Chapter 5 #3
“Deals are done. There are no more. I will make no more bargains, no more alliances. You will tell me what you know—”
My skin prickled, and my words stopped, the hairs rising on the back of my neck. The world went still with fear. I heard the wings of several birds flutter into the sky and the retreating footsteps of small and large animals moving swiftly away from the area. Then I felt it.
Her.
My heart thudded rapidly against my chest, the sound competing with the noise of weapons firing outside.
A savage howl ripped through the night air, followed by ear-splitting screams. Celestials yelled orders to one another, and light flashed every time a trigger was pulled.
I dropped Ethan to his feet, not bothering to see if he would run or follow.
I rounded the corner, taking the stone steps three at a time.
Logan raised his ablaze weapon, turning from side to side, instructing his men to stay in line.
They were yanked into the thick forest one by one, followed by any vampire not detained in one of the vans.
Drake’s hands pressed against the window of the van. He stared through the glass at the darkened forest, fear lurking in the depths of his eyes.
Headlights spotlighted sections of the forest, but an unnatural stillness had consumed it. Not a single living thing remained in the surrounding trees. Only the heartbeats of my celestials echoed here. Every living creature in a fifty-mile radius had fled for their lives.
I stopped beside Logan. “Werewolves?”
Logan shook his head, keeping his eyes on the forest’s edge. “Not werewolves. Only one wolf.”
I shook my head. The scent I caught was not of a beast. “Not a wolf. An Ig’Morruthen.”
“She’s here,” Logan whispered.
I heard footsteps behind me.
“Where’s my wife?” Ethan asked.
His answer came a second later. Dianna emerged from the darkness, her crimson gaze sweeping over the celestials and holding on me.
I felt Ethan shift behind me, and her eyes flickered to him, her expression twisting.
I knew two things with absolute certainty.
First, when she came out to fight, she wore her hair back from her face as she did now, her long ponytail swinging behind her.
Second, this cruel creature wasn’t my Dianna.
Years of war had steeled my stomach to gruesome atrocities, but seeing her so casually holding the head of Ethan’s wife in her palm had my gut twisting.
Everyone stopped and held their breath. My body pulsed, the power inside me rushing to the surface.
It wasn’t in lust, but in fear of her, my body preparing to act, to protect.
Power swirled around her, her magic so much more than when we first met.
It bent and coiled, encasing her entire being, the strength of it multilayered and rich.
I felt my power coalesce in my hands, light bursting to life on my palms. I snuffed it out almost immediately, but I could tell by the grin that tugged at the corner of her mouth that she had caught it.
She was different. We all sensed it. Even the forest acted as if it wanted to retreat.
Her energy rubbed against mine, almost abrasive.
Logan shifted next to me as if he were willing his own power to calm down and not react because this was Dianna.
She wasn’t dangerous. She wasn’t deadly or a threat to us.
I knew it in my soul. She was Dianna. My Dianna.
Dianna cleared the edge of the forest, moving with the easy grace of a predator. She was on the hunt, the vampires her prey. She tossed the fleshy mass from one hand to the other, and I heard Ethan’s knees crash to the ground beside me.
“Was this all my sister was worth?” she asked, her gaze flicking between Ethan and Drake where he still sat in the van.
“A pound of flesh?” She stopped, holding the severed head on one palm.
The skin cracked, red embers showing through the fractures before it burst into flames.
It burned, true death taking what had once been Ethan’s wife.
Dianna leaned forward, blowing the ashes from her palm.
The act was as cruel and sadistic as I had ever seen.
Ethan’s cry of anguish cut through the pounding of my heart. Feet shuffled as the vampires attempted to flee.
“You don’t listen.” Dianna wiped her hands together and turned toward me. “I told you to stay out of it.”
She took another step, and the celestials closest to her took one back.
“And you know how I respond to threats.”
“Well, like I said.” She stopped, her eyes scanning me from head to toe. A smile tipped up the corner of her mouth, a single fang making its appearance. “It was a warning.”
My body reacted almost violently as she stopped near me.
Her power, how she smelled of blood, the scent radiating from her told me one horrid truth.
She had been feeding gluttonously. Every cell screamed danger even as my soul whispered what a lie it was.
My heart skipped a beat, and I’m sure they all heard, but I couldn’t help it.
No matter what, Dianna stole the very breath from my lungs without even trying.
I was a fool to have denied what I had felt for her.
A complete and utter fool. I could never lie about that again, nor did I plan on it, and right now, regardless of the bloodshed, one simple truth rang true. I missed her so godsdamn much.
“Where have you been?” Not the question I had originally wanted to ask, but my concern and worry for her bubbled up, overriding the rational part of my brain.
“Sorry, I took a few days off. I had a funeral to deal with.” She shrugged, and my heart sank, a cold realization hitting me like a tidal wave.
“You found Gabriella.”
She lifted a single finger as if it was nonconsequential. “Actually, Camilla did.”
“You’re with Camilla?” I nearly recoiled.
“Aw, don’t look so hurt, lover. Or should I say ex-lover?
I’m not with her. She is only alive because she proved herself useful, and I slaughtered her entire coven, so I guess we’re kind of even for now.
Besides, she did a nice little spell that told me I had to wait so you all would come out of hiding.
” She glanced at the still kneeling Ethan and then at Drake locked in the van.
“I mean, I know a pussy when I see one.”
Dianna wasn’t stalling. She was calculating her odds and making a plan on how to get through me to them.
“Where is Neverra?” Logan’s voice broke, his tone pleading and his question hanging in the air.
Her eyes jerked toward Logan as if his voice alone was an insult.
Her head tilted slightly, venom filling her smile.
All traces of the woman who had joked and laughed with me were gone.
“I don’t know. Maybe check the morgue.” She paused and smiled cruelly.
“But I guess that wouldn’t help either since you all burst into a thousand particles of light when you die. ”
I caught Logan glancing at the mark of Dhihsin on his finger. He knew that if she were truly dead, the mark tying them together would be gone, too. I could see that he clung to that hope.
“You know, this was smart,” Dianna said, her eyes cutting back to mine.
As our gazes clashed, something small and brief flashed beneath the glowing red embers of her irises, but just as quickly, anger replaced it.
Her lips pulled back in a silent snarl, revealing the sharp elongated canines.
“Getting to them before I could. Do you plan to save everyone involved in her death?”
“No. I’m here to save you.”
“Me? That’s so sweet, but you’re a thousand years too late on that one,” she said, regret flashing in her eyes.
“They will pay for what they did, Dianna. They will face justice for—”
“Justice?” A sick laugh escaped her as she clicked her teeth. “Oh, you really are noble. We both know there is no justice in our world. Blood must be paid with blood.”
“No.”
“There it is again. Your favorite word.” Her face turned to granite.
“You really are a knight in shining armor, are you not? Or at least you pretend to be. So kind to help those who maim and slaughter. But then, I guess you can relate since you maim and slaughter. Just like your father and every king and monarch before him. Isn’t that how empires work? ”
“Don’t.” The word was clipped, short, and had enough power behind it, Logan stepped forward. She knew what could hurt me and was using the knowledge as a weapon against me.
“Did I hit a nerve?” Dianna’s smile widened a fraction.
“How about another? The great and powerful king, except you’re not.
You’re not powerful. I know what scares you, makes you weak, makes you hurt.
They don’t call you World Ender for the fun of it.
So, what? You believe in fairness now?” She scoffed before placing her hands on her hips, her bloody fingers tapping restlessly.
“Fine. I can be fair, too. For protecting her, for giving her a home, I will grant you a boon. Leave. Take Logan and your men and leave.”
“Dianna.”
“Just go home. Go back to your castles and towers of silver. Go home and let the monsters handle their business.”
My heart sank because I knew what I had feared was coming. I knew it with every cell in my body. I did not have the words to describe the ache I felt. What was about to happen would change everything for her, for us, and for them.
“Dianna. I can’t. There has to be order in any realm. There has to be.”
“Since when?” She threw the words at me, lacing them with venom. “You were gone a thousand years. Go another.”
“You know I can’t. There has to be a line.
You know that, and you know that’s me. Otherwise, there would be nothing but utter chaos.
Slaughtering them isn’t justice or getting even.
It’s eradication and vengeance. Once that vengeance is done, you’ll have nothing.
You only make more enemies that way, not less. Trust me. I know you are hurting.”