Chapter 98 Serena
SERENA
Long legs, sheathed in black pants, sprawl out before me. Kylian lounges on Derek’s throne—making a fucking mockery of it. In his hand is Derek’s silver and onyx crown.
“What have you done? Where is everyone?”
Eyes made of sea and smoke land on me. “They’re fine. For now. I wanted our reunion to be private. Intimate.”
He swings his legs onto the ground and stands in one streamlined move, tossing the crown onto the velvet cushion and adjusting the black jacket slung over his broad shoulders. He wears nothing underneath except that ridiculous eight-pack.
I take a step back as he ambles toward me.
“You’ve been ignoring my missives.”
“What missives?”
“The letters I sent you?”
“What letters?”
“Silly of me to think they wouldn’t be intercepted.” He shakes his head. “Love letters, darling.”
I would laugh if I weren’t actually terrified.
A dull, distant roar draws my gaze toward the windowed-wall of the throne room. No, not a roar.
Boots. Marching in synchronization. And there they all are—the golden soldiers, the Stryga, the black-armored troops of Aegar—meeting with wild fervor on the fields.
My stomach sinks at the possibility of Jace and Zadyn out there. I have to get to them. But he has to die first.
I crouch into a fighting stance. “Don’t come any closer.”
“Time’s up. Let’s go home.”
“You wasted a trip. I am home.”
“When are you going to get it through your pretty little skull? You and I are fated. There are only so many times you can run from me before I tire of this game and catch you.”
I blast him with a ball of fire. He waves a hand, blocking it with a swirl of shadows and continuing toward me, a dark smile blooming on his decadent mouth.
“We had a bargain.”
“You already breached your terms. You sent your armies a week ago.”
“Thank your captain for that. He’s the one who struck first.” He tsks. “Naughty.”
“It doesn’t matter. Deal’s off, dick.”
Sighing, he says, “Let’s just skip past the part where you pretend to hate me so we can kiss and make up.”
“I do hate you, though. With a burning passion.”
He snickers. “I do enjoy the way you show it.”
Whore, a nasty voice echoes in the darkest corner of my mind.
“What’s that saying? The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference? Hating someone takes energy—it takes time and thought. Which means you think of me more often than you care to admit.”
“You’re delusional. Call off your armies.”
“Come home with me.”
I hike up my skirt and rip free the dagger sheathed at my thigh. Kylian’s eyes sparkle—either at the flash of skin or the idea of a challenge. Probably both.
“So it’s to be a fight then?” He makes a show of patting his pockets and cocks his head, fanning his heavy lashes.
“I’m afraid I left my lucky sword at home.”
I clutch the blade in one hand and hurl out a wave of fire with the other. Kylian chuckles, shadows sprouting from his body, curling through the air like thick smoke. I swing my blade on reflex, my mind emptying of all Jace’s training.
I’m on edge. Flighty. Unfocused.
I grit my teeth and eject a ring of fire around myself, but Kylian flicks his hand, and a wave crashes against it, dousing the flames entirely.
When I call that fire again, it refuses to come.
It’s like my spark has been stolen. I try and try, but only steam rises in the air, and I know it’s Kylian’s doing.
I reach for my shadows, willing them to buy me some time. I won’t get close enough to kill him this way. Without the element of surprise, I’m no match.
You lack control.
I start at his words in my mind.
But he’s right. No matter how powerful my blood may be, I have no idea how to use it when it counts. Luck won’t be enough this time.
I try anyway.
But when my shadows appear around my ankles, they flow toward Kylian. I try to rein them in, but they mingle with his—embracing like old friends. I stagger back a step.
How is he doing this? They’re my shadows.
I can show you. The bastard smiles at me and shrugs his shoulders like this is just a harmless game.
Then I feel something sharp inside my head. Like claws sinking into my mind with lethal precision, taking hold of me, eager to shred straight through my consciousness.
I can’t move. I can’t breathe against the intensity. My head is screaming.
I can show you how to do things no one else could ever teach you. Like how to shatter a mind with barely a thought.
I grind my teeth, groaning beneath the paralyzing pain.
All that beautiful anger—that rage—I can help you control it. Turn it into something magnificent.
“I don’t want your fucking help.” My voice trembles under the weight of his attack. I grunt, trying to shove back against the riot in my head.
“Fine. I’ll play fair. No magic,” Kylian says in earnest, waving a hand.
The pain subsides as the razored claws retract. I suck in a loud gasp. He crooks a finger at me, inviting me to strike. When I don’t move, he zaps in front of me faster than I can blink.
My reflexes kick in as I latch onto him and plunge my dagger into his side. I feel his flesh part around the knife, feel his hot blood leaking out around my shaking fist. He lets out a cruel laugh, sinking to his knees.
I rip the dagger free, angling it above him to strike again, but he’s quicker. His hands fly up, redirecting the blade toward me as he rises to stand.
“Silly witch. That wasn’t my heart. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
He backs me up a step. And then two. My arms quake as the stiletto nears my own heart. He smiles, barely exerting himself.
With a wild cry, I finally shove backward, ripping myself loose. I hear something tear, but I can’t look away from him to see what. He clasps my dagger as I clamber backward, tripping over my damned hoop skirt.
Heart hammering, I pedal backward on my hands, suddenly overwhelmed. Suddenly helpless.
“Go ahead. Run. I’ll even give you a head start to go find your little captain. Or your familiar. I can’t quite keep track of your many trysts these days.”
Like a coward, I do. Scrambling to my feet, I rush through the empty halls, terrified of what will happen when he finally does catch me, when I’m finally in his clutches. Because I know what I have to do.
And I don’t think I can do it.
I careen down the corridor, breath coming in ragged hiccups. I don’t know where I’m going, but I don’t stop. His footsteps echo in my mind. I can hear that addictive, dark chuckle polluting my thoughts. I can feel his breath on the back of my neck.
I will never outrun him.
Spilling around a corner, my eyes lock on a curtained alcove off to the side of the hall. I stumble behind it, yank the heavy drape closed, and will my thundering heart to slow—to quiet.
“I can smell you, darling,” Kylian calls. “Of course, this trail of blood you’re leaving isn’t doing you any favors.”
I glance down, noting the warm sensation trickling down my inner arm. A deep gash peers back at me.
Fuck. I must have cut it trying to break away from him. I’m bleeding all over myself, all over the floor.
My back is pressed against the wall, my hand clamped over my mouth to stifle my heavy breaths.
I jump as the curtain flies back.
“Did you really think you could get away from me? I told you a thousand times—there is nowhere you can go where I will not find you.”
And without hesitation, he kisses me. Fire bursts toward the surface of my skin, flaring up at the first touch of his mouth on mine.
I don’t get the opportunity to fight him off. Because he’s suddenly flying through the air.
Jace is there, a shadow of death, his entire aura shifting into something so innately violent it actually frightens me.
It frightens me more than Kylian ever could.
Zadyn springs forward out of nowhere, clamping blood ore chains around Kylian’s wrists before he can react. Jace grips him by the collar and pulls his elbow back, a dagger poised to lodge itself inside that blackened heart.
And that’s when it happens.
“Stop!”
My bond squeezes the strangled cry from my throat.
“He’s my mate!”