Chapter 41
Talon
I shifted away from Ember, angling my body to see past her, pissed that she wouldn’t leave me alone. I’d been trying to extricate myself for too long already, and she stood directly in front of me, blocking my view of the dance floor.
I stepped left. She mirrored the movement, her yellow mating marks glowing faintly as she leaned closer. Her fingers trailed up my arm, and her too-sweet perfume swirled around me in a suffocating cloud, choking me.
My shadow heaved with irritation, also pissed that Ember was getting in the way.
If this woman didn’t move soon, I was going to cause a scene.
I scanned past her, trying to find that flash of gold silk that told me where Sage was. After our dance, I’d watched her get passed from one suitor to the next, the Lord Treasurer first, then Pine, then a string of others whose names I hadn’t bothered to learn.
I’d lost track of her somewhere in the endless parade of partners, my attention pulled away by Ember’s relentless pursuit. Now the press of bodies and the roar of music conspired to hide Sage from view.
Ember touched my arm again. “You’re not even listening to me.”
I shifted slightly to the left. She shifted with me.
“I heard you.”
Goddess, this woman!
I’d rejected her years ago, firmly and without ambiguity. The fact that she continued to pursue me despite that rejection, despite the utter lack of reciprocation, moved past flattering into insulting territory.
“Perhaps we could take a walk in the garden.” Her voice dropped to something she probably thought was sultry. “The night-blooming flowers are lovely. And private.”
My shadow heaved, sending cold fury spiking through my chest.
“Find a partner who actually wants your company.” The words came out sharp, exactly as I intended — not that I expected her to take them to heart because it seemed she never did — but I didn’t have time for this shit. I needed to confirm where Sage was, and nothing else mattered.
Ember’s face flushed and her spine went rigid. She opened her mouth, and for a moment I thought she was going to argue with me, then she turned on her heel and stomped away.
Here was hoping it stuck this time.
But I doubted it. Ember was nothing if not persistent, and she was determined that I’d be her mate.
I swept my gaze over the dance floor, determined to find Sage.
Nothing. Nowhere. Every glimpse of gold or red belonged to someone else.
The shadow within me lurched and my pulse picked up.
There were too many bodies, too much movement. The swirl of silk and jewels blurred together as I looked from face to face, searching for red hair, for gold fabric, for anything. The music that had been pleasant was now discordant and jarring.
Where were the exits? Who had been near Sage last?
Around me, the crowd remained oblivious. Laughter rang out near the refreshment table, courtiers chatted and flirted, and dancers kept spinning and stepping across the floor as if nothing was wrong.
My gaze found Rider across the room. Fur covered the back of his hands and forearms, and his fingers were curled as if his claws were about to extend.
A few feet away Quill slowly edged around the dance floor, his head turning this way and that as if looking for Sage as well, confirming what I already suspected.
Something was wrong.
Someone yelped, jerking my attention back to the dance floor. A couple had crashed into another couple, knocked aside by West’s bulk as he cut a straight line through the dancers toward the garden doors.
He drove through the dancers like a battering ram, scattering couples in his wake, not caring about who he interrupted or bumped into. A woman shrieked as she stumbled out of his path, but he didn’t acknowledge her or anyone. His attention stayed locked on the back of the ballroom.
Except I couldn’t see Sage there, only—
Fuck.
My attention zeroed in on the garden door to the smaller, more intimate night-blooming garden.
Sage had to be outside.
And from West’s determined stride and his darker than normal glower focused straight ahead, she had to be in trouble.
I hurried to follow after him, but I was coming from a different angle and had to twist and turn my way around the groups of people who’d stopped to stare at the massive knight since I wasn’t nearly as bulky as him and couldn’t just shoulder everyone aside.
Rider was already in motion, cutting across the dance floor with predatory determination along West’s path while Quill cut around the edge of the dance floor from the other direction.
From the corner of my eye, I saw the High Priestess, in all her brilliant shining glory sit forward. Was she smiling? I didn’t have time to figure that out, but Goddess help us all if she was.
West barreled through the garden door onto the patio. Rider was close behind him with Quill on his heels and me a few steps farther back — because these damned courtiers didn’t know when to get the fuck out of the way.
They were halfway down the stairs into the garden when half a dozen armed men stepped out from the garden’s shadows.
Shit.
I leaped forward, clearing the doorway and manifesting a sword in my hand.
West didn’t stop. He barreled through the men in front of him, blocking a sword strike to his head by drawing one of his two swords in a fast, fluid motion and letting another slam against his armored ribs.
He grunted from the impact but didn’t slow down, storming down the path, leaving us behind, while the men still standing closed ranks, blocking Rider and Quill’s way.
