Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
Z
“ A aliyah!” I screamed as I barreled through the forest, pushing branches away in an attempt to clear a path. “Come out and face me, you coward.”
All I could hear were the sounds of battle raging in the distance.
“Aaliyah!” I pivoted on my heel, spinning in a slow circle, searching the forest for any sign of my sister. “Aaliy?—”
“Looking for me, dear sister?”
I spun, holding my sword at the ready, and Aaliyah grinned from where she sat perched on a boulder.
She didn’t look like she had come to battle. Instead of armor or leathers, she wore a flowing black dress decorated in elaborate ruffles. Her red hair was plaited away from her face in an elaborate updo that made her features look almost delicate. But I knew there was not a dainty bone in her body.
“You look surprised to see me.” Aaliyah began to kick her legs as she talked. Those penetrating green eyes locked on me, hardening. “I told you I would come.”
“Stop this.” I took a step closer, my sword still raised, searching for an opening. “Now.”
“Stop what?” She tilted her head and smiled at me.
It was a sharp smile. Dangerous. Capable of cutting you where you stood and making you bleed.
“Everything.” I ventured another step.
Closer.
I just needed to get closer.
I had no idea if a sword through the heart would kill her, but maybe it would loosen her control on the minds of the nightmares.
Her lip peeled away from her teeth in a snarl. “Do you really think that will kill me?”
“No,” I confessed, shaking my head. Another step. “But I think it will hurt like a bitch and might incapacitate you long enough to kill you.”
She laughed, high-pitched and maniacal, her emerald eyes glimmering. “You don’t know how to kill me, sister.”
“I think you gave me the weapon to end your life, even if you don’t realize it,” I answered, and confusion crowded her features.
But I didn’t elaborate, and she didn’t ask any more questions. She simply sat there, staring at me, her lips pursed as she swung her legs.
“We don’t have to fight. You know that, right?” She absently brushed at her shoulder, almost as if she were wiping away lint.
“You’re not giving me much of an option.” Another step.
“These people don’t deserve your loyalty.” She curled her lip. “The two of us together can make a new world, one free of nightmares and humans and sin. Don’t you want that?”
“Everybody has sin in them, Aaliyah.” I kept my voice placid. “I have sin. You have sin. Killing everyone in the world isn’t going to change that.”
“Not if it’s just me and you.” Something akin to desperation flashed across her face. “We can remake the world the way we see fit. Just the two of us.”
“Is that what this is all about?” Another step. “You want to take over the world…so we’re the only two people left?”
Was she fucking insane?
“Would that be a bad thing?” She waved a hand through the air to encompass the world at large. “What have the humans and nightmares done here aside from fighting and fucking? Nightmares hunt humans for sport. Humans kill nightmares. It’s a never-ending cycle of violence and despair. How could you want to live in a world like that?”
“Things are changing,” I told her. “Nightmares are working with the humans.”
“Are they?” She smirked at me, looking every inch the imperious demoness princess. “Because the second I amplified their sin, they turned on the humans. Who’s to say they won’t do that in the future?”
“Aaliyah, stop this. I’ll let you walk away right now if you do.” That wasn’t the truth. There was no way I could let her leave here.
It would fucking break me to do so, but I had to kill my sister.
Another step.
A myriad of emotions crossed her face. “Will you come with me?”
She extended a hand, and for a moment, I felt…tempted to take it. Not because I wanted to go with her, but because I knew if I did, she would call off her troops. At least for the time being. I could save the men and women here. Ryland, Dair, Devlin, and Jax. I could?—
A roar sounded from beside me. Aaliyah and I both spun, alarmed, to see shadows racing through the forest and tackling Aaliyah off the boulder. A pair of blue eyes peered through the darkness.
Ryland.
No. No. No. He couldn’t attack Aaliyah on his own. She would hesitate to kill me, but him? She wouldn’t even bat an eye.
I raced forward, my sword extended, but I couldn’t see who was who. The shadows were too thick and poignant. All I could make out was a tangle of limbs as they fought.
“Do you really think you can fight me and win?” Aaliyah’s lilting laughter cut through the shadows.
Fear skated up my spine and knotted in my throat.
“Ryland! Stop!” I couldn’t lose him.
I wouldn’t.
“I can do this!” Ryland screamed, the shadows thrashing as the two fought.
I couldn’t tell who was winning.
“Pull back the shadows! Let me help!” I ran forward but paused at the edge, unsure of where to slice.
All I could see was a clump of shadows on the forest floor. Squeezing my eyes, I focused on the mate bond connecting me to my shadow prince, but it felt muted, twisted almost, vibrating with emotions I couldn’t name. When I touched it, an electric shock coursed through me.
And that was when I realized.
Ryland couldn’t stop fighting Aaliyah. His pride wouldn’t let him.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Okay, so if Aaliyah could amplify a nightmare’s sin, then it stood to reason I could do the opposite. At least, that was what my mates believed. All I had to do was calm Ryland down enough to focus. To realize he was making a mistake.
But god, I didn’t know what to do, and my mind was swarming, and fear was grabbing my throat in an iron vise.
I tried to send soothing vibes down the mate bond. All of my love and hope for the future.
“Ryland, please,” I begged.
“I. Can. Do. This.” Ryland’s voice sounded ragged as he fought.
Aaliyah laughed.
Then the shadows dispersed as abruptly as they appeared.
At first, I thought it had somehow worked, that I’d gotten through to him. But when Aaliyah continued laughing, her features twisted in jovial delight, I followed the direction of her gaze…
And saw the dagger sticking out of Ryland’s chest, directly in his heart.
“No. No. No.” I captured Ryland before he could fall and landed on my knees.
Pain rattled through my legs, but it felt muted, buried under the agony barraging me from every direction.
No. No. No. No.
“Your mate should’ve known better,” Aaliyah said silkily, a malicious smile tugging up the corners of her mouth. “And he would’ve, if he didn’t allow his pride to get in the way.”
Angry tears rushed down my cheeks as I whirled my head around to glare at her. “You evil bitch!”
“I did what I had to do.” She shrugged a single shoulder, as if she hadn’t entirely uprooted my life. “You’ll thank me for it one day.”
“If he dies, nothing will stop me from hunting you down and killing you,” I warned, my heart breaking, my chest caving in.
Aaliyah’s smile faded. “I’ve had enough of this.”
She spun on her heel and disappeared in a cloud of black and red smoke. But I couldn’t think about her, not with Ryland in my arms, blood streaming out of his chest in tandem with the life fading from his eyes.
“Ryland, hang on. You just need to hang on for me.” I lowered my forehead so I could press it against his.
No. No. No. This couldn’t be happening. My god, it wasn’t fair. We were going to have a happy ending. All of us. I couldn’t imagine a forever without Ryland in it.
“Z…” His voice was hoarse, raspy, consumed with pain.
“I’m here,” I whispered, reaching for the mate bond with Devlin, who was the closest, and giving it a pull.
Hopefully, he’d be able to come and then get help. Ryland just had to hang on. Just a few more seconds.
“I’m here, and I love you.”
“Z,” he whispered, his icy-blue eyes dulling, turning a subdued shade of gray.
“No. No. No.” My tears fell faster, splattering across his face. Grief tore me open. I couldn’t breathe past the ball of it in my throat. “Please, no.”
“Z?” Devlin raced through the forest, a gun in one hand and a dagger in the other. He was bloody and bruised but didn’t seem to have any permanent injuries. His violet eyes landed on Ryland, and the blood drained from his face. “Ryland?”
“Get a healer!” I screamed. “Now!”
Ryland’s pulse became weaker. I barely felt it beneath my fingertips as I placed my hand to his throat.
“You’ll be okay. You’ll be okay. You’ll be okay,” I repeated.
I didn’t know if I was talking to him…or myself.
Ryland’s chest gave a long rattle, then it went still.
His eyes stared up at the sky above us, vacant and unseeing, and I felt the last shreds of who I was dissipate. I didn’t know anything anymore—not the sky from the grass, not the moon from the sun. Everything looked upside down. My heart felt like it had fallen into a rapidly spinning belnder and was being sliced into a thousand ribbons.
No. No. No.
I began to scream.
Then the world around me brightened until I had to close my eyes or risk going blind. The ground fell out from underneath me. I was falling, falling, falling, falling, falling…
Straight into the next trial.