Chapter 26
Raven
Anguish yowled through my chest, my body shaking. I leaned over, putting my ear to his chest, his heartbeat growing softer, his life slipping from my fingers.
“How do I save you?” I tried to dig deep, to find the source that had bonded us before and saved me from death. I could feel nothing, our power draining instead of uniting.
“What do I do?” I wailed. “Help me.” He was my rock, my core, the tamer of my monsters, and the source of my strength. I couldn’t do this without him.
No , mroczny. You are all those things on your own. His voice was just a whisper through my soul.
“Ash…” My forehead dropped to his, my tears seeping over his skin.
I could hear our friends and family below, fighting for their lives, Sonya’s soldiers not knowing their queen was dead, while my soul was being ripped from me. I was dying even if my body continued living.
The story of my mother rebuking my father at first was well known. Their convoluted past and her dedication to his late nephew turned her away from her mate. They both suffered. But to us dwellers, it was equal to a slow, agonizing death sentence, and none of them had knotted to their mates like I had. It didn’t matter if I was supposed to be queen, if my role in life wasn’t supposed to include a tree fairy, if everyone in the world didn’t think we should be together.
Our bindings went beyond labels and titles.
“Ash,” I sobbed, rocking into him. “Don’t leave me.”
Something plunked on the ground next to my knee, my attention going to a stone coiled within a chain that fell from his pocket.
The Cintamani stone. A tick scurried up the back of my neck, rummaging around in my brain, trying to pull at my school teachings, the knowledge stored within its files.
“It gives you the opportunity and luck. And a source of nature’s energy.” I heard Dzsinn’s voice in my head. It was known to be the elixir of life.
My pulse thumped in my ears, my body flushing with adrenaline. Shakily, my hand reached out for the stone, sensing the vibrations brushing against my palm, the power emanating from it.
My lungs tightened, my heart racing. Hope burned like acid in the back of my throat. I plucked up the chain. Vitality sang from the gem on a frequency my dweller could hear and tickled at my bones.
Every wish I had to save Ash whirled in my mind as I clutched the chain and dropped it over my head.
Heal him! The stone fell against my breastbone, rubbing my skin like a genie bottle as my hand slammed over the arrow wound in Ash’s chest. The stone reacted instantly to my plea, performing like a lightning rod, pulling energy from everywhere and funneling it through me.
A scream wrenched from my stomach, pain splintering my nerves as nature answered my call. Life exploded behind my eyes, burrowing deep like roots. I gritted my teeth against flashes of us together; the blood we had spilled over this land fused us. It tied us to the earth, our own marrow a sacrifice to the gods.
The echo of tree branches cracked from the forest nearby, sounding like fireworks, popping and exploding across the sky, answering my call. We had pulled from nature before, drenched the earth in our cum and blood, and I could feel our essence pumping back into me, filling his veins with the connection we shared, and pulling the toxins from his blood.
A howl expelled from my lips, and my body shook, feeling the intrusive poison like it was being siphoned from my own body. The infected blood surged from his wound, slipping through my fingers and oozing to the ground, staining his shirt like a tattoo.
No line remained between us, no notion of individualism or pride. The dweller and obscurer wrapped around his soul like it was theirs while I took his pain, his life, his joy, and heartbreak and dragged it across the scorched land of death, yanking him back into life.
A scream belted out of Ash, his body jackknifing up, his green eyes popping open with blistering heat. He sucked in sharply, his chest heaving. Energy and life thrummed off him. His attention went to the pool of dark blood next to him, then his head snapped to me.
“ Dziubu?, ” he whispered hoarsely, his gaze going from the necklace around my throat to my face.
His voice rocked through me, breaking me. I fell into him with relief, the weight of what I almost lost slumping me forward with a wail. He pulled me to him, holding me close.
“You saved me.” He leaned back to look at me, his thumbs wiping at my tears. “Again.”
“Of course I did,” I choked. “You are mine, Ash Hemlock Rowan. Every part, and I can’t be the bane of your existence if you aren’t around.”
He huffed, a smile tugging his mouth as he gripped my face.
