Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
S creams and the scent of blood filled the ballroom. Those of no use to the darkness became its food. The ones selected for possession would die more slowly, serving first as hosts for the parasitic demons.
Bastian glanced to the other side of the ballroom. Sage still stood over the princess, blasting her magic at creature after creature that crept close. She said into his mind, “We have to get her out of here.”
She was right. Bastian wasn’t sure how much longer they could fend them off. Not with his powers dampened. He’d felt the strain the second those demons had been summoned. Air was the only element in his arsenal not affected.
The compensations he was making were taking a toll. Bastian’s sword was a leaden weight in his hand. And he could no longer discern his sweat from blood.
Still, he circled Xavier, their dance began minutes or hours or perhaps, an eternity ago.
“The last time we did this”–the prince of Gerra’s eyes filled with amusement– “I nearly killed you.”
“I was a newly made vampire then, my powers still being honed. Now…” Flames coated Bastian’s sword, alive and ready in his hands. “I am your king.”
The amusement faded from Xavier’s eyes. “You are not my king.” Violence beckoned in his voice. “And after today, you will be no one’s.”
“You sound awfully certain of that.”
“Look around.” Xavier stalked him. “You can’t win against the army my uncle has amassed.”
“Oh, you don’t know, then.” Bastian feigned surprise. “I brought my own army.”
The prince scoffed. “Those rebel scum don’t count.” He threw a glance toward Sage. She stood in the midst of a vortex of her own magic, wind and hail swirling around her and the princess. “Their queen, your mate …” He smiled. “Will be married off to my uncle before the crows have time to find your body.”
Bastian kept his feet moving, crossing one over the other, rotating the circle, maintaining the distance he wanted between his sword and Xavier’s.
“The only one who will have a stolen bride after this will be you, cousin.” He brightened with memory. “Two, to be exact.”
Confusion darkened Xavier’s eyes. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Bastian sent a mental message to Sage. “Can you get to the steed with her?” To the prince, he said, “Have you forgotten Merick?”
Xavier lunged.
Bastian sidestepped and laughed, even as the flames sputtered on his blade. “She’s here, you know. The female you really wanted. The one who couldn’t stomach a life with you.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone move in front of Sage. Cold horror sliced through Bastian. But the male didn’t turn his blade on her. He angled it toward the hissing darkness, putting himself between Sage and Mekale and the demons.
With a snarl, Xavier thrust. Bastian parried–the singing steel just another chorus in the chaos raging around them. Then he pivoted away. He needed to buy Sage enough time to get Mekale on that pegasus and out of here.
The silver-haired fae continued to act as her shield, slicing through the enemy line before snapping jaws or reaching talons could snag them. The shadowy figures were sundered… with a blade forged of air.
Another wind practitioner…
“I see I’ve struck a nerve,” Bastian taunted. “I get it. Truly I do. Merick is very special.”
“She’ll be nothing but carrion after today,” Xavier huffed.
“Not if your mother and her are successful.”
Teakin, engaging in elemental combat with Gideon, shouted for Sterling to look out. Bastian’s younger cousin twisted just in time to miss a mouth full of fangs angling for his neck. They had to get airborne. Only wind-magic was of any real use against this army of the dead.
Another flash of Teakin’s burning fire lit up the darkness in Bastian’s periphery. It surged up against the wall of Gideon’s wind.
Xavier countered, “My mother would never work with your kind .”
Bastian laughed. “It’s like you don’t even know her.”
Simmering, vicious rage pulsed from the prince but also perhaps, a kernel of doubt. He lunged again. Overhand, high, low. The burning steel hissed and deflected and hissed again.
Bastian parried each blow, but Xavier pressed him hard. Backslash, upswing, sideslash, he attacked. Step and strike. Xavier kept advancing, faster and quicker with each new step.
Bastian got past another of his punishing blows, twisted, and savored the sight of crimson blooming where his blade’s tip pierced the shoulder. He didn’t get to enjoy the moment for long. Xavier lowered his good shoulder and charged.
They collided, the force of impact so intense Bastian’s feet chewed up the marble, the friction burning through the soles of his boots. Then he was falling; Xavier got the advantage on his shifting stance and hooked a leg behind Bastian’s .
His back hit the floor, bones snapping as fangs gnashed at his face. Training alone kept his fingers clenched around the sword in his hand. But he couldn’t catch a breath, the air completely stolen from his lungs.
Xavier took full advantage and pressed his blade to Bastian’s throat, pinning him to the cold stone. The darkness around them writhed, taking note, circling–sharks sensing blood.
“The Chosen One,” Xavier sneered. “You’re nothing but a mutt with a crown.”
“Jealous?” Bastian panted. “I’m sure we can find you some twigs...”
The blade bit into his skin. Warmth trickled down the column of his neck. The darkness moaned, inching closer.
Xavier leaned in, his face a mask of cruel death. “You’re not worthy .”
Magic rumbled around the room, amplifying for a moment all their individual battles. Was this the end of his?
A solitary sound slipped in amidst the shouts and clangs of steel–across spilled blood and lumps of flesh, between fire and wind and teeth and fangs–all the way to Bastian’s ear.
Flapping...
Xavier heard it, too. A split-second after Bastian did.
A split-second too late.
Bastian twisted the blade in his hand and thrust upward.
Piercing Xavier’s side.
S omething flashed beside Archer, then Sterling was there, stained with blood and snarling at the creatures closing in. Too many. They were multiplying with every innocent soul they consumed.
Sterling unleashed himself upon demon after demon with a ferocity Archer knew came from deep, brutal grief. The driving need to kill and maim until thought and emotion were smothered by ragged breath and dripping sweat.
With every howling screech, each disfigured monster that went down by the young immortals hands, another sprung to life. The only advantage they had against this foe was the wind. The demons shrunk away from it, some hissing as if it burned.
Yet they kept advancing, an endless sea of darkness threatening to crest over them like a giant wave.
Across the room, Teakin and Gideon were locked in battle, their wind and fire magic created a barrier around them the darkness would not enter. But it lurked on the edges, nipping at the dragon’s heels each time Gideon pressed him near.
Archer had lost sight of the Chosen One and Katarra’s son. They’d gone down near the center of the room in a blinding fit of fangs and steel.
From the other side of the locked doors, the battle raged on between the King’s Knights, the wolf pack, and Hornhall soldiers who had tried to intercept them. Both sides had converged in the great hall from opposite ends before Gideon sealed off the ballroom.
The distinct sound of hooves stomped behind him. He shot another blast of wind into the twisted face of a reaching monster and sent it careening into three others. Archer glanced over his shoulder. The queen had coaxed the pegasus closer and was attempting to hoist the princess’s lifeless body across its back. Simultaneously, she was fighting off the darkness closing in.
The steed sidestepped hotly, nostrils flaring, eyes wide with alarm. It kicked a back hoof at a crawling leathery body trying to sneak under the gusts of wind. The monster reeled back, but not before its razor-sharp talons raked across the animal’s fetlock.
The horse whinnied and spun, pulling the queen with it. She managed to maintain her position at the steed’s side as they turned in a tight circle, and secured the princess to the saddle.
She called out, “One of you has to go with her.” Her green eyes, burning with a halo of fire, locked on Sterling. “You! ”
Archer whipped up a flurry of biting wind around them. It wouldn’t hold long. He didn’t need it to. It only needed to shield them long enough for Sterling to mount that horse and get airborne.
The vampire didn’t hesitate. He launched onto the steed’s back behind the princess and took the reins. Archer’s maelstrom of wind weakened, black claws shredding through the vortex of multi-layered air.
The pegasus spread its massive wings and took flight. It flapped once. Twice…
Hooked talons curled around one of its hind legs. The horse kicked out, trying to shake free. Another set of blade-like fingers sliced down its flank. Then another hand, and another. The steed struggled to rise, its large muscled body suspended in mid-air, as the darkness climbed higher and higher.
Archer tried to send another blast of air toward them. But his magic had depleted to barely a breeze. The queen sent a wall of energy spearing for the creatures and dislodged three. Sterling severed a demon’s hand with his sword. Another went down with a kick to the face.
It wasn’t enough. The darkness overtook the mythic beast’s wings.
This was it...
The horse cried out in pain.
They had failed.
The queen bellowed a piercing scream that cleaved the realm, and threw herself into the void of swirling black, a sword of wind slashing as she went.
No!
Archer stabbed and chopped at the darkness, hacking his way toward her. Something in the shattered window caught his eye.
A line of black in the distance.
Not the same color as the death consuming this ballroom.
A different type of darkness.
A cavalry of it…
At least twenty pegasuses, midnight wings stretched wide.
Flying right for them.
“ W hat the fuck do we do now?” Katarra asked into the nothingness.
Merick, semi-transparent beside her, said, “Speak to Sekhmet. Ask her to show herself to you.”
“Try to not be an asshole,” Eirik added unhelpfully.
“I thought you wanted her to recognize me?” Katarra drawled.
He didn’t get a chance to give her some snarky retort. Not as the murky darkness around them eddied. Something moved through it.
Eirik stepped closer. She shoved him off when his elbow brushed her shoulder and whisper-hissed, “Every man for himself, LaGoryen.”
The darkness rippled and expanded, and three shapes took form, solidifying, as if the swirling mist had dreamt them to life. One male, one female, and a wolf.
Her attention went straight to the goddess. Neither tall nor short, not curvy or slim. She wore a kalasiris and a sun disc crowned her head. Her long blue-black hair flowed in sheets over both shoulders . Sekhmet .
The male, stoic, and draped in a woolen toga, addressed them first. “No need to call us. We know why you’ve come.” His eyes warmed slightly as he looked at Eirik. “To fulfill part of your destiny.”
“Great,” Katarra said. “Let’s move it along then. The realm is ending.”
The Egyptian goddess’s kohl-lined eyes crinkled at the edges. “Patience is an overrated virtue.”
The wolf spoke next. “Join hands.”
Katarra beamed. “Kumbaya?” Merick elbowed her in the ribs .
Sekhmet replied, “That won’t be necessary.”
They joined hands. As allies. As scions.
… As family.
In silence, they stood and bore witness to the universe’s history. The memories and truths of three vastly different gods unfolded around them. The story of beginnings and ends, and everything that dwells in between.
S age’s sword became an extension of her powers–slashing, biting, cleaving at the darkness–as she descended into icy wrath. Plunged deeper into the well of her magic than she’d ever gone before. Loosing herself in it.
Claws raked at her flesh, teeth snapped at her face, but she kept fighting. Bone crushed and black blood sprayed. Sage met every attempt to slay her with wild, vengeful fury.
For her friend dying atop that brave steed, and the young immortal willing to give his life to save her. For the silver-haired fae toeing the line behind her, giving everything he had. For her mate. And all the innocents in Hornhall and Windsong.
For her people.
For Arrowren .
A torrent of wind and hail and thrashing seas flooded her veins–her heart. Until she didn’t know where her flesh ended and her magic began. Until she no longer saw through fae eyes…
…But through the eye of the storm.
T he darkness covered her up like a swollen river. Archer’s breath sawed out of him as he stabbed and impaled and punched, plowing his way toward where Sage went in. The pegasus whinnied again, Sterling still fighting like hell atop it .
Past the charging cavalry, more ships advanced on the harbor. Windsong ships, their white banners flying high. Too many . Even if they managed to survive this, they didn’t have the numbers to go up against both kingdoms.
The fae on pegasuses sent volley after volley of arrows toward the castle walls. More Hornhall soldiers tumbled off with each round. As they fell, other fighters scrambled into their place.
It wasn’t enough .
Archer’s heart thundered in his chest as those warships inched closer–past the smoldering, disabled ones and other vessels still burning–slipped up alongside the waiting Hornhall armada.
The darkness began to shriek where his queen had plunged into the fray. Then a glimmer of light appeared, the shadows pulling back.
No , not pulling back.
Being cut back.
Arms and legs and heads flew out from the writhing pile of otherworldly bodies. The black hands that gripped onto the horse began falling away. Sterling sliced off the last two.
Then with a concerted flap of those massive wings, the pegasus got lift. Another flap and they rose higher, and higher.
Archer yelled, “Go!”
Sterling did. With a push of wind so strong it sent creatures scattering, the steed was off, headed for the hole in the castle wall where a window once had been.
Archer cut off heads before they could stand. A long, steady, high-pitched wailing began. Unlike any siren he’d ever heard. The sound was constant; a cold, ear-piercing scream that grew in intensity, like a train bearing down on them.
A tornado.
Coming from under the heap of blackness being disemboweled. In disbelief, Archer saw discarded body parts lifted into the air, spun faster and faster, caught up in the cyclone of fury that was …
That was his queen. She wasn’t creating the storm through her magic.
Sage had become the storm!
A roar sounded behind him. He turned to see the darkness seize Teakin. The Chosen One was nowhere to be seen. Only a mounting army of dead souls rallying behind Gideon.
Bony fingers latched onto Archer’s arm and he whirled back, plunging his sword through the creature’s skull. He cut down three more before he could glance back out the window through which Sterling had flown.
The growing fleet moved as one, the fires beaten back enough for the ships to make port. It wouldn’t be long before those battle-hungry warriors, fresh and primed for war, spilled over the railings and onto the shore.
He had failed . Failed his mother and nephew and sister. Failed to protect the most vulnerable of this realm.
Failed his father.
A flutter of movement atop the masts of those new ships caught his eye. Then the white banner of Windsong fell toward the sea–a new color replacing it.
The green of Arrowren.
But it wasn’t Aeolus depicted in the banner’s center. It was two crescents facing each other, a diagonal line running between them. The rebel stigmata…
The ships opened fire on Hornhall’s armada.
B astian’s throat burned. His limbs were sluggish. But he kept fighting. Even as more and more unholy bodies piled on top on him, blocking out the light, trying to rip him to shreds.
They’d overwhelmed him the instant he shoved Xavier off. He’d lost track of how long it had been. No idea if the slick wetness covering him was his blood or theirs .
They kept coming, so swift and so many Bastian couldn’t find a path to freedom. Couldn’t rise from the ballroom floor. He heaved and pulled against the spell stifling his magic. If he could just get a fraction of his powers back…
Sage screamed. Then lightning burst forth. Blindingly bright in his periphery.
When it sent the darkness fleeing, Bastian didn’t waste the chance. He leapt to his feet and scanned the room.
He found her. Not in the beautiful female form he knew well. But a whirling torrent of wind and rain and death– the storm .
The silver-haired fae held the line beside her, fighting like no male he’d ever seen. Bastian rallied his magic anew, begging it to hold out a little bit longer. He started for them.
Teakin’s bark of pain from across the room had Bastian spinning in place.
The ballroom doors burst open.
Chogan and Fenrir and a group of brutal-looking warriors, wolves adorning the hilts of their swords, charged in. Mixed with the fray was distinguished silver armor representative of Hornhall’s elite group, the King’s Knights.
Bastian didn’t pause to feel the relief, but whipped his head around the ballroom and found his uncle leashed by the neck and arms to the floor with suffocating chains of darkness.
Gideon stood across from him, an adder’s smile on his lips. He idly twisted his wrists. With every rotation of his pale hands, the leash around Teakin’s neck squeezed tighter.
Cold rage clanged through Bastian.
Then Sage was at his side–an unmovable stone in a river of chaos.
“How good of you all to show up at just the right time,” Gideon said. “Now you can see how a true ruler deals with a nuisance. Even one that’s a dragon.”
Teeth bared, Teakin thrashed against the bands tightening around his neck. Flames sparked and died out. Blood dripped from his nose. The darkness hissed.
“Stop!” Bastian ordered.
Gideon turned his head. “Only if you’re ready to make a trade, prince .” He clicked his tongue. “My bride, for your uncle.”
“How about this,” Bastian said. “Go fuck yourself.”
Teakin’s eyes bulged and blood leaked from the corners of his mouth. The silver-haired fae took a challenging step forward. A blast of darkness met it, halting only inches from the male’s face.
“Careful, nephew,” Gideon warned. “You’ve already overstepped your bounds.”
The warrior stilled, but growled through clamped teeth, “Let him go if you want Dagan back.”
Gideon smiled. “I already have him.”
As if summoned, another fae stepped through the ballroom doors. The family resemblance was varied, but undeniable. It reminded Bastian he hadn’t seen Xavier. Not since he’d heaved him off.
The onyx-haired male drawled, “You should have killed me when you had the chance, Archer.”
Archer snarled. “Next time I will.”
The beating of wings.
Getting closer.
“There will be plenty of time for family discussions later.” Gideon held out a hand to Bastian’s mate. “Sage.” An order–like she was no better than a summoned dog.
Bastian’s fire sizzled over his skin, preparing to strike, only waiting for the word. Sage didn’t budge from his side.
Closer…
Gideon didn’t lower his hand. “Now.”
A tremble went through her. Not visible, but Bastian felt it, as if his own body created it. She was terrified. Terrified what would happen if he got her alone .
Gideon stepped forward, arm still outstretched, face contorting with wrath. “Sage.” An unflinching command.
Bastian unleashed himself. Fire and water and earth and air–
His elements vanished, choked out by the dark power that coated this room.
Gideon laughed, a hateful, horrible sound. “Your new crown can do nothing against the dead, prince. As long as I hold the door to the fifth realm–”
Bastian threw himself over Sage just as the wall behind them exploded.
S age plummeted into her magic, fast and hard.
A ripple in the fabric of whatever spell was dampening their powers–dissipated. Retreating. She knew without looking…
Everyone else felt it, too .
Bastian got to his feet first, whirling to where Gideon had been standing. As hooves screeched across the marble, Sage uncoiled right beside him.
They had come .
Spade’s cadre. Alongside Wilkes and Lark and Kier.
Gideon didn’t seem to know where to look. The rebels atop their pegasuses, bronze body armor glinting in the morning light. Menacing warriors behind him unsheathed their weapons. The silver-haired commander. Zaire and Borgen bursting through the ballroom doors with Eirik LaGoryen, and a beautiful, svelte, curly-haired female.
Or to her mate. The biggest threat of them all.
Bastian raised the floor with a sweep of his palm, making stalagmites of the marble. They severed the chains binding his uncle’s neck. Another push of his hand and a lasso of water latched on to the ones around his wrists and sliced .
Teakin surged upward, summoning fire as scales replaced skin. The dragon .
Bastian’s hand wrapped around hers. A comforting gesture to anyone who witnessed it.
But where they touched, their powers twined, building–becoming one.
In a language all their own, down their bond, Bastian said, “Ready.”
Sage squeezed his hand, locking her fingers with his.
A ncient and raging, the force of Sage’s powers fused with his. Bastian held fast to it, funneling it, nurturing it–crafting the perfect storm.
As if he knew, Gideon hissed, “Fools.”
The darkness banded together behind him, the creatures morphing into one giant wall of death. An amassing wave poised to strike.
Sage smiled at Bastian. As one, they looked at the asshole.
Cobalt blue fire erupted. The soul of flame and storm combined.
And speared toward Gideon.
Teakin and Merick threw up a barrier of fire on the opposite side.
The silver-haired fae fanned them with a mighty gust of wind.
Gideon’s darkness lunged for them, a striking panther.
Only to be halted by a shield of water. Drowned by Eirik.
A falcon aimed for Gideon’s head, talons gouging into his scalp as it buzzed him. Chogan.
Gideon ducked when the bird dove again. Blood ran down his face from the first attack.
The darkness snapped at the falcon, but Chogan evaded their jaws.
