Chapter 48
Rune
Rune watched Alora sleep, the rise and fall of her chest syncing to the steady rhythm of his own. Alora lay curled against his chest, her body still trembling faintly from exhaustion, her breath a soft whisper against his throat.
Rune hadn’t moved a muscle, hadn’t dared to break the spell of this rare moment she didn’t fear him. His fingers curled possessively against her waist. Afraid if he let go, she might shatter completely.
Or perhaps he would, as if she were the only thing holding him to this plane. The one tether between him and the madness that clawed at the edges of his mind.
His hand rested on her neck, feeling each beat of her heart like a fragile drum. Proof she was still here.
Still alive.
Seven Hells, when they took her from him, Rune had been ready to split the world in half to find her.
It had taken him seconds to locate where Eldrik had hidden her, then a few more to summon his Harbingers.
The utter rage that took over him when those cursed light wards had kept him at bay.
No matter how much the sun had burned him in the past, he had never cursed the light until that moment.
Nexus leaped up onto the bed, the size of a full-grown cat now, horns a little bigger. The creature fluttered its wings, blinking at Rune with lazy yellow eyes before curling by Alora’s feet.
“Thank you,” he muttered.
Nexus licked his paws, purring silently. Rune had chosen to trust the Vareth and perhaps form a mild tolerance for Caelum. As much as he hated the thought.
Rune brushed the loose golden strands from Alora’s cheek. She had been so quiet. So strong. But he had seen the pain in her eyes. The tremor in her hands. The silent sobs.
The missing magic.
And he hadn’t been there to stop it.
That one despicable fault burned him from the inside and tore him to the core of whatever made him. He nearly lost her because he hadn’t been able to protect her.
If she had died…
As if sensing his thoughts, Alora’s fingers curled into his tunic, clinging to him even in sleep, and that small, instinctive reliance nearly undid him. She held onto him without knowing what he truly was. Without knowing he was who she should run from.
Rune brushed his knuckles over the small bruise on her cheek, so lightly the touch barely registered as he healed it. His shadows curled around them both, trying to soothe the rage boiling beneath his skin. It was useless.
Wrath didn’t wane. It only waited. It paced inside of him like a beast. His shadow on the wall warped, stretching into something ancient. Grotesque. A truth he hid from her. That ruined him more than any damnation ever could.
The mirror on the wall hummed. Rune snarled at the notice before Calla’s image appeared in the reflection. His lead Harbinger stood at attention, arms crossed behind her back, poised and grim.
“I bring word, sire,” Calla said, her expression carefully composed.
Her method of communication was intentional.
They all must sense him wild for his mate, the bond was there beneath the surface. Feral. Claiming. Viciously protective. And right now, it wanted blood.
Calla knew better than to be anywhere near him in his current state of mind. Had it been any of the others—any male—Rune would have already attacked.
His claws curled slightly against Alora’s shoulder, shadows twitching with restraint. “Speak.”
Calla bowed her head. “The knight and his men have set Calveron’s ships ablaze, hindering their escape.
All remaining warlords have been captured per your command.
But Prince Eldrik escaped in the mayhem.
We tracked him to the northern shores before he crossed into Midland territory … where we cannot follow.”
The shadows surged up the wall like a tide, making them rattle.
“Seeking sanctuary, I presume,” he said, his fangs growing as his glamor flickered.
His demons couldn’t cross the Thornbearer’s wards that kept out all who were not fae. But no such magic could deter him.
The air thickened, charged with silent violence. Power rolled off Rune in waves. He could tear apart the cottage with his fury alone, but Alora was asleep in his arms. A reminder to keep calm for her sake.
Rune took a slow breath and the shadows settled on the floor like wolves called to heel, awaiting his next order.
“Take the remaining warlords to the mountain for my court to enjoy.” His red eyes lifted to Calla’s. “I will see to loose ends myself.”
“As you wish, sire,” Calla murmured, bowing her head again. A small, knowing smile curled at her lips as her image in the mirror faded away.
It was about time he had his fun.
Rune had promised not to leave Alora’s side. And he wouldn’t, not in body. For his shadows did not require presence. Only command.
They stirred, shifting with his thoughts.
His voice echoed, “Rise.”
Shadows peeled from his body like smoke.
The fire in the hearth dimmed, drawing darkness into the cottage as a form rose from the floor.
