to fight, but my muscles failed, useless as severed tendons.
A single name tore from my throat.
“EVAN!”
The roar echoed as heat surged beneath my skin like a furnace building toward explosion. The armor rippled, threatening to liquefy and pour off in burning rivers.
Wild draconic flames encircled me. They consumed grass and soil, transforming the ground into a scorched wasteland.
Orange and red licked across the blackened soil, throwing writhing shadows.
Beyond the roaring fire and the toxic fog clouding my mind, the distant sounds of battle mixed with metal clashing and screams.
A heavy weight crushed my shoulders.
I hung my head as my vision swam. Pale arms came into focus, crossed over my chest in a mockery of an embrace. Fingers splayed against my breastplate, holding me upright when I should have collapsed.
Someone loomed behind me.
“Last time, a stupid fool switched the dose of Starlirium. Gave yours to the Saintess instead.” Mordaine’s voice slithered into my ear. “At least they figured out how much was needed to drop you instantly. Don’t take it personally.”
She laughed, a brittle, wondering sound.
“All those years I hunted you, and they never once told me this existed. Their prized assassin, kept on a leash just like the rest. But your little omega’s crystal sang a familiar tune, and the Emperor’s alchemists were so eager to trade secrets once I had something they wanted. ”
Her cheek pressed close; the scent of decay masked with sweetness reeked of rotting fruit in the summer sun. Her pheromones crawled over every inch of skin in invasive waves.
“My baby brother was so loyal to old Adam.” Her touch glided down my chest in a serpentine motion while her nails skimmed the edges of my armor.
“He never told me he was breathing the same air as you in that pathetic village. Not until his heart broke, anyway. You stole the only joy he had left after our parents were killed.” She trailed a touch across my torso until her nails scraped against the scale.
“Because of you. You broke him, Unholy Alpha.”
My insides melted into liquid heat. The Starlirium worked through my system like acid, dissolving everything that kept the beast contained.
“So.” Her breath scorched my skin. “How long do you have left before you burn everything around you and present your neck to me?”
A low growl vibrated in my chest and drowned out the poison. I blinked hard. The crimson in my vision sputtered and struggled between clarity and haze before focusing on a single point.
My jaw unlocked. “Where. Is. My. Mate?”
The question became a roar that shook the ground.
I should have chained him. Should have locked Evan in the mountain where nothing could touch him. I knew the risk. Knew what bringing him here meant. But I let him come anyway.
Mordaine’s arms slipped away as she circled to face me, and the firelight caught her features.
Long black hair fell in a smooth cascade past her shoulders.
She reached up to tuck one side behind her ear with deliberate slowness, revealing the ruined landscape of scar tissue that claimed half her face.
Her dress fluttered in ragged strips of torn fabric, the hem brushing through ash and flame without catching fire.
Her smile was all teeth. “Come get me,” she purred while backing away. “Maybe I’ll tell you.”
Alaric. That bastard sold him. Sold Evan to the Empire. His hatred ran so deep, his spite so consuming, that he’d betray Adam—the man who gave him a home and a purpose. All because he couldn’t stand that Evan was mine.
The beast took over.
Obsidian armor flowed over my body in a molten rush until the heat became a weapon. I summoned dual swords, forming them from pure draconic fire.
I staggered to my feet even as the poison still burned and tried to drag me back down.
My fury burned hotter.
“MORDAINE! ALARIC!”
The names were thunder.
“I WILL BURN YOU TO ASHES!”
I launched forward with swords blazing.
An Inquisitor blocked my path, but I didn’t care that he was faceless. I cleaved through his armor and bone in one strike. He dropped, and I was already moving before blood sprayed and steam rose where it hit my heated armor.
Another came from the left. I took his head before he could raise his weapon. The body crumpled and twitched.
The Unholy Alpha.
More Inquisitors surrounded me. There were too many to count.
I carved through them.
