Chapter 2
KAELERON
The air vibrated and fractured as I roared through a teleport, forcing the magic to bend to my will even as my body threatened to break.
My lungs emptied, my harsh bellow cleaving the darkness as I landed on the churned earth of the mansion’s garden with enough force that it splintered beneath my impact and one side of the blazing sandstone building crumbled, some of the blocks exploding into dust under the pressure of my presence.
I stumbled forwards a few steps, fighting for balance as my trembling legs threatened to betray me and give out beneath me, damned if I would fall to my knees before my enemies.
Shadowy talons flickered over my hands, mimicking my inch-long black claws as my fingers flexed, raking through the shuddering air when I wanted to rake them through flesh and bone, spilling the blood of my enemies across this fractured ground.
The stars hid, the moon swift to escape my crimson gaze as I scoured the clearing before the ruined mansion, my breaths burning my lungs as I forced air into them, denying the weakness infesting my blood.
Where was my sister?
I snarled, the feral sound tearing from my blackened lips as that bastard’s words rang in my head, taunting me. She had been tortured by seelie, by Summer Court filth, forced to divulge information that had led the steward to me and Saphira.
I would cleave their heads from their shoulders as recompense for their actions.
Black shadows shot outwards from beneath my booted feet, launching from the cracks that opened in the ground as I staggered forwards a step, forcing my aching body to move.
Where was my sister?
Where was Riordan?
My crimson eyes roved over the dead that littered the ground before me, a blend of Summer Court seelie, wolves, and my own men, seeking my sister.
Seeking the vampire. Sure the steward would have slaughtered one or both to deal a blow to me.
Only I could not find them, not even as I stalked forwards on unsteady legs, ripping bodies off one another, hurling them away to reveal the face of the one trapped beneath.
Where was my sister?
A black snarl pealed from between my aching fangs as I threw my head back, as shadows exploded from me, covering every inch of ground like a living blanket, each tendril of night relaying what they found to me.
No trace of her.
And then…
I sensed her.
Tears burned my eyes, distorting my vision, and my heart clenched so fiercely in my chest I felt sure it would stop.
“Vyr,” I whispered, stumbling forwards, afraid of what I might find.
“Brother?” Her sweet voice halted me in my tracks.
I dared to look at her. Dared to see what they had done to her.
Faced my fears even when they felt as if they might tear the last of my strength from me and condemn me to the darkness with her.
The vibrations in the air grew stronger, pebbles leaping and scattering as the ground shook beneath my boots as I slowly lifted my gaze to her.
Silver eyes stared at me, so familiar and soft, but it was not that look that wrenched the last vestiges of my strength from me.
She was untouched.
A vision in black leather armour that bore no more than a few gashes in it from our fight against the seelie and the wolves.
Beyond her, Riordan watched me, no worse for wear than she was.
And it hit me as my knees buckled and sent me to the ground.
As relief had my strength rushing from me.
And rage swept in on its heels.
“A trick,” I growled, voice hoarse and low, filled with the fury blazing in my blood as I thought about how easily that bastard had played me, and what he had taken from me. “All a trick.”
A cold laugh burst from my lips, and Vyr and Riordan tensed at the sound of it as it echoed around the forest.
A cunning trick to wrench Saphira from my grasp.
And it had worked.
Sylvan had preyed on my weakness, his plan pure perfection, his aim shockingly true, and I had fallen for it.
I had let him manipulate me into surrendering Saphi to him.
I glanced at the ring that glinted on the middle finger of my left hand, at the circular stone clasped between crescent moons, and willed it to tell me where its twin was.
The white stone shone with the colours of the aurora, and then shifted.
Turning as sapphire as Saphira’s eyes.
Gone.
She was gone.
Ferried beyond my reach into the heart of the Summer Court, to a place I could not follow without risking my entire court. Entering that court to take Saphira back would be a declaration of war.
Darkness surged through me and I bellowed as I unleashed it, as I succumbed to it and my shadows grew jagged and sharp as blades.
I shoved to my feet, fighting my rage, fighting to control it as my fatigue rendered me weak to its influence.
My shadows launched forwards and I twisted away from my sister and the others, redirecting them in the only way I could as I roared.