Behind me, more men stepped out of the ballroom, closing the door behind them — as if that would hide their actions from those in the ballroom despite the glass door and massive windows.
They, too, manifested weapons, and I turned to face them, inching closer to Quill and Rider so our backs were protected.
My shadow heaved under my skin, desperate to break free and attack.
“Ten of them,” Rider growled.
“They must have forgotten what we fight on a daily basis.” I slid my gaze over them, sizing them up. Some looked dangerous, some nervous, none of them I recognized. “Ten men is nothing compared to a pack of hounds.”
“You’re just the Captain of the Gold Tower. When was the last time you even swung your sword?” a muscular, dangerous looking one said with a sneer.
“Come here and find out.” I flashed a wicked smile and let my shadow lash out from my skin.
Right now, everyone looking at me would just think I was manipulating the shadows around me, fully in control of my magic.
And thank the Goddess for that, because I had no idea how I was going to hold my shadow back and fight these assholes at the same time.
One of the attackers, a man with a shaved head — an unusual style for a fae — raised his hand and shot a bolt of fire at Rider.
Rider dodged, rolling to the side, and the fire bolt slammed into a flowering trellis, with a flurry of sparks and the scent of burning wood.
Beside him, Quill blocked a swing from another attacker’s sword, their blades crashing against each other. A second man thrust his hands forward, and a wall of air slammed into Quill’s back, making him stumbled into a stone planter.
Crap, in a matter of seconds they’d broken our formation apart.
Through the windows and the closed glass door, I could see chaos in the ballroom, courtiers shoving past each other going in all directions, others moving to press against the glass to watch, while a few more stood stunned, staring at the sudden violence.
Two of the attackers came at me at once, both wielding swords. I blocked the first man’s attack, dodged the second man’s, and countered with a jab at the first man’s gut.
He twisted out of the way, avoiding the strike, but stumbled in front of his friend, ruining his next attack.
My shadow clawed at my insides, its rage and fear for Sage burning cold and feeding my own fury.
Its black whips swept over my arm and curled down my blade, and I yanked at the shadows around me from the plants, the planters, and our assailants to hide the fact that the shadow on my sword didn’t come from anywhere.
Snarling, I swept my shadows around my first assailant, yanking him back, while parrying a strike from the second assailant with a different shadow before sliding my blade through the man’s throat.
With a spray of blood and a gasping gurgle, the second assailant dropped dead then vanished, his dead spirit returning to his very soon-to-be dead body.
I spun to face my first assailant, everything in me screaming to hurry up, kill him, and get to Sage.
West might have gone on ahead, and he might be an extraordinary swordsman, but there was no way of knowing how many more men Crane had hired to stop us or what their magic might be.
Someone screamed on the other side of the garden, and one of the assailants collapsed to the ground with a real dagger, not a manifested one, protruding from his eye.
The man beside him, a skinny man with wide orange eyes, jerked away as Ash leaped from the bushes, the dagger in his left hand lengthening into a sword as he moved.
He swung at Orange Eyes, who flung his hands up in front of him with a yelp. Vines exploded from the ground between him and Ash, wrapping around Ash before he could finish swinging his sword.
Fucking hell. That looked like a vine weaving ability, a powerful magic that was useless in everyday life, but devastating in a fight.
That man could immobilize all of us — if he wasn’t in the middle of panicking — and it’d be a struggle to break free…
at least that would be the case if we weren’t spirits manifested in the Garden.
Still, he could seriously slow us down and trip us up.
I raced toward Orange Eyes, but another man jumped toward me, swinging his longsword, while yet another shot ice bolts at me.
Crap. I didn’t have time for this.
I blocked the sword strike and swept up a shadow to block the ice. The shadow trapped inside me heaved, and my vision darkened, just like it had when it had taken over and attacked Sawyer.
Fuck fuck fuck.
I tried to will it to understand that it wasn’t helping, but it didn’t understand. It needed to protect Sage, the desire so overwhelming it nearly brought me to my knees.
I know, I mentally hissed at it. Let me save her.
Ash disappeared from the vines in a swirl of black smoke and a clatter of real, non-manifested weapons that he’d been forced to leave behind, but — because of the telling black smoke — he wouldn’t be able to manifest right beside anyone without the risk of being stabbed.
A few feet away, Rider lunged at Shaved Head, dodging another blast of fire, while Quill blocked and countered sword strikes with two other men.
Ash manifested on the opposite side of the battle from where he’d been and started to race toward Orange Eyes.
“We’ve got this,” Rider yelled at Ash. “Get Sage.”
Ash didn’t even hesitate. Black smoke swirled around him, and he vanished mