17. An Asshole Willing to Stand By While the World Burns to Ash
17. AN ASSHOLE WILLING TO STAND BY WHILE THE WORLD BURNS TO ASH
RUSH
Ivar was a loyal fucking bastard, I’d give him that. In practically anyone else, no matter their beliefs, I would have admired his level of dedication. But with him I couldn’t. At best, he’d witnessed the queen’s brutality far longer than I had. At worst, he’d partaken in it.
He sat tied to the sturdier of the two chairs we found in the sparsely furnished cabin. Ryder had been the one to bind him to it, wrapping Pru’s rope tightly enough to interrupt his circulation. Ivar’s hands were bound to the armrests, their skin swelling around the rope, unnaturally pale or mottled depending on the degree of blood flow. I relished the thought that the same effect was taking place all over his body.
Like archers nailing him with arrows, one after the other in fast succession, Ry, Hiro, Roan, and I hit him with questions about the queen. He refused to answer. So I attempted to infiltrate his thoughts. The bold fucker brazenly met my eyes, knowing full well what I was about to do. Within moments I understood why: I rammed into a steel door as unyielding as the one the queen kept between her mind and mine.
Hiro went next. Careful not to loosen Ry’s bindings, he transformed Ivar’s intestines into a half dozen angry, hissing snakes. The serpents were no illusion as they burst through his flesh to snap lethal fangs at the advisor. Blood and gore dripped from their bodies onto his clothing.
Hiro was the calmest among my brothers, the most levelheaded. Never once over our many years of friendship had I seen him perform a transformation even remotely this gruesome. Like the time he’d given Braque chicken legs and a beak, he tended to use his magic to comical effect. But not now, not with the male at least partially responsible for the untold suffering of an entire species that faekind was supposed to revere. Ivar likely hadn’t ordered the dragons tortured, but his unrelenting alliance with the queen meant he shared the blame.
At the sight of serpents writhing inside his abdominal cavity, Ivar went starkly pale. He gulped so that his throat bobbed, unable to conceal his dismay. Then he tore his scrutiny from the snakes and brought it up to Hiro—and didn’t say a word.
Next, Roan hovered Ivar, turned him upside down, and shook him so violently that I feared his neck would snap before we got anything useful out of him. Roan flung him to and fro, crashing him against one of the walls at considerable speed. Ivar crunched to the ground in a crack of wood but didn’t even let slip a grunt of pain.
When it was Ryder’s turn to get Ivar to talk, we decided against his use of illusion magic in case it might alert the queen. As far as we knew, illusion was only forbidden on palace grounds, but the skill was rare enough that we didn’t want to risk tripping some kind of notification. So Ryder, careful of the vicious snakes, which were interested exclusively in Ivar, punched him across the face with a ferocious crack. Ivar’s lip split in a bloom of blood. I knew firsthand how hard Ry could hit. Ivar’s cheek would bruise, and a throbbing ache would be flaring in his jaw. Yet when Ryder pushed Ivar to betray the queen and any plans she had, the advisor remained stubbornly, stoically silent—the fucker.
Ry drew his arm back for a second blow, but hesitated before releasing it. “We should untie him.”
“Why in the dragon’s ass would we do that?” Roan asked gruffly.
“‘Cause beating him up when he can’t defend himself makes me feel like her . I wanna hurt him for all he’s been part of, for helping her all the time, for licking her fucking asshole like it’s the best thing in this cursed world. But I won’t be the kind of guy who beats on innocents.”
“He’s not innocent,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, I know that. ‘Course I do. But if he could at least defend himself, then I can beat the crap out of him without feeling like a slimy shit about it. Though Hiro, you’re gonna have to turn him back. I can’t with all the snakes.”
“It’s a good one, isn’t it?” Hiro asked, a punishing gleam to his eyes.
Ryder shuddered. “Unnerving as fuck. If it hasn’t made him break, me beating on him till he passes out probably won’t do it.”
“He should feel some o’ the pain we all have,” Roan said. “He ain’t the queen, but he coulda stopped her all day, every day. And he didn’t. He n’ that fool Braque are the only ones who coulda, and they’ve chosen not to over and over. Ya know how many’ve died while they’ve sat around with their heads up her arse? He deserves pain.”
Ivar’s tongue slithered from between his lips to lick the blood oozing from their split skin. “You’re wrong. I can’t stop her. No one can.”
“Oh,” I growled. “So you do remember how to talk?”
He shrugged. “Torture me all you like. I won’t tell you anything you don’t already know. Her Majesty will rule forever. The stupid, useless girl you’re all banking on is no match for her.”