Steel met flesh as bones shattered under molten edges. Screams cut short as draconic fire consumed what the blades didn’t finish. The air filled with the copper stench of blood and the corrosive smoke of burning meat.
The one who burned too bright. Killed too many.
Pain erupted in my side when a spear scraped against my ribs. Warmth poured down my flank as I grabbed the shaft and yanked its wielder toward me. I shoved my sword through his throat, and he gurgled, drowning in his own blood.
But my wound stayed open. Blood kept flowing, refusing to close.
Inquisitors kept coming.
Blades slashed across my back. One found the gap under my arm, driving deep into the muscle. I spun, both swords extending in wide arcs. Three men fell into pieces.
The weapon the Empire created.
Fire poured from my mouth in a cone of white-hot flame that reduced the next wave of attackers to ash and screaming husks. Their armor melted to their skin as they fell, clawing at themselves, and I stepped over them without breaking stride.
A sword stabbed through my thigh.
I roared and brought my blade down on the Inquisitor’s shoulder. It split him from collarbone to hip. His body fell in two directions.
Blood ran down my leg. The wound gaped, and useless muscles tore with each step. It was still open. Still bleeding.
Sweet Evan.
The haze thickened until faces blurred into meat and voices became noise. Everything narrowed to the next target, the next obstacle between me and my mate.
Blood soaked the ground. My boots splashed through it.
What would you think if you saw me like this?
A blade bit deep enough into my neck to strike bone. I seized the attacker’s wrist and crushed it until bones ground to powder in my grip. He screamed. I silenced him with fire that poured directly into his open mouth.
Hot spurts of blood pulsed from my throat, and each breath rattled. The wound yawned open, still refusing to knit back together.
You accepted all of me. But this?
They stabbed me from behind with four blades, maybe five, punching through gaps in the armor. The tips ground against my spine as blood ran hot down my back, pooling in my boots.
It didn’t stop me.
I threw myself backward and slammed into the group. Heat pulsed from the obsidian plates, blistering and melting their hands against the molten surface. They released the weapons and stumbled away, so I pulled the blades free and let them clatter to the ground.
My swords found them anyway.
More blood. More bodies. The pile grew.
Would you still want me?
The world blurred gray from blood loss. Too much blood. Mine. Theirs. All of it mixed together in the ash.
No.
Someone screamed Evan’s name in mocking, taunting tones. The source didn’t matter. I incinerated everything in that direction as the flames spread, hungry and wild, eating through soldiers and grass alike.
My mate accepted the beast. The monster.
A spear drove through my gut and erupted out of my back.
The shaft vibrated against my sternum. I grabbed the shaft and hauled my body forward, forcing the spear deeper through my own gut until I was close enough to reach the terrified man holding it. His eyes went wide as I reached him.
I crushed his skull.
He ignited from the inside out.
The spear stayed lodged through my torso while blood poured from the entry and exit wounds. Not stopping. Not healing.
He accepted me.
I couldn’t feel the poison anymore. Couldn’t feel anything but the need to move forward, to find him, to tear apart everything that stood between us.
Find him. Protect. Mine.
Blood and ash. Fire and screaming.
Evan.
“GREGORY!”
The shout pierced the haze. Adam.
“PROTECT GREGORY!”
Golden light erupted in a blinding flash of Celeste’s Blessing. Warmth wrapped around my body as threads wove together in a desperate attempt to form a barrier and bind my wounds.
But the magic slid off, repelled like water on oil, sputtering and dying against my skin. Useless against a bloodline that walked with the goddesses themselves.
I slowed.
My chest seized, and I scraped at the obsidian plates, talons digging in while my heart hammered against my ribs. Too fast, too hard, like it would punch through bone and burst.
One knee hit the ground as the world tilted.
The fire around me crackled and hissed. Wind brushed across my skin, but it brought no relief. Only the promise of what came next.
Boots thundered toward me. Inquisitors. Too many.