Chapter 3
KAELERON
Alow snarl pealed from my lips as my fingers loosened in the hair of the alpha wolf, and a cold grin stole across my face as his head hit the pale flagstones with a heavy thud.
Shadows swirled around my leather boots, and leaked from the seams of my black leather armour, caressing my bare hands and fluttering over my ashy-black-tipped fingers, forming sharp talons.
Talons I would use to tear those fleeing ships apart.
I sensed my sister as she appeared behind me, Riordan in tow, and one of the wolves.
I did not care which. Malachi appeared with the other, and the female.
She gasped as crimson lightning cracked, splitting the darkening sky, and ricocheted off the black mountain that swept down into the sea ahead of me.
A mountain that would rob me of sight of the vessels if I did not act swiftly.
“They shall pay for this,” Vyr growled as she came up beside me. “I shall head to the docks immediately to dispatch the fleet.”
“The fleet will not be quick enough to catch them before they slip beyond my reach.” I did not take my eyes off the fleet attempting to escape me.
“Then I will go to Rhyn—”
“No,” I barked, unwilling to let her head to the seat of the Winter King.
I glanced at my sister.
Because I worried what he might demand in return for his help.
Rhyn acted as if he was merely teasing about her marrying his younger brother, but behind every joke was a kernel of truth.
The Winter King had seriously considered it once, and now made light of it, but no matter how he teased and laughed about it, I could not pretend as he did.
I could not believe he no longer wished her to join his court.
“They are in open water.” I jerked my chin towards the vessels as the males aboard them worked feverishly to unleash the sails and gain more speed, as if they knew I was here.
Lightning whipped from the sky again, a blaze of fire that stuttered against roiling black clouds.
I grinned.
Perhaps they did.
Jenavyr grew deathly still, but then she rallied, her courage coming to the fore as she shed her fears that I might face retribution for my actions as her gaze darted over the positions of the vessels. “They are, brother.”
It was all the leave she needed to give me.
“Guard the prick,” I growled over my shoulder in the direction of Riordan.
The vampire muttered as he toed the corpse, nudging it, “Not like he’s about to get up and walk off, but sure, I’ll guard him.”
My third in command knew what I had meant by my order—that I wanted my prey to remain where it was, awaiting my return, because I had business with the soul it contained.
Wind blasted against me as the ground quaked in fear beneath my boots and the skies opened, cold rain pelting me as I studied the ships, as I calculated the distance between us and prepared myself.
It would only take a minute miscalculation for me to end up appearing in the water rather than on one of the boats.
Vyr’s hand pressed to my back, her palm warm against the leather that protected it as the weather grew violent, the rain falling harder to blind me and soak into my hair, chilling my blood.
There was strength in that touch.
A silent vow that I would not be alone and that if I missed my mark because I was fatigued, that she would be there to ensure I reached my target.
I did not risk it.
I summoned the teleport, darkness glittering with starlight swirling around me to devour me, and punched out of it over one hundred feet above the ships.
My sharp gaze charted the position of each vessel as the sea responded to my hunger for vengeance, great white-capped waves rising and threatening to swallow the vessels as they were pushed out of formation.
The wind scoured me, howling in my ears as I plummeted towards one of the galleons like a black dart.
And hit it with enough force that I punched straight through the wooden deck to the hull below.
Shadows burst from me, reaching for the horizon in every direction, each as sharp as a blade. They severed flesh, bone and wood, filling the salty cold air with the coppery tang of blood and the delicious sound of seelie screams.
I hunched and kicked off, leaping back through the hole onto the deck, and reached a hand out towards the masts.
Ropes of inky night blasted towards them, wrapping around their thick girths, and I held on to them as the boat rolled on a wave that carried us upwards before slamming us back down.
Before another of the fifty-foot waves could hit us, I ripped my hand towards me, and wood groaned and then splintered.
Several males rushed me.
Fools.
I turned on them, shadows launching from the deck to pierce their backs and punch out of their chests, lifting them into the air just as the next wave lifted the ship. I worked swiftly, claws a blur as I slit their throats, as the stench of their blood pulled another grin onto my cold lips.