Anger rushed along my skin like flames whipping in a fierce wind. I nudged Ryder out of the way and crouched in front of Ivar. “That female is my mate. And if you fucking talk about her like that again, I will rip your head off with my own two hands, fuck our morals and principles. You got me?”
In all my life I’d never done anything like that to anyone. But at that moment I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t carry out on my threat despite the validity of Ryder’s argument. Apparently, whatever Ivar saw in me then was enough for him to believe I’d do it.
“Fine,” he spat. “I won’t speak of Elowyn. But I won’t speak of Her Majesty either.”
“Let me have at him,” came a deep voice that had me swiveling toward the gap in the wall that Ivar’s horse had kicked open. Xeno was stepping through it, already cracking his knuckles and his muscled neck. “He will tell me everything we need to know to protect Elowyn.” Xeno squatted next to me, across from Ivar, and grinned ferally at him. “Won’t you, you sniveling, weaselly fucker?”
Ivar studied Xeno for several beats before his eyelids lowered halfway as if he were preparing himself for pain. “Do as you must. But I will not, under any circumstances, betray Her Majesty.” He whipped his gaze to me. “I promise you that. No matter what you do, you will not crack me. My loyalty to Queen Talisa Zafira Tatiana the First of Embermere is as undying as she is.”
A pair of snakes reared their heads and dove at Ivar’s torso, sinking needle-sharp fangs through his torn tunic and into the skin of his sternum. He hissed and gritted his teeth, clenching his fingers around the armrests.
“Who’s responsible for those?” Xeno asked of the snakes.
“Hiro,” I answered, joining him in turning to study my friend. The genial calm that Hiro had carried as long as I’d known him was absent, his face harder than I’d ever seen it, making his usually soft features strikingly angular.
Xeno offered an appreciative nod. “My man, good work.”
I was turning back toward Ivar when I noticed the advisor flinch. There was real admiration in Xeno’s voice, which didn’t bode well for Ivar. Nor did the broad, muscular frame of the changeling. Xeno carried himself like the kind of male who knew how to wield his body to maximum effect.
One of the snakes remained latched on to Ivar, drawing on its puncture wounds with a sucking ssssslurssss . Shit, was the snake … drinking his blood? Had the whole damn Mirror World gone crazy? Brows climbing my forehead, I snapped around to look at Hiro. Ry and Roan were already gaping at him.
His own eyes wide and bright, Hiro shook his head. “The blood drinking’s not me. I don’t know what’s going on. It’s gotta be … her , right? Somehow…?”
Ivar let out a wheezing, dark chuckle, his legs and arms braced against the snake’s assault. “She’s everywhere and in everything. She’s the sole channel of the land’s magic. There’s no escaping her. Now that she’s immortal, there never will be.” The snake sucked with a particularly loud slurp, and his eyes glazed over. “May as well give up now.”
Frowning at him, at the snakes, at fucking all of it, I stood. “If we give up, the darkness will wipe out the light, and soon the Mirror World will be lost to darkness forever. There’ll be no bringing it back. It’s already too close to the edge. How can you want that? You’re part of this world too.”
The snake sucked. I grimaced. Ivar swallowed, then swallowed again. “It’s not about what I want. It’s”— ssslurss —“what is.”
“That’s total dragonshit,” Ryder snapped in a thunderous clap of anger. “If we don’t stand up for what’s right, then we’re as responsible for what comes next as she is. My brothers and I”—he looked from me to Hiro to Roan, and then also included Xeno—“we’ll fight for the light until our very last breaths. Because we must. What else the fuck are we here for if not to fight for the survival of what’s good and righteous? Don’t you believe we come here to leave the world a better place than we found it?”
Mindful to remain out of striking range of the snakes, which were tethered to Ivar’s body, Roan sidled up to him, languidly swinging his ax. He scrunched up his nose and mouth until he was mostly hair and those startlingly limpid green eyes of his. He gave his ax another swing before leaning on its handle, blade pointed toward Ivar.
“What the fuck happened to ya, man? Ya were never my favorite, that’s for damn sure. But ya didn’t used to be a cowardly sneakle lickin’ milk off the queen’s fuckin’ teats. Ya used to have a mind of yer own.”
The snake disengaged its fangs, Ivar’s blood coloring them pink, and Ivar exhaled with a roll of his head. “That was a long time ago.”
“What changed?” I asked. “We’ve been around for about as long as you have. It’s not like passing time just turns you into an asshole willing to stand by while the world burns around you.”
Ivar pointed his stare into the distance—away from the snakes—and clamped his lips shut.
“What’s the queen done to you?” I pressed. “Maybe we can help.”