“Then I guess I have to live because I want nothing more than for you to drive me insane for the rest of my days, Raven Haley Scarlet Dragen.” His mouth captured mine, his kiss claiming and needy.
A loud cry came from the garden below, breaking us apart.
“Kennedy, stop!” My father’s cry soared up to us on the castle walk. The fear in his tone rushed me to my feet. We peered over the wall where the battle dotted the landscape, groups fighting with various foes. I spotted my father standing near my mom, reaching for her as blood dripped from my mother’s eyes and nose, her body suspended in air as she used her black magic to control the guards coming at them. Piper lay on the ground nearby, Aunt Fionna over her, while Wyatt and Uncle Ryker still battled the snake-man.
They were all killing themselves to protect me.
Before, I had run from the consequences of my actions, pretended they were better off with me gone. Safer.
I had been a coward. That was not who I was. I was my mother and father’s daughter. I came from the bloodline of a high Druid, a queen, a beast, and a killer.
I was a Cathbad and a Dragen, and I didn’t bow or cower for anyone.
A growl came up my throat, fury setting my shoulders back. I peered over at Ash.
“Keep the necklace on, Your Highness.” He grabbed my hand. “We will need all the luck we can get.”
With that, we turned and rushed down the stairs into the sea of beasts, fiends, and monsters.
?
The tales of my family, the battles and wars they had fought, turned them into legends in my eyes growing up. Especially during the holidays, when more drinks were consumed. I was enraptured by their heroic journeys, thrilled at how exciting they sounded. Rook and I were extremely jealous because we were never part of one, like Piper had been, and Wyatt was too young to remember. She never shared our envy and lust, saying she recalled too much, was branded with the memories of the stench of death. While Wyatt, Rook, and I would reenact them with reverence as children.
Now I understood.
War was glamorized by those who had never been immersed in one. Whose boots hadn’t slipped over guts, whose ears didn’t echo with cries of death, who hadn’t experienced the rancid, metallic taste of bullets and blood on their tongue. The horror of it was like a lashing, cutting so deep into my mind the scar would never cede.
While I wanted to vomit, the dweller surged up, the obscurer hissing with fury, craving repentance from anything hurting my family. No matter what, fighting was in my DNA, death as much a part of me as life.
On the field, the throng of mindless soldiers my mother was struggling to pin against each other was waning. Her energy dipped from her like the black blood seeping from her eyes in thick trails. Our obscurers were not gentle in their retaliation; they took from our bodies as greedily as suckling pigs. They had no understanding of weakness, of stopping to protect us from their craving. Black magic had no off switch.
“Mom!” I screamed, but she didn’t hear me, too lost in her bubble, the plane she was hovering on locking her in. My father was trying to reach her, to be her anchor against the power.
With a roar, my own obscurer soared up, not wanting to release her from such a burden, but to be the one killing. Controlling those it deemed unworthy.
“Use me!” Ash barked to me, his hand taking mine again, already sensing what I needed.
Latin spilled from my lips, the world around me hazing, my power escalating. I felt the blades in my back, the length of my teeth cut into my lip, while a chant formed on my tongue.
I used to think of the dweller and obscurer being two separate entities, putting up with each other because they had to, learning to use the other to get what they wanted. Two dysfunctional pieces I fought endlessly with. It wasn’t until Ash that I started to see them differently. Like he secured my two fragmented pieces together, melding them into one. Something that made me whole. They didn’t use each other. They were part of each other, creating a unique monster, not a broken one.
I didn’t need to fully shift like the rest of the dark dwellers, and I didn’t need to be a high Druid like my mother’s side. I would never be light magic. I sought to destroy. I was twisted, dark, ugly, and fucked up inside, and I was okay with that.
I was one of a fucking kind.
With the energy from Ash, my magic tore out of me, ripping through the minds of the guards, dropping the dozen near me like dominoes, my rage leaving nothing in its wake.
Their minds were like mush, easy to shred through. Sonya had already weakened them. Somewhere inside, I felt bad, knowing most were victims. Villagers who had no choice in becoming her prisoner. But they were dead anyway. Their human minds were not capable of mending after that sort of magic. She damned them the moment they stepped on these grounds.
