Chapter 40
Fear—sickly sweet fear. That’s all I notice at first. It’s so potent I’m sure I’m drowning in it.
My throat closes, my stomach twists.
Selene…
Memnon’s voice calls to me from far off. It’s like swimming through water trying to reach it.
“Selene.” This time it’s a command, and with a sharp exhale I awaken.
My body is pressed tightly against my soul mate’s, and cold sweat coats me. I can feel Memnon’s hand rubbing lazy circles on my back, but tension radiates from him.
I tilt my head up from where it rests on one of his pecs and peer at his face.
In the dim moonlight, I see the shine of his eyes as he gazes down at me.
“It’s alright,” he says softly. “I’ve got you.”
“I had a bad dream,” I whisper.
I think I did at least. I cannot actually remember the details of it, but the fear…the fear was so powerful that I feel the echo of it even now, it’s clawed grip still sunk into my sternum.
But Memnon, at least, feels real, solid. And ever so slowly my galloping heart settles, even if the fear isn’t fully gone.
Strange, how it lingers.
The sorcerer pets my hair back fondly. “I’ve got you,” he says again. “Go back to sleep, my love. You’re safe.”
They’re silly little words, and yet I relax at them. It should be impossible to fall asleep, given the dread still holding fast to me, but in Memnon’s arms, even that is drowned out by the all-encompassing security I feel being right here, at his side.
And with that final thought, I drift off.
MEMNON
It wasn’t a dream.
If I were a halfway decent man, I might’ve admitted that to Selene up front.
But I’m not a halfway decent man. Not even a slightly decent one. I’m a wretched monster with a soul mate.
It’s an ethical dilemma.
I watch Selene fall asleep, stroking her hair idly as I hold her against me. Once I’m sure she’s out, my gaze rises to the windows.
Outside, at the edge of the back lawn, a legion of demons gather, waiting.
They’ve gotten through my outermost wards and enchantments, and though they haven’t broken through the rings of spells that wrap more tightly around the house, it’s clear that if they’ve gotten this far, they can and likely will break through the rest of them, though they’re not battering at the wards yet.
Instead, the demons stand unnaturally still, their slitted pupils focused on this bedroom.
I’ve laid specific enough enchantments to know they cannot see Selene and me even if we were to stand right at the glass window, but I’m sure they can sense us.
Smell our blood. Perhaps even hear the rush of our pulses.
They are what stoked Selene’s fear when she woke, as well as my own, and I’m certain they’re here for her.
Gently, I slide my wife off my chest and settle her next to me. Selene’s not deeply asleep, and for a moment she stirs.
I release my magic, letting it settle over her. It does not work on her the same way it used to, but the mere brush of it against her skin seems to be enough to soothe her back to sleep.
I listen to her soft exhalations. I should feel little—so much of me has deadened as my power has grown—but with my soul mate, my queen, the intensity of my feelings is still hard to breathe around. I live in terror that one day my power might claim that, too.
Quietly, I slip out of bed and pull on a shirt and pants. My fear still lingers, but a rush of battle-bred euphoria eclipses it.
If these creatures knew how much I craved slicing into their skin, they might not have dared to come as near as they have.
Anger burns in my chest. That is the most worrisome emotion of all. If I cannot control my feelings, then I cannot control my increasingly erratic power. And if I lose control of that, I cannot always hold on to my mind.
Shoes go on next. Then silently I move to the closet, releasing the smallest spark of magic to illuminate the space. Tucked away on one of the back shelves is my weaponry.
I grab my sheathed daggers and the belt rolled up around them, and I fit them to my waist. Set farther back on the shelf is a leather harness and the sword that’s secured neatly into it.
I strap that around my chest, my sword hilt peeking from above a shoulder blade.
The heavy, familiar weight of it steadies me.
I exhale, then head out, pausing only briefly to reach out and trail my fingers over my wife’s hair, afraid if I touch anything else, she’ll stir.
I love you, my queen. I’ll be right back. You won’t even miss me. I know she cannot hear me, and yet I still press the words across our connection.
When I go to leave the room, Nero lifts his head from his bed.
“Stay,” I say softly raising a placating hand. “Selene should have you here with her.”
The panther’s ears flick, but then he resettles, those eyes of his tracking me in the darkness as I retreat from the room.
I stop in a nearby guest room to kneel at the foot of a chest. Inside it rests a cache of more weapons, among them a recurve bow and a quiver of arrows. Pulling out the items, I drape the quiver over the shoulder opposite my sword.