In the distance, over the roaring waves and the howling wind, louder than the lightning that lashed at the mountains and the water, rose screams and bellows, and the sound of wood giving way to violent shadows.
Vyr was enjoying herself, it seemed.
I summoned all the shreds of my magic, pulling them to my aching body, and snarled as I unleashed them on the boat, carving it to ribbons beneath my boots. The sharp blades of shadow sliced through wood and flesh, severing all before them.
Darkness whirled around me before I could be caught in the crossfire and I moved as shadow to the next vessel, glancing off to my right as one of the boats split in two, cleaved by a great wall of shadow.
A wave swallowed it and I funnelled my fury into the sea, into the wind, ensuring there would be no survivors.
Only a watery grave befitting of the wretches who had dared to threaten my court.
I materialised on the deck of the next ship, losing myself in my rage, in the magic that hummed in my veins and the whispers that darkened my mind.
I made swift work of the vessel and all aboard it, grinning as I cut through them all, shredding with claw and shadow, snapping bones and necks to leave a wave of corpses in my wake.
And as I kicked off again, swirling into shadow, a wave struck it, toppling it into the sea.
The next two ships met with the same fate.
A third was swallowed whole by the sea as it roiled in response to my rage, a great maelstrom forming beneath it to pull it down into the dark depths.
Jenavyr landed on the next ship before me, a glorious vision of darkness as she swept through the occupants, dancing among them to slit throats and stomachs, and my darker side purred at the sight of her, so brutal and precise, a master of her dark arts.
We met on the final vessel, both of us landing hard, breaths coming fast. Several males pleaded for their pathetic lives. I cut them all down without so much as glancing at them, not giving them the pleasure of my attention because they did not deserve it. They were beneath me.
My sister swiped blood from her moon-white skin as she eyed three males who brandished paltry swords, their hands trembling.
And it dawned on me.
Not a single male had used magic against us.
I studied those who remained, barely a dozen of them, and sensed only weakness in them. Each of them bore only a fraction of the power my common foot soldiers could wield.
My grin returned as I levelled an amused look on the captain of the vessel as he desperately tried to steer the ship, as if he could somehow shake us and outrun us.
As if his death had not been predetermined by his master the moment he had been given the order to sail for my court.
“Did you know he was sending you to your deaths?”
I rounded on the male, canting my head as I studied him, as I waited to see how he would react to that question as it fell from my lips, ringing with amusement.
“You did not notice he chose the weakest among your peers for the crews of his armada?”
His golden gaze flickered over the males who were valiantly trying to fight my sister, and falling one by one to her shadows. Fear danced in his eyes as he paled. Golden threads of magic twined around his fingers, revealing he had more magic at his disposal than his men, but he did not strike.
No.
His eyes darted to his left.
And glittering gold engulfed him.
I looked at the point he had, watching him fall in an ungainly sprawl upon the dark grey sand.
The Wastes.
I huffed and turned away from him as he scrambled to his feet and began running. Let him run. If he survived the beasts that called the Forgotten Wastes home, if he made it over the mountains to the Black Pass without being eaten, and reached his precious court, it could serve my purpose.
Delivering a warning to the steward that I was not to be toyed with or threatened.
Vyr finished playing with the males, the last of them falling overboard to escape her but not reaching the violently churning water before her shadows eviscerated him, spilling his guts into the sea like chum that would surely summon the monstrous beasts that called it their home.
The merfolk.
She jogged over to me, coming to a halt beside me, and peered at the male on the shore.
Her hand lifted.
I seized her wrist and pressed it back down, and when she glanced at me, confusion crinkling her bloodied brow, I said, “Let him run. Let him return to his master. Let the Summer Court know what will happen to any who dare threaten my court.”
She nodded.
Crimson lightning struck the tallest mast of the ship, splitting it right down the middle, and the hull groaned and shook.
“I believe it is time for us to leave.” Jenavyr eyed the turbulent water that was growing closer and closer to our boots as the vessel began to sink.
Turbulent ruby water that swarmed with hungry things and flashing fins.
I took a step towards the balustrade of the ship, my legs unsteady beneath me as I fought the wall of darkness closing in on me from all sides.