They lashed at the remains of the mansion, tearing at the stones, and when it was nothing more than rubble, when sweat ran down my spine and my breaths shortened, they tore into the forest, snapping the trunks of the pines and firs as if they were nothing more than twigs.
I growled and raised my hands, directing my shadows, wrenching at the trees, ripping them apart until I felt as if I was being torn apart with them.
“Brother!”
Shadows not my own twined around me as I collapsed, softening the impact of my knees against the cleaved and bloodied earth. I shoved at them, unwilling to let them halt my rampage, because this whole world deserved to feel my wrath, to feel my rage, to fall into ruin before me.
The sky fractured, a great fault line that shot in stilted lines across the vast canvas of darkness.
This realm was not responsible for taking my little wolf from me though.
It was not the one that should pay.
Not the one I wanted to rip down with my shadowy claws.
A grunt burst from my lips as I lumbered onto my feet, followed by a growl as my head swung towards the direction I had come from—the direction I had gone with Saphira.
Returned without her.
The Summer Court would bleed for what they had done.
“Brother!” Vyr snapped, and this time it was not her shadows that held me, but her arms. They banded around my chest as her front pressed into my spine, tightening there as she rested her cheek on my back, her voice a balm to my blazing soul as she whispered, “Calm, brother.”
I laughed at her, the chuckle that spilled from my lips as hollow and cold as my heart. “Calm? How can you expect me to be calm?”
“Where’s Saphi?” Morden growled.
The dark-haired wolf seemed to always know exactly the wrong thing to say—or perhaps the right thing to say to earn my wrath.
I tossed a snarl over my shoulder at him, crimson gaze sliding in his direction, and he dared to glower at me, goading me into unleashing my shadows on him next. He was the reason Saphira was gone.
If he had never come to my court, she would have been safe.
She would have still been with me.
But this was the reason he had been dispatched to my court—to take her because no seelie could enter my kingdom without breaking the accord and suffering the consequences.
To deliver her to the steward of the Summer Court.
Just as that court had sent a wolf into mine by way of the prick of an alpha, I had sent a wolf into theirs.
And by the Great Mother, I should not have let her go.
“You dare to ask me that when you are the one responsible for what has happened?” I growled right back at him, barely leashing my shadows as they launched at him, making him stagger back two steps to avoid being skewered.
Perhaps the wolf was not the only one to blame.
I should have fought them.
I would not have won, but I should have tried.
Jenavyr dared to release me, but she remained close, her expression guarded and gaze watchful as she rounded me and looked in the direction I had been heading. Worry glittered in her silver eyes as they shifted back to me.
“What happened?” she whispered, voice soft but level, calm but coaxing, and her shadows twined with mine, the feel of them a comfort to me I could not allow myself to feel as I glanced at the ring that felt so heavy on my finger.
My sister looked there too.
“She is in the Summer Court?” She reached for my hand, her expression crumpling, revealing a side of her she rarely showed to anyone, even me.
The tender, soft-hearted side of her that had tried so hard not to cry the night we had stood side by side before the pyres as our parents burned, choking on the hymn that would carry their souls to the next life.
When I had taken her hand, needing her strength for myself, fighting back tears I could not allow anyone to see when my grip on the throne had been so fragile, she had let her own tears fall, spilling mine for me.
I snarled and snapped fangs at her hand, halting it before it could reach me.
Because I was not sure I deserved her comfort or her strength this time.
She looked as if I had physically struck her, flinching as she drew her hand back to her side, and I barely leashed the need to lash out at everything, to unleash all this pain and fear that clouded my heart, taking it out on the land until I was too exhausted to do something reckless.
Like following Saphira.
“Kael,” Vyr whispered, gaze imploring me to tell her what had happened.
But how could I?
How could I tell her that my little wolf’s bloodline was responsible for orphaning her?
She glanced at my hand again, eyes filled with a desire to take hold of it, but rather than following that need, she tipped her chin up and squared her shoulders, and her voice was firm as she said, “We will get her back.”
“We will.” My voice was little more than a low snarl as those two words leaked from me, as the urge to follow my little wolf into the Summer Court pulled at me, slowly shredding my resolve to remain here in these mortal lands with my sister.
If I acted now, I could reach her before they settled her in that castle, before she was placed far beyond my reach.