CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
I was draped across Beck’s chest, my heart hammering as steadily as his was. “Lyd?” he said softly.
“Hmm?” I focused on the waves of pleasure that still rolled through me, not ready for the distraction to end.
“Do you think…” He cleared his throat. “Do you think you might come back to me soon?”
A smudge of brilliant orange mars the inky black ahead, so low on the horizon it has to be from Vircann.
Not so much as a single lantern betrays the other four islands, though, their bulk consumed by endless night.
The coastline is similarly shrouded, making it impossible to tell which district is illuminated.
Another wave of pain lances my back and I cringe. “Shifting,” I pant. I don’t wait for an answer.
My stomach lurched into my throat for a weightless breath before Griffon folded me into his arms. I couldn’t even find the energy to wrap mine around his neck.
I dragged the suffocating helmet Griffon had scrounged up for me off my head and breathed in his intoxicating scent, the steady rhythm of hundreds of flapping wings lulling my eyes shut and nudging my mind toward oblivion.
He nuzzled into my hair, the dull edges of his own helmet scraping against my scalp. “It wasn’t too long ago you wouldn’t have trusted me to catch you.”
“The sex is too good not to catch me,” I mumbled. “You couldn’t have more if I was splattered all over the ground.”
He snorted. “Keep talking dirty to me and—”
My head jerked up. Screaming, distant but shrill, finally reached us. Those were the screams of the injured. The broken. The ones caught somewhere between life and death, clinging to the first but begging for the second. I’d been responsible for enough of them to know.
I stared at that orange glow, begging my vision to sharpen. To separate the islands from the gloom. People from the buildings witnessing their slaughter. “How far away are we?” I asked.
The screaming grew louder with every powerful beat of his wings.
“A few miles,” he said, his voice drenched with the same fear and anticipation that thrummed down my spine. “We’ll be there in the next five minutes.”
My exhaustion evaporated. Bellan was down there, undoubtedly squatting in some hole while men with a spine died for his sins. Unless he’d fled the city altogether and just served them up as sacrifices he didn’t care about and wouldn’t remember. My hands clenched into fists.
The droning hum of agony unraveled into individual cries, sharp peals of pain punctuating the deeper howls of panic and fear. I itched to slap my palms over my ears. This was the Vircann of fifteen years ago.
“You’re going to have to land yourself. I’m not carrying you into that mess in Flesh.”
I cringed, my bones already rebelling against the pain to come, but nodded. “I’m rea—”
“We’re not leaving them down there to die while you play the curious observer!” General Sorrell bellowed.
I couldn’t see it but was willing to bet his ruddy-brown skin was tinted a deep red with the force of his anger.
Commander Aris bristled. I strained my sensitive ears.
“The fact that you would blindly send the legion into Bellan’s Vircann after what happened fifteen years ago makes you unfit to lead it,” he spat. “We have no idea what’s really happening down there!”
A particularly shrill scream shattered the night.
“It is pretty damned clear that they’re dying! Does that look staged to you?” Sorrell flung his finger toward the Council District. We were finally close enough to pinpoint where the battle was.
“I don’t know what it looks like,” Aris roared, “because we’ve done zero recon!”
“Nighthawks!” Davina snapped. She was fierce in a suit of finest armor. Her hair had been braided into thick rows, the charm dangling over her forehead from the middle braid just visible beneath the lip of her winged helm.
A contingent of petite gargoyles, clad head-to-toe in black, separated from the mass of bodies and wings. They were mostly female, with the odd small, nimble male scattered amongst them.
“Kindly find out what is happening,” she ordered.
The Nighthawks dove for Vircann, their black leathers swallowed by the night.
“Legion, half speed. Let’s give them a little time.”
“Archon Davina—” Sorrell started, but she raised her hand and silenced him.
“We are here, Sorrell. We are still moving into position to help them. But Aris is right. The humans lost absolute trust on Solstice.”
“Innocents die every second we tarry,” he ground through clenched teeth, “when we had the power to save them.”
The Archon rounded on her general, snapping and angling her wings in a maneuver I couldn’t hope to replicate.
The legion halted in the space of a breath.
She hovered in front of him, the faint glow from Council setting her night-black eyes burning.
“Do not think for one moment that I am unaware of the cost. But I will not fly into a trap without so much as a moment’s consideration!
” Her tone left absolutely no room for argument, but her fierce gaze softened.
