Chapter 39
Escorted by six of my best soldiers, Sparrow and Seth included, we made our way toward the saloon. I refused to let go of Gwendolyn’s hand, her fingers trembling slightly in mine, while Damien held onto her other side, his grip steadier than mine but with no less concern.
She begged Malakai to not come with us, but just like Damien and I, we were all desperate to protect her.
So, he was reluctantly pushed behind us as we didn’t know what Leanan had planned.
Furthermore, angels, for all their grace and might, were still far too naive for their own damn good and we couldn’t afford any more risk.
We had expected something different as we all strolled into the room. A trap maybe. An ambush. But certainly not her, standing alone in the center of the room like the final act of a tragedy.
Leanan.
Dressed in a black gown, resembling the color of her soul, if she even had one. Cold, endless, and brutal. I never knew how much I hated her until she came back.
For Lydia and me, she was everything a mother wasn’t. She never hugged us, never kissed us, never gave us her warmth. Instead of being a mother, she only aimed for power and despair and used her beauty and darkness to destroy.
She had raped Malakai for nearly fifteen years. Kept him hidden from Gwendolyn and almost destroyed the life of the woman I loved with every fractured piece of soul.
I had always known about Leanan’s powers, her connections to ancient wizards and forgotten spells. But I had never imagined she would take it this far. To use power not for creation, but for desecration. To bring my mate into the human realm through manipulation and the power of shadows.
It was almost like cruelty wasn’t enough for her, she wanted to destroy it.
Leanan was a monster in silk, and she had no idea that this time, she wouldn’t leave unscathed.
Her beauty was somehow of a morbid kind, almond green eyes, small nose like a bird and raven hair skin.
I understood that my dad was dumb enough to fool himself by her beauty, but I always hated that we shared the same eye color.
It was like a memory of someone I never wanted to see again.
When we were children, Sparrow was terrified of her.
He never admitted it aloud, but I could see it in the way his body tensed whenever she entered the room.
The way his eyes darted toward exits, his shoulders tightening as if bracing for something unseen.
Leanan carried an aura like frost: heavy, lingering, and cruel.
Almost ghoulish. At the time, I told myself it was because she wasn’t his mother.
Maybe it was just jealousy, I thought; the quiet resentment of a boy watching his father bring home someone that wasn’t his mother.
But now, standing across from Leanan in the cold light of today, I knew better.
Sparrow’s fear wasn’t born of bitterness or jealousy.
It was his siren blood making him follow only his inner instincts.
Sirens were sensitive to what others cannot see.
Not just the obvious emotions, but everything lurking beneath them.
Their souls were tuned to frequencies of darkness that most of us never perceive.
And somehow, even as a boy, Sparrow knew.
“Oh, Xavier. My son,” she purred, her voice dripping with saccharine warmth that rang so false it curdled in the air.
“How lovely to see you again. Has it been years? Decades?” She said it like we were lost friends; it was meant to mock me.
Her smile, the way her lips curved into an edge.
She was putting on a charade which she’d likely perfected over years of manipulation.
I didn’t even try to hide my disgust and repulsion. “Spare us the bullshit, Leanan,” I snapped, venom coating my words. “Just tell us what you want.”
I could have been more mindful, as I had no idea what she had planned by coming here, unarmed. However, I couldn’t accept her calling me her son like she did anything that was worthy enough to be considered a mother.
She gave a theatrical sigh and rolled her eyes, as though I were the one misbehaving. “Xavier, honestly. It’s a bit strange to call your mother by her name, don’t you think?” Then her eyes wandered over to Damien, looking at him like he was her new prey.
“Oh… is that Dandelion’s boy?” Her lips curled in twisted amusement. “The sea dragon we were all promised? I have to admit, I didn’t think anyone could rival Malakai’s beauty. But perhaps younger is indeed better.”
Disgust twisted in my stomach. Gwendolyn shouldn’t have to hear this filth. My grip on her hand tightened, grounding her, grounding me.
Anger surged through me like wildfire. I didn’t want to argue. I wanted to tear Leanan from this place. This was my realm. Carnivalland was mine. I built it for love, for magic, for peace. I wouldn’t let her stain it too.
“Watch your mouth, Leanan. Or my soldiers will drag you back through the tunnels where you belong, on your hands and knees.”
Her gaze flicked back to me, then over to Seth. With a slow, deliberate curl of her lips, she smiled. The audacity of it made my blood boil. She was mocking us.
“Oh, how sweet Lydia’s mate is also here to meet me. I must say… for filth from Marabour, you are indeed attractive.”
Seth didn’t reply to her disgusting comment, knowing she was filled with pure hate and venom, only wanting him to lose it. And Seth was a soldier, the commander for my father, he was probably listening to narcissistic bullshit every single day and seemed immune.
And suddenly her eyes finally landed on Gwendolyn, lingering with something far too curious… I nearly lost it.
I wanted to carve out those eyes from her skull.
“Gwendolyn…” as her evil lips spoke out my mate’s name, my entire body tensed. In this moment I wanted nothing more than to rip her fucking rotten heart out.
“I forbid you to speak to her, it’s the only approach you’ll get that I’m not plucking your damn fucking eyes out,” I stated.
I was aware my eyes were already red, and it showed her how little control I had left over my vampire side.
But seeing the pain of my love, her eyes already in tears, tears of fear and disgust. I wanted nothing more than to kill Leanan and layer Gwendolyn in kisses.
To bring her away from here and make her all mine again.
“Xavier, you sound so incredibly overstimulated. Is your little human sexually pleasing you enough?”
She really dug her own grave now. I was about to grab her by the shoulders until Gwendolyn reached out to me.
“Don’t Xavier, please.”
It was only a small plea, strong enough that I knew she was right. I wasn’t allowed to let her provocations get to me.
“I see she’s already influencing you,” she said. “Although… I had hoped she would marry that sweet human boy, Alexander.”
Alexander?
It didn’t surprise me that my mother had meddled in her human life as well. But the fact that she’d interfered in our bond twice... if the laws of Marabour ever caught up with her, she’d be sentenced to death.
“I’m okay.” Gwendolyn’s voice echoed through our bond, warm but trembling. I hated that she lied to me just to calm me down. She was always my strength. And I was desperate to be hers.
“Gwendolyn is fully bonded to all of us now,” Malakai said, stepping forward. “Whatever scheme you had failed. She’s ours and we are hers.”
Leanan’s eyes narrowed. Then, without warning, the room was swallowed by monstrous darkness. This must have been the trap…
I couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe. I tried using my shadows to pierce through the black void surrounding me, but nothing.
And then… out of nowhere, I heard a scream.
Gwendolyn’s scream. Every tone tearing a piece into my soul.
Where was she? What was going on?
“You think I came unprepared?” Leanan’s voice echoed through the dark. “I knew, eventually the time would come where the slut would bond with all of you.”
The shadows slowly receded. Gwendolyn was gone.
GONE. I lunged forward, grabbing my whore of a mother by the throat, and slamming her against the wall.
“Where is she? What have you done to her?!” I growled, barely able to breathe through my own fury. I should have killed her. Right then and there.
But she only laughed. “Do you really think you can hurt me, my son? Layrch, the demon guardian, was quite helpful. In exchange for two thousand souls, he revealed the location of your precious Veil. With that, I’ve heightened my power far beyond your childish shadows.”
Two thousand souls. Sacrificed. Innocent lives, damned to the Demon Court… for power.
My mother wasn’t just cruel. She was a monster.
“You made a deal with the Witchmaker?” I asked, horrified. The Witchmaker was only mentioned in some myths, but his power had been said to be the price of killing millions of people, only to grant himself one wish: power and destruction.
She laughed, cold and echoing. “Oh, please. I’ll be far more powerful than him once I destroy his only child.”
My blood froze.
His only child?
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Xavier,” she said, her voice softening with sweet venom, “you were never stupid. Think. The Witchmaker had a forbidden child with the Queen of the Faeries, one who inherited both their powers. I tried to protect you from her. But now she’s fully bonded…
and the curse won’t be able to hold her much longer. ”
“No,” I whispered. “That’s not possible.”
It was. Gwendolyn wasn’t just someone. She was the legacy of magic itself. One of the reasons why I couldn’t find out what she was when I met her decades ago. Why the goblin man said she smelled of ancient magic.
She was one of a kind.
“I don’t care who she is,” I growled, being so close to the verge of turning into the vampiristic monster which always lay underneath my skin. “If you don’t give her back to me, I’ll tear you apart!”
My body trembled, trapped in that unnatural darkness, helpless and blind. I reached for her through the bond, but there was only static. Only emptiness.
Then, a sharp sting seared across my leg.
Damien.
He was using his emotional powers to open a mental bridge between us, using pain as the key. I understood. He needed to merge our strength. Together, we might be able to reach her.
“Gwendolyn,” I whispered across the emptiness, “wherever you are... hold on.”
“I’d give you my body, my soul, my life, anything,” Malakai said suddenly, his voice shattered. He was on the edge of willingly breaking down in front of Leanan. “If it means she lives… take me.”
“No!” Damien screamed at him. “Gwendolyn would never forgive you for that.”
“Oh, poor Malakai,” Leanan purred. “I did enjoy your body. But Gwendolyn’s corpse,” she grinned like the evil, soulless being she was. “…that will be so much more valuable to me.”
Rage detonated inside my body. The anger caused me to burn up. She dared to speak of my mate like that? Of Gwendolyn? Of what was mine. My skin burned. My breath hitched. Heat surged through my arms and fingers. I screamed, barely containing the force building inside me. What was going on with me?
Orange light burst from my hands. Flames. I wasn’t in my body anymore. I was something more. My back arched, tingling, and then…
I felt her. Her pain, her fear, and her fury. She was with me, around me… in me.
And then she appeared.
Bathed in firelight, standing tall and terrible. Behind her rose a phoenix, glowing with golden-copper flames, feathers shimmering like sunlit embers.
Golden-copper wings unfurled from her back. They were delicate, beautiful, blazing, and powerful. Her hair gleamed almost golden, just like her pretty brown eyes.
She wasn’t just our mate.
She was the Princess of Lasrach.
Merlin’s heir.
The nightmare bringer.