Bastian and Sage struck again, bullets of hail and arrows of fire. Gideon conceded one step. Then another. He shouted over the din. “I alone control the darkness. It answers to me!”
Another slash of water cut down the center of that dark wall, cleaving it in half. Gideon whirled.
Energy that could only be described as chaos stirred the air. It whipped and beat the darkness, chewed at the edges, fragmenting and separating it further. Bastian caught Fenrir’s eyes dancing with mischief across the room. It was the only sign of who was the cause.
A wolf howled. Its call was met by another, then another as fae shifted into beasts.
An answering roar rent the ballroom and the ground shook. Everyone’s head turned to see an enormous grizzly standing on hide legs. At least twelve feet tall, its massive jaws were wide with fury. Zaire.
Gideon went deathly pale. Not at the bear.
But at what now towered over him; flames glowing like fireflies down a cave from their opened maws.
Dragons… The larger one black and gold. The other white . Even the darkness seemed to shrink away.
A primal yearning ignited and raced like wildfire through Bastian’s blood, so strong he shook his head to clear it. Not yet. He would finish this with his mate. Together . No matter what they faced afterward.
Arrows were nocked in bows behind them. Rebels on pegasus back made ready to fire on command. Eyes wide, Gideon spun in a circle. He locked on the only one who might be of assistance. The one he had addressed as Dagan.
“Brother,” Gideon said, panting.
The onyx-haired fae stepped forward, dark eyes fixed on Gideon even as he addressed the room. “A quandary, it appears.”
Gideon lowered his brows. “The only quandary is who will die first when the darkness swamps this room.” His eyes darted to Bastian. “If you kill me, it won’t matter. The darkness has been set free across this realm. It is everywhere. There is no caging it. ”
“About that.” When Eirik spoke, all heads turned to him. “You are mistaken.”
“What do you know?” Gideon seethed. “You’re nothing. The elements chose him.” His steely eyes snapped back to Bastian.
Bastian held his hateful gaze. “You’re right. The elements chose me.” A flicker of cold triumph flashed across Gideon’s face. “Because someone else had already claimed the more worthy twin.”
Gideon’s smugness crumbled like old stone. Bastian said, “A god to be exact. Janus . The god of time, beginnings, endings, transitions.” He paused. “ Doorways… ”
Gideon went still as death. “It’s not possible. There would need to be–”
“More than one. Yes.” Eirik stepped forward, one hand in his pocket, the other casually lifting. “Three, to be exact.” He unfurled and curled his fingers, flexing them. “Lucky for us, all three scions were already in your lovely realm.”
“How?” Gideon demanded. “I would have known. The darkness would have alerted me.”
Bastian felt his mate’s burning questions lining up, one after the other, down their bond. He stroked his thumb over her hand and spoke just to her. “So much to catch you up on later.”
Eirik took another step forward. “Seems the darkness likes its secrets.” A slow smile. “But I’ve learned a few of them.”
Bastian’s brother snapped his fingers. Like a light turning on, the darkness threw itself back against the shadows of the room. Seeking refuge.
Eirik snapped them a second time.
And there…
In the center of the ballroom–stitched into the clever knotting that separated other worlds from theirs–a seam popped open. A tiny split. As if a loose thread had been pulled by a phantom hand.
Slowly it unraveled. An undulating ocean of stars spun in the middle of the room.
Everyone stared. None more so than Gideon. He was so transfixed he didn’t seem to notice the darkness slithering toward the doors and windows and vents.
But Eirik did. With a third snap of his fingers, the gentle swirling of stars within the portal became a maelstrom.
Not a hint of a breeze stirred in the ballroom. But the darkness began shrieking. Then it clawed at the floors and walls, as if trying to hang on against a sudden squall. Its efforts were as useful as a barn in the path of a cyclone.
A sudden flash–it was sucked inside. No more than pigments of ink on a wild and wicked wind.
Gideon spun back toward Bastian and Sage. “You must understand,” he implored Sage. “I did it for us.” He took a step in her direction. “So that you and I could take back what was rightfully ours.”
“ Ours? ” Sage’s voice was soft, but honed sharper than any blade Bastian had ever encountered.
“You were only a child. You had no experience in ruling a kingdom. But with me by your side–”
“You by my side.” Bastian’s mate let go of his hand. She took a step toward Gideon. “Are we back to lying, cousin?”
Gideon’s eyes flared. “You had no interest in sitting the throne. I would take care of that for you. So you could”–he waved an arm toward the rebels on pegasusback behind her– “continue your philanthropy.”
To their credit, none of Sage’s inner circle twitched a muscle. A testament to how they viewed their queen. From the Pure Magic wielders to the Warborn. The respect and trust they had in her was a thing of beauty.
Gideon, the delusional idiot, was the only one in this room who apparently didn’t see it.
Sage took another step in his direction, the churning vortex of space behind him still an open mouth. “You don’t get it, do you?” She puzzled, pity now lacing her words. “You never have.”
Her cousin scoffed, eyes darting to and fro. “Get what, exactly? ”
Dagan moved closer to his brother, in apparent solidarity. The move clearly gave Gideon hope. Enough that he stupidly added, “That you don’t have what it takes?”
A dormant breeze cracked open an eye, little tendrils of wind sneaking out from the portal–testing. It tossed Gideon’s white hair.
His brother snickered. “Can you imagine a female on the throne of Arrowren?” His cool gaze raked over Sage. “Would she even last a day?”
Sage didn’t deign to respond, her gaze wholly fixed on Gideon. “Lasting Kingdoms are not built on the foundations of vengeance and manipulation,” she said. “They are cultivated through perseverance and compassion.”
Gideon looked mockingly at her. “Is that what you think you did? With your little pet project. With my money? You really believe it made those less fortunate beholden to you?” He laughed. “You were a child playing house.”
Wilkes’s voice cut through the silence following Gideon’s hate-filled words. “She is the reason we are alive.”
“ I am the reason you live!” Gideon spat. “Who do you think gave her the bread to feed you when Arrowren first crumbled?”
“You gave her food and shelter in exchange for twisted bargains,” the redheaded rider beside him snarled.
“His words don’t matter,” Sage said, before Gideon could respond. “He’s done here. His nefarious actions have been exposed. His agenda failed.” She advanced another step toward her cousin. “All that’s left is for him to leave.”
Bastian reined in the blinding instinct to move with her. Just in case she needed him. She didn’t. All it would take, though, would be for Gideon to get a hold of her…
A soothing wind stroked down their bond. Letting him know she had this .
“And where would you like me to go, cousin?” Gideon clicked his tongue. “Earth?”
Eirik snorted. Bastian’s brother had inched closer .
Gideon ignored him. “Perhaps Gerra? Tell me, and Dagan and I will leave. You need never see our faces again.”
Crackling energy gathered around Bastian’s mate, snapping and hissing through the strands of her hair like snakes coiling to strike.
Before they could, Dagan stepped up beside his brother.
So fast Gideon started.
Too fast.
Too fast for a fae…
Despite the flash of apprehension in Gideon’s eyes, he said, “Do you have a preference, Dagan?”
“I do.” The warrior smiled sidelong at him, and his eyes shifted from onyx to gold. “But I’m not Dagan.”
G ideon’s magic swelled, but the needle was already protruding from his neck.
Katarra shifted back into her own body, emptied the syringe into the vein and tisked. “Typical alphahole. Thinking you always know best.”
He gaped, hand going to his throat. As if he didn’t really believe it; needed to feel the puncture wound. Even as the wind he summoned vanished like mist in the sun. “Y…you…” he stammered.
“Surprise!” She tossed the syringe into the spinning portal.
Silence fell, like the world in the aftermath of a thunderclap.
She felt him then. Directly behind her. His power, his will, every bit of air he filled with his breath. Katarra felt all of it.
“Let me get this straight.” Archer leaned over her shoulder, a smile in his voice, his scent wrapping around her senses. “A portal opens to an unknown realm. And your first instinct is to litter in it?”
Katarra didn’t dare take her eyes off the piece of shit in front of her. “Technically, my first instinct was to toss him in it.” She glanced to the Queen of Arrowren. “But I figured she might want the honor.”
Archer put his hand under her elbow and stepped back. Katarra surprised herself when she conceded to his gentle encouragement and moved with him.
The queen stared at Gideon, her mate standing behind her like an avenging angel.
Gideon twitched and his eyes grew hazy, jerking right and left in their sockets. “What did you do?” He gasped. Likely his last words.
“Only what you did to Archer’s mother,” Katarra supplied.
The fuckwit attempted to look at her, but his body wouldn’t obey. Merick, back in human form and wearing someone’s cloak, stepped up on his other side. She was aglow, iridescent white scales still shimmering, barely visible, just under the surface of her exposed skin.
Gideon strained to look at the angelic beauty, his body and eyes at odds with one another. She said, “The potion won’t kill him, but it’s infecting him with the soul of a demon as we speak. It’s how he was able to spread the darkness so quickly,” Merick explained. “Once his victims were injected, Gideon could control their actions like a puppeteer.”
“I figured he could use a little taste of what he had concocted.” Katarra inspected her nails. But she didn’t miss the astonished look Bastian gave her. Or the one she felt directly behind her, as Archer’s strong hands stroked down her arms–gratitude, and something else. She added, “What you do with him now is up to you.”
The queen glanced from Katarra to Merick to Eirik. “The three of you…are scions?”
“It was a shock to us as well, trust me.” Eirik shook his head. “Merick deserves full credit for figuring it out. But once she explained it, Katarra and I were on board to help.”
Again, Bastian’s unflinching gaze swept over Katarra. She jerked her chin at Gideon. To move the conversation along, she said, “I figure you have about three minutes until this portal closes. If you kill him now, the fifth realm will recognize his soul only as that of whatever demon is currently possessing him. There is no telling how long he will remain there. If you wait and kill him after the portal is closed, the fifth realm will judge him for who he actually is.”
“Archer’s mother?” the queen queried. “And the others he infected.” She looked from Eirik to Merick to Katarra. “What will become of them now?”
Archer tensed.
“The portal is taking back all the souls that escaped the fifth realm,” Merick said. She smiled softly at Archer. “Your mother may be confused, but she will be fine when she wakes up.”
Katarra felt his chest expand. He exhaled. A shuddering relief.
Then he spoke in a voice so low it did something alarming–chipped at some integral part of Katarra she didn’t want chipped. “What about those that died while possessed?”
His sister.
Merick’s expression grew achingly tender. “I’m afraid they would have entered the fifth realm as the soul that possessed them.”
“Trapped…” he breathed. “For no telling how long.”
Katarra whipped her gaze to the near-drooling Gideon, ready to shove him in the portal. After she reached down his throat and dragged the demon out of his body so he’d be good and aware, and then she’d go about shredding the skin off his pathetic bones.
“It’s okay.” Archer squeezed her arms gently again, as if he could sense her contemplations, and whispered in her ear, “But thank you.”
The portal quivered as the wind inside died back. Bastian asked his mate, “What is your ruling?”
The queen stared at the incognizant male who had wanted to seize her crown for himself. The family member that had wanted to make her his slave.
But it wasn’t hatred or revenge in her eyes.
…It was sadness.
The rift in the center of the ballroom began to close. Sealing itself shut. The fifth realm was almost done taking back what had been stolen from it .
The queen didn’t take her eyes off her cousin. Didn’t utter a word as the portal grew smaller and smaller. Didn’t make a sound as the last flicker of stars winked out and the opening became the size of a coin–suspended like an accidental drop of black paint on an otherwise detailed painting.
Then it was gone. As if it had never existed at all.
Still, the queen waited.
Waited until the clouds in Gideon’s eyes cleared. Waited while his fingers flexed at his sides and he blinked with confusion, then wrath. She waited until it was her cousin who stared back at her.
Only then did she swing a sword of wind and rain and severe his head from his body.