I’m still adjusting to the weight and tension of the weapon as well as using a quiver rather that a gorytos to store arrows, but I’ll consider this a chance for some target practice.
I place a hand on my chest. “Let no weapon pierce my skin,” I incant in Sarmatian. “Hide me from view. Shield my body from enemy spells.”
Again and again, layer after layer, I drape magic on myself as my fury builds.
Eislyn thought she could hunt my wife? Hurt her? Kill her coven sisters and terrorize her school?
Manipulate her magic?
And now this?
My hair stirs at my shoulders as my power thickens in my veins, too big already to contain. I allow it to spill out around me, to open the door to the backyard. Releasing my power keeps the monster within me at bay—for now.
As I step outside, I see the demons’ attention move to me, their eyes gleaming red when the moonlight hits them just so.
The spells ringing my house still shield me from view. I know they cannot see me even if they sense my presence in other ways.
I pause, considering them. Then I slide the bow from my shoulders and fit it with an arrow. Not a single demon moves.
They really cannot tell what I’m doing.
Fitting the bow with an arrow, I draw the string back, aiming at the leftmost demon standing at the edge of my lawn. I steady my breath and quell the rage that lacerates me from the inside.
Release.
The arrow hisses through the air, moving faster and straighter than my weapons of old. The projectile slams into the demon, throwing the creature back.
The demons around him recoil at the attack, scattering a little. I see their lips draw back and their eyes scan the back patio.
They still cannot see me.
I withdraw another arrow, aim, and release it. By the time it lodges itself into its target, I’m already fitting another projectile into my bow.
My enemies move, but I’m used to the motion of battle. I revel in the difficulty of it and the way years of fighting have honed me.
“Show yourself, coward!” one of the demons hisses.
As though honor has anything to do in a fight amongst monsters.
“Have you not heard?” I call out. “This is a proper Sarmatian greeting.”
Among enemies, at least.
One of the demons pulls out a gun, though the thing is utterly useless against my wards. Strikes—including bullets—cannot enter past the protective shields, but as my arrows have demonstrated, they can exit the protective shield.
My magic still snaps out and knocks the weapon out of the demon’s hand. I don’t want these creatures to wake up my wife.
The demon cries out, and just as he turns to lunge for the falling weapon, I shoot him. With a grunt, he falls to the grass.
I don’t spare him another glance before I continue to aim and release arrows, taking down demon after demon.
In the melee, a few of the creatures have jumped on their brethren, mauling them while they’re weak, the carnage driving whatever wicked instincts live within them.
“Enough!” one creature finally calls.
I laugh, even as my hair begins to blow about me.
“Enough?” I say, my voice deepening. “You invade my land and threaten me with your very existence, and only now, once the fight is no longer in your favor, do you call for some restraint?”
My laugh is ferocious, wild. “This is only the beginning.”
My power takes over then, and the world blurs. I can still feel my lethal, flowing movements and the rush of my magic like an extra appendage. Mostly, though, I am instinct and rage.
These creatures came into my territory, threatened my mate with their presence.
They will not simply cease to be; they will suffer in as many ways as I can inflict.
And once my magic closes in on them, holding them hostage like a fly caught in a web, I do begin to inflict my wrath on them.
I grab my blades, the ancient hilts all but molded to the shape of my hands, and move through the clouds of my magic. And once I find the demons caught fast within it, there’s the sensation of flesh parting and blood spilling and appendages rent apart. And screams. Angry, impotent screams.
I feed off it all.
They would’ve hurt my witch. Stolen her soul.
Slaughter them all. Bury their bits so deeply they’ll have to dig to the Underworld itself to reach them.
It’s too easy. No real opponent—
A cloth covers my nose and mouth and lips press close to my ear. “Hello, my king.”
That voice, which is attached to that hand, which is covering my mouth—I know it.
For an instant, my magic quiets, and my thoughts sharpen.
I draw in a deep breath even as I turn and meet the icy eyes of my former advisor and the killer of my wife and mother and sister.
Her name comes from a long way off.
Eislyn.
I have the thought to lunge at her, but before my body can move, all falls to darkness.
I wake to a hand stroking my face.
“Est amage,” I murmur, turning into the touch. My shoulders burn and my skin throbs.
Selene’s hand stills.
“Yes, I suppose I will be your queen once this is all over.”
It’s Eislyn’s voice that drags me from sleep.