Reaching out further, I heard the piercing cries. The bodies dropping, gripping their heads, feeling their brains burst and then slither out, as if they were trying to escape like drowning rats. A stabbing headache knifed between my eyes, blood dripping down my face to my chin, but I gripped Ash’s hand harder, pushing out even further. In the distance, I could see guards around Caden, Birdie, and Wes, my dark fog slithering around the soldiers and gripping them until I could feel their brains squash in my hands. I didn’t want to stop, zeroing in on another area near Aunt Ember and Uncle Eli. The feeling was seductive, the power addicting. My dweller huffed with the need to join, to sink its teeth into their flesh and kill its prey.
To roll in their blood, letting it mark my fur.
“ Mroczny. ” Ash’s voice nipped at the back of my neck. A warning.
A snarl wrinkled my nose, my chant slaughtering through another group.
And another.
And another.
“ Mroczny! ” Ash’s voice charged through me, his tone tugging on my leash. I yanked back, the pain between my eyes almost blinding, but I pushed on.
“Stop, Raven!” my father yelled. I heard my alpha, yet I still couldn’t stop. I wanted to destroy them all.
“I order you to stop. Bow. To. Me. Mroczny. ” Ash’s command burrowed so deep I could not tell if he said it out loud or not. “ Now ,” he growled, the demand sinking into me like his teeth in my neck.
My body stilled, my obscurer and dweller slinking back. Obeying.
The plane I was on broke, dropping me to the ground in a heap.
“Raven!” My mother’s cry twisted my head as she crawled to me, her own face dripping in black blood, her expression woven with anguish and relief.
“Mom.” I hiccuped. She wrapped her arms around me, holding me so tight, I could feel her heart ricocheting in her chest. “Mom… I’m so sorry.”
“You’re alive. Oh, my baby… you’re alive.” She wept. “That’s all that matters.” She cradled me closer as my dad sank down on my other side, enveloping both of us, kissing my head.
Alive . A wail caught in my throat, my mind going to my brother. The pain was so unbearable I couldn’t even hold the notion he wasn’t okay. He’s fine. He has to be .
“My baby girl.” A sob broke my dad’s voice, and I snuggled into his chest like I did so many times growing up. Tears trailed down my face, his familiar scent making me feel safe and protected in my parent’s embrace.
But we weren’t safe. Not yet.
My attention landed on my cousin a few feet away.
“Piper!” I broke away from my parents, crawling toward her. She was sitting up, Wyatt and Aunt Fionna on either side of her. Wyatt had ripped off his shirt, using it as a bandage to stop Piper’s bleeding.
The snake-man’s head lay a few feet from us.
I forgot all past resentment I had, any jealousy that used to sting. It all seemed silly and trivial now. “Are you okay?” I looked at where Wyatt held his discarded shirt against her shoulder.
“I told you all I was having visions of a snake biting me.”
“We thought you meant a garden snake.” Wyatt smiled down at her teasingly, with an expression he never once gave me. Complete adoration and love.
“This is a garden,” she replied, flinching when Wyatt pulled his shirt away, checking the wound. “And he bit me in it.”
I snorted, shaking my head and gripping her hand in mine, our eyes meeting. No words were needed; my cousin saw everything in my eyes, squeezing my hand back, hearing my apology.
I’m sorry. For everything.
Me too. Her soft smile said back.
I’m happy for you both.
She dipped her chin, her eyes watering.
I looked at both her and Wyatt, his bare chest cut and bleeding. I wasn’t dead, his body was insane, but it no longer made me giddy or held the need to touch him.
“ Dziubu?. ” Ash’s rough tone sent heat between my legs. I craned my neck to see him come up behind me. His attention was on my ex, noticing I was checking him out, his jaw clenching. Possessiveness curled like a heavy coat around me.
Mine.
I could feel the vibration, the energy Ash was pushing into the ground, like he wanted everyone around to feel it. Perceive his intentions.
Without thinking, I slipped my hand in his, letting him pull me up, my body flush with his.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“For what?”
“For being there.” Saving me back. Being my anchor .