Unfolding, twitching, trembling, and hungry.
A silent silhouette stood beside the bed.
Horns rose on its head, wings of smoke at its back.
An entity of darkness that had stepped out of the void.
His shadow-self.
It had no face. No voice.
Only eyes glowing like blood lit coals.
Its wrath flooded the air, mirroring his own. He sensed its need to hunt. To sink its claws in flesh and bone.
Then Rune commanded it with two words: “Find him.”
His shadow collapsed into mist and slipped through the cracks of the door, gliding into the night like a force of living death.
Alora slept soundly, curled into his side, her breath soft against his skin. In his mind, Rune saw a different world.
A darker one.
Rune remained in bed.
But his will did not.
Through the eyes of his shadow-self, he was smoke between trees and stone, his form incorporeal. The forest beyond the cottage stretched like a graveyard of twisted limbs, moonlight slicing through the canopy in thin, cold beams.
He moved through the night with the speed of the wind, traveling across the Midlands.
It did not take long to find Eldrik.
The shadows need only follow the scent of fear.
Oh, it was sweet.
The fleeing prince raced across the dark land on his horse, gold cape fluttering behind him. Illuminated by the faint light spilling from the knapsack secured at his waist.
Eldrik’s horse tripped over a strip of darkness, and the force hurled him off the saddle.
He hit the ground hard with a pained grunt.
The shadows gathered, rattling the branches.
He scrambled back as he limped to his feet, wild eyes finding his horse dead and broken.
Eldrik searched the dark woods, his gasping breaths fogging in the air.
Rune’s voice drifted through the stillness of the dark, distorted and layered. “Going somewhere?”
The prince yelped.
The sound of his racing heartbeat echoed like music. The delicious taste of panic and fear flooded Rune’s senses like decadent wine.
His shadow-self crept closer, slipping through branches and brush without sound. The prince’s stumbled, crying out. He scrambled to his feet, falling backward until his back pressed against a tree.
Rune’s shadow-self moved within the pockets of darkness where the moonlight didn’t touch. “Did you truly believe I would allow you to escape?”
Eldrik shook, clutching the bag to his chest. “You cannot lay a hand on me on fae soil. I have immunity. An agreement was made!”
He chuckled. “You hold no bargain with the dark.”
Eldrik panted, eyes bulging wide as the horned shadow slowly stalked forward. The stench of urine stained the air.
“The day I claimed my bride, I warned you in your dreams that if you touched her again, I would annihilate your entire House. I’m here to keep my word.”
Eldrik turned to flee. Rune’s shadow-self surged forward, snatching his neck. Eldrik screamed, the sound cut off when he tossed him against the nearest tree with bone-snapping force. The prince cried out, choking on broken sobs as he tried to crawl away.
“Calveron will fall tonight, with no one left to rise. My legion will sweep across the world like a shroud of death as they exterminate your army and all those bearing your family name. Beginning with you.”
The warmth of Alora’s breath on his skin grew distant beneath his cold retribution. The terrified prince pleaded for his life, but there was no mercy to be had.
“I have done terrible things in my existence,” Rune said, his voice threading through the shadows. He emerged from the night like a curse made flesh, stalking out of the trees toward Eldrik with slow, deliberate steps. “Things the Heavens could never forgive.”
The prince whimpered, reaching desperately for the knapsack where it had fallen in the leaves.
But the shadows dragged him by his ankles, scraping his back across bark and stone, before hurling him into another tree.
It pinned him there with brutal force. His leg snapped, bone splitting with his agonized scream.
“There is little I treasure in this world… but one. And I promised her I would never again be so terrible to mortals.”
Through the shadows, he reached out. Tendrils of darkness wrapping around the prince’s arms and throat, lifting him from the ground. His boots scraped against the tree, body pinned, choking, gasping.
“But that does not apply to you.”
Eldrik writhed, clawing desperately at Rune’s unyielding grasp.
Fighting so desperately for a life at its end.
But this was too important to let his shadow-self finish alone.
So he stepped through the dark, entering the forest. His grasp solidified around Eldrik’s neck, and his claws sank into flesh, blood trailing down his wrist like ink.
The prince writhed like a desperate animal, twitching and gasping.
“Tell me,” Rune murmured, shadows writhing around them, “when you looked at me… what do you see?”
His glamor faded, unveiling what he truly was.