Ivar snorted. “How? By setting serpents to devour me from the inside out? It’s not like any of you have figured out how to defeat her.”
I wanted to tell him that of course we wouldn’t allow the snakes to actually eat him. We weren’t the queen, after all. Once Hiro reversed the transformation, Ivar would go back to his usual non-snake-y self. But that would undermine the threat that was disturbing him enough that he might still reveal something—anything—to help us take down the queen.
Xeno rose, swinging his arms to stretch his shoulders. “I’ll get him to talk. He’ll tell me how to protect Wyn. Trust me.” Xeno bared his teeth, his creature close to the surface, then shed his boots. He began unbuttoning his pants. “Better take these off first. Not sure if Pru’s got another set. These are already snug.” He stepped out of his pants and pulled off his shirt, dropping them to the dusty floor next to his boots. “You’re all gonna want to back up.”
Rationally, I was certain that Elowyn and I had both felt the mate bond form between us. There was no magic more powerful in all the fae lands. I knew she chose me and only me as her partner, but damn, did Xeno have to be so fucking … attractive? My body was equally strong, though much leaner, and I’d never met a female who wasn’t drawn to me…
Ryder chuckled in that sardonic way he did when he was about to rib West about something. I whipped my head in his direction, a ferocious glare at the ready. “Don’t.”
He plastered perfect innocence across his face, his eyes dancing eagerly behind the facade. “Don’t what?”
I scowled for good measure.
“Don’t approach my dragon,” Xeno was warning us, his stare already pinned on Ivar, who—fuck him—was actually examining Xeno’s body like it was a work of art, despite the threat he posed to him. “He’s not used to any of you, just Wyn. At this close quarters, give me a bit to wrangle him so he doesn’t attack any of you.”
“Should we just step outside?” Hiro asked.
“No. Once Ivar starts talking, you’re gonna need to be the ones to ask the questions.”
Xeno’s eyes began to vibrate. I hastened to join my brothers in lining up along the edge of the cabin. The dragon protector’s shoulder muscles rippled, then those of his arms, thighs, buttocks, his calves…
“Rush,” Elowyn yelled from outside. “Rush!” Her voice was panicked.
In a hot surge, my tattoos flared to life along every inch of my body. Already drawing Ivar’s cutlass and my dagger, I bounded through the hole in the wall, my heart pumping, finding her standing among the queen’s captive fae. I started toward her at a sprint.
“No. Bring Ivar! Now.”
My tattoos pulsing along with the thrum of my heart, I whirled back toward the cabin, smacked into Roan, and then followed Ry, Hiro, and Xeno—very naked, damn him—back into the cabin.
“Hurry,” El called.
Ry and I exchanged a look that said everything we needed to know. He and I lined up on either side of Ivar, beyond the range of the snapping snake heads, and lifted the chair from the bottom.
“I could lift it for ya,” Roan said as he ran alongside us.
“No time,” I mumbled as Ry and I turned sideways to step through the hole, then barreled toward Elowyn.
Her eyes stretched wide as she took in the serpents writhing from the bloody pit that was Ivar’s abdomen, but she recovered quickly, pointing to the edge of the clearing. “Set him down there so the, ah, snakes can’t get us.”
The very moment Ivar’s chair hit the ground, she snarled at him: “How do we keep them from dying?”
Ivar blinked at her.
Edsel, Larissa, and Pru huddled around a fae male who was thrashing and bucking on the ground, his entire body bouncing even while his eyes remained pinched closed. West clutched Ramana to his chest and rocked her, blatant terror at losing her again stark across his face.
Elowyn’s eyes found mine. “Did he tell you?”
I frowned. “No. We haven’t gotten anything useful out of him yet.”
She rounded the chair to stand behind Ivar, beyond the vipers’ reach, wove her fingers in his hair, and yanked his head back to stare up at her. “Tell me how we disconnect the fae the queen’s been draining from her, or so help me I’ll make you.”
My tattoos throbbed so that their light was bright in the dappled sunlight of the afternoon. My mate was so beautifully fierce , her teeth bared, her eyes fixed on their target.
Ivar said nothing.
She tugged on his hair until his eyes watered. “Tell me.”
He swallowed with a big bob of his throat. “I can’t.”
“I’ll ask the big, bad, black dragon over there to scorch you till you talk.”
“No need,” Xeno said, prowling closer. “I’ll do it.”
She glanced up at him, her brows jumping—at his nudity, I suspected—before rapidly lowering. “Good. Do it.”
Xeno began stepping away from the rest of us, presumably for the change, but then Edsel’s voice announced, “Don’t bother. It’s too late.” The goblin collapsed onto his backside. “He’s dead.”