“Your intentions are pure, my friend. Your will to protect is why I chose you as my general. But I must also safeguard this legion. We are all that stands between the continent—its people—and ruin. You made your position clear, but my decision is final. Half speed!” she called louder and whipped back around.
Griffon’s arms tightened around me. “Rest, for a couple more minutes,” he whispered into my hair, his body taut as steel.
I shifted my weight and threaded my arms around his neck. “Tell me it’s going to be okay,” I pleaded, pressing a kiss against his warm skin.
He didn’t answer for a second, his throat bobbing against my lips. “I can tell you I’ll fight like hell to make sure it is.”
I blinked and the Nighthawks reappeared at Davina’s side, emerging from the night in a tide of black shadows. “Whoa,” I muttered. “Magic? Or just skill?”
His gaze flicked down to me briefly before settling on the Nighthawks. “All skill. They train their whole lives for this.”
One of the women flew a beat in front of the others.
She inclined her chin to our three leaders.
“Roughly a hundred da’kai and what looks like Vircann’s entire guard crowd the Council Square and surrounding streets.
We estimate over half the guard is already dead, leaving perhaps five hundred still fighting.
A couple hundred da’kai roam the rest of the city, but they just seem…
confused. Like they’re lost in a maze. The city’s residents are holed up, with doors locked and lights out.
As far as we can tell…” she trailed off.
“Give me your assessment, Nighthawk Quinn,” Davina commanded.
Quinn straightened her shoulders. “As far as we can tell, the human’s plea is genuine, Archon Davina. We are all in agreement.” Her voice was steady. Sure.
The Archon returned her steely gaze to her general. “The legion is yours.”
“Eclipse formation!” Sorrell barked. “Dispatch the da’kai and hold for Commander Aris’s orders.” A peace offering. Aris nodded his thanks. “Advance!”
“The first row will land on the closest side of the square and the rest of us will drop down in a wave, like an eclipse.” Griffon rushed out.
The legion lurched forward and shot for Council, death on booming wings.
“Just follow me.”
Alexei fell into place below us, ready to catch me if I failed to catch myself.
“Ready?”
I nodded, my heart a drum in my chest, and slid the helmet back on my head. “Ready.”
He dropped my legs and shifted me in his arms until my back was flush against his chest, his arms wrapped just below my breasts and across my navel. His thumb brushed my nipple. Even through my thick leathers, I shivered at the contact. “Fly,” he whispered in my ear. His arms vanished.
I shift and flap hard. My weight still drags me down.
I grit my teeth and beat the air, my muscles screaming like they’re tearing from bone.
The tips of my wings just brush Alexei’s on a downstroke, the light contact setting a maddening itch at the edge of my delicate membranes.
I growl at the infernal sensation and manage to gain a few more feet over him.
A phantom touch brushes along the edges of my wings.
I glance sideways as a whisper of black smoke coalesces into talons.
They gently scratch along the membrane, sating the itch I can’t reach.
I take my place back at Griffon’s side, but he only winks at me.
My lips twist into something approaching a grin.
“No magic fingers for poor Alexei?” I pant.
His answering smirk is sinful. “I don’t think Alexei would appreciate my magic fingers.”
I slide my eyes off the approaching ground long enough to narrow them on him. “Not the fingers I meant, asshole,” I growl. “Those fingers are mine.”
His magic brushes my neck. My lips. I glance at him again, but this time his face is drawn, the skin around his eyes and lips tight.
“Remember to anchor,” he says quietly. “Don’t lose yourself down there.”
I nod. “I won’t.”
We near Council, every breath hurtling me toward the bone-crushing ground. I yank a dagger from my waist.
The first row of the legion slams into the ground and the deep bellows of the obsidian beasts drown out the humans’ cries. We descend on them in a wave, each row striking deeper into the courtyard.
The ragged screams and bellowed roars grow deafening.
Flashes of light on steel and blood on flesh and cobblestone snag my attention, my eyes darting between one desperate battle and another shredded corpse.
I shake my head. My fingers brush the phoenix chain at my wrist, and I force white feathers to the forefront of my mind.
I count the rows ahead of us. Estimate where Griffon will land. My gaze locks on a da’kai close to the hall’s steps, its rough-hewn skin a void that sucks in the surrounding light. My hand wraps tighter around the dagger.
“Now!” Griffon barks. He backflaps hard.
I tuck my wings and soar past him.