He wiped the drying blood from my face. “Always.”
I kissed him, not even thinking about anyone else, not hiding the chemistry between us, but I could hear my father’s growl, everyone’s eyes on us, taking in what we couldn’t hide.
“Oh, fuck no—” My father was cut off by a squawk splintering the sky, whirling me and Ash toward the sound.
Nyx swooped over the castle, pulling my focus outside our group. Mounds of bodies dotted the terrain, the ruler of Russia and his wife, Dubthach, Sonya and Iain—the castle of monster lore was their graveyard.
Another screech came overhead. Brexley pointed her gun, firing into the sky, but the hawk sailed away, her cries dissipating into the distance.
“Fuck, that bitch won’t die.” She rolled her shoulder, where wounds from bird claws could be seen through her torn shirt.
Ash’s family and mine had moved in a protective circle around each other, still on guard. Wounded, hobbling and bloody, but all alive.
Except the threat was still not over.
A deep growl came from Uncle West and Cole, their dweller forms hunching and snarling as figures moved from the dark to us.
Z, Rhino, Beetle, Boar, Joska, Samu, Balazs, and a few other Primul I didn’t recognize stood yards away.
Aunt Gabby etched her claws into the dirt, baring her teeth while Uncle Dax and Dom moved around me, probably at my father’s order.
“No.” Aunt Zoey stepped out in front, her petite frame dwarfed by the monsters. “No more fighting.” Ryker and Croygen instantly moved in behind her like bodyguards. “There will be no more death here tonight. You will leave my family alone.”
Z’s chin jerked, his eyes flaming with what I swore was hurt before flickering to anger.
“Family?” His throat rattled. “Am I not your family… Mother ?”
Zoey’s silence tightened his shoulders, though emotion twitched in her jaw.
“Yes, I know. I was never the favorite,” Z jeered. “Guess it goes to pretty boy here.” He flicked his chin at Wyatt. “Though I still should be above my brother Zeke. I mean, he did murder your sister, rip out her guts in front of you.”
Uncle Croygen grunted, stepping closer behind Zoey, his sword ready to swing. Rage narrowed his dark eyes. Kat stayed close next to him, ready to shed blood alongside him.
“You killed one of mine.” Z gestured to the head of the snake near him. “What makes you think I won’t kill all of you in retaliation?”
“What makes you think we won’t just kill you first?” Ryker snarled, his axe twirling in his grip, his white eyes narrowing.
“She won’t let you.” Z smiled down at Zoey. “Or you would’ve already, right, Mom ?”
“Don’t underestimate me,” she replied coldly. “It never works out well for those who do.”
Ryker stepped forward, and I noticed Warwick came around the other side, holding his own battle blade. A harmony of snarls came from the dwellers, most of them still in their beast form. Aunt Fionna, Piper, my mom, and I grouped together, our magic humming between us. Brexley moved closer, and dead bodies started to twitch. An icy feeling different than the cold temperature rose the hair on my neck like a ghost brushed over me.
Z’s eyes darted around, his stinger tail dripping with poison, feeling the sensation too, taking it all in, ready to fight. They were strong, but we had the numbers now.
“I think there will be more death here tonight. Am I right, Kovacs?” Warwick smirked, something telling me there was more to those two than I realized. Like they were messengers of death.
The dwellers agreed, rumbling in unison, inching forward, ready to pounce on their prey.
It was so fast, Z’s reaction blurring my vision. He lurched out, grabbing the arm of someone close, and bringing her to him, using her as a shield. A hostage.
“Hanna!” Scorpion bellowed as Z clutched the blonde to him, his stinger primed at her neck.
“This is not our war. We couldn’t give a fuck about fighting you. You are nothing to me.” Z’s eyes darted to Zoey.
“You think we’re gonna let you walk away after kidnapping and raping women?” Ryker snarled.
Z took a few steps back, Hanna tensing as the stinger skimmed her throat.
“Don’t fucking touch her,” Scorpion roared.
Z nuzzled into her neck, his eyes on Scorpion, but then paused, as if something caught his noticed about her. His tongue flicked out, looking like a hairy comb, every fiber picking up the taste of her skin, his nose sniffing her. Hanna stiffened under his touch.
“Interesting.” He hummed. “You’re like them.” He indicated Joska and Samu, but his attention stayed solely on Hanna, like she captivated him. “But even stronger.” He tasted her again. “Powerful.” His eyes glinted with excitement. Lust. “You are extraordinary. A queen hidden among the slaves.”
“Don’t touch me,” she hissed, her cat teeth showing in her mouth.
“You can fight it, but you know the truth, don’t you, wildcat? You don’t belong with them.” He moved her blonde hair away from her neck and whispered something in her ear.
Hanna went still, her nose flaring, her teeth chomping down. A smile twisted Z’s face as he placed a kiss to her throat. His stinger moved in a blink, slicing behind her ear.
She screamed.
“Hanna!” Scorpion bellowed, lunging for her.
Z shoved her forward, crashing her into Scorpion, both of them colliding to the ground.
“Someday soon, wildcat. You’ll come for me.” He winked, then turned and took off, the rest of his crew following, including Joska, Samu, and Balazs.
The dwellers roared in fury, tearing into the ground and chasing after them into the forest. Ryker, Croygen, Kat, his pirate crew, Eli, Ember, Warwick, Wesley, Brexley, Caden, and Birdie followed behind.
“Viper?” Scorpion cupped Hanna’s face, tilting her neck to show the wound. It didn’t look like a normal stinger wound, but almost a mark on her skin. A P symbol.
Primul .
“I’m fine.” She shrugged off the injury like it was nothing.
“He stung you!” Scorpion pushed her hands away, using the sleeve of his shirt to swab the gash.
“ It’s fine .” She tried to reassure him, but her eyes wouldn’t meet his. “He didn’t inject me with any poison.”
“Are you sure about that?” Scorpion huffed, still wiping at her cut.
Hanna looked away, staring back at where the Primul escaped.
“Raven?” My mother took my hand, taking my attention from them, panic hinting in her tone. “Where is your brother?”
?
The soul is infinite in the love it can hold, the parts it stores away and carries at all times. You can hold so many various types within your body, burrowing deep or skimming the surface.
A twin was wound through your DNA, baked in your essence, entrenched in your makeup. A piece no one could reach. It was a bond nobody could truly understand unless they were one.
Rook was as much a part of me as I was of him. There was no me without him. My partner in crime, my best friend, and sometimes my worst rival. But if you touched one of us, hell would rain down. We protected each other, defended each other, and would kill for each other. And there wasn’t even a question that we’d lay our lives down for the other.
Every strike of my boot’s sole grew louder in my ears. A numbing terror gripped my stomach as I tried to detect Rook’s absence. To see if part of me had been ripped out, the pain so deep I no longer understood loss.
Rook? The cry came from the marrow of my bones, black dots sprinkled through my vision, my lungs quivering as I ran up the steps to the castle, my family trailing behind me, their own fear choking the air.
The courtyard came into view, and I stumbled to a stop, my lungs compressing.
Rook’s dweller lay in the middle, his enormous mass taking up a section of the small yard, the arrows torn out and scattered over the cobblestones.
Celeste knelt next to him, her hand running over his fur while two tiny figures stood on top of him like kings on a mountain.
“I’m telling you, these are magic fingers, Lake Lady,” Opie huffed. “They have healing powers when I stick them in holes!”
Chirp!
“I’ve gotten them in smaller places!”
My twin’s chest rose and lowered in shallow movements.
He was still alive. Barely.
“Rook!” Mom cried, pushing past me, running to her son, my dad right behind her.
My terror and relief had me frozen in place. Both agony and joy tussled through my body; I couldn’t breathe, the effects of the battle wanting to drop me to my knees.
Mom landed next to Celeste, her hand going to his bloody fur, her eyes closing, her seer searching through his pain. My father stood over him, calling his name, demanding his boy open his eyes.
“He’s trying to fight the poison,” Mom uttered, not really speaking to anyone. “But it’s too much. We have to do something. He’s dying.” Her pleading eyes went to her husband as they shared a moment of unfathomable anguish.
“We will not lose him, little bird. I promise,” Dad growled with determination, declaring something he might have no control over.
There were so many people with extraordinary powers here—healers, Druids, necromancers, yet none of them could do anything against the pure goblin metal in his veins. It was something none of us could fight. We were powerless to help, knowing it would take a miracle.
A wish.
Holy. Shit.
Rushing for my brother’s body, I crashed down next to him, my fingers dragging through his fur, feeling for the wounds. A noise worked up his throat, a familiar rattle, as if he felt me there. That part of each other’s soul. The other half of him.
I’m here, little brother.
The sound of him suffering, taking anguishing breaths, his lungs faltering, roared my own beast up. The need to protect him shook through me.
My brother’s form shuddered, like his body was losing the battle.
Don’t you dare die on me! I forbid you!
I clutched the necklace in my palm. I wish for you to heal him! I asked the necklace again, the wish hissing through my mind, directed at another man I loved. Save him.
Slamming my hands on one of his wounds, I poured everything I had left into him. The power careened into me, and it felt like I was being sliced in pieces. The pain blanched my mind, crashing my senses. I yanked at every molecule of toxin that mingled in his blood, extracting it from him.
The obscurer hissed from my lips, preying on the poison in his blood.
“Raven!” I felt more than heard Ash calling me. A hand came over mine, his other covering an arrow wound on my brother’s, taking on some of the weight, letting it siphon through him as well.
The connection of us together surged through Rook, a blinding light chasing out the darkness. His wound gushed with black tar, magic cleaning out the deadly poison with force. Rook jerked, his roar pelting the sky, calling to the stars as life and death staged their last battle before one side fell.
Rook’s back arched, his blades shimmering in the moonlight, his teeth dripping with salvia, eyes fire red. Another howl echoed, then his body went limp, sagging to the stone, half shifting back to his human form, his chest moving up and down with steady intakes.
Silence echoed like a heartbeat. It felt like the earth was holding its breath. Waiting.
A sharp gasp came from him, his body convulsing, his lids springing open.
“Rook!” I called out, but it came out a whisper compared to my mother’s cry, her arms pulling him to her as she sobbed over him.
I sagged back with a whimper, relieved. Ash wrapped his arms around me, holding me up and giving me strength.
Dad grabbed Rook’s shredded clothes, covering him as Mom held her son, sobbing softly, but this time in joy. Dad grabbed my hand, the other on Rook, our family holding each other.
“I think that belongs to me,” a man declared, twisting our attention to the ordinary figure standing in the entry to the courtyard.
Dzsinn nodded at my necklace and took a step forward. “It is not meant to be held by those outside the jinn line,” he stated, sticking out his hand.
I understood why. The lure of such power at your fingertips. To know you could escape death, challenge fate, and be granted life and wishes beyond your dreams. It was corrupting and heady, tempting you to lose yourself in it.
Ash reached around my neck, unclasping the chain. The stone fell into his palm.
He stood, turning to Dzsinn.
“We are even. I owe you nothing.”
Dzsinn dipped his head.
“You have my word. The favors you owed have been met.”
“And Scorpion’s too.”
Dzsinn’s mouth curled, his head shaking.
“That is not how it works. Scorpion understands what he got himself into.”
Ash’s nose flared, but knew he couldn’t change it. He dropped the chain into the genie’s hand. The instant the stone touched his skin, blue light blazed behind the genie’s eyes, a color so beautiful I heard myself gasp before his irises went back to a muddy brown.
He let his lids close, his shoulders easing as if finally he was whole. Dzsinn pocketed the stone and turned to leave.
“What about Kalaraja?” Ash asked.
“What about him?” Dzsinn stopped at the entry again. “He fulfilled his favor to me. Whatever you have between you is your problem now. Though he is not a dumb man. I would think he’d be long gone from here.” For now, echoed in my ears. But Kalaraja was a problem for another day.
Dzsinn’s form slipped into the shadows and vanished, leaving us to the quiet death after a battle, where blood and bodies soaked the earth, and the legends of a story held nothing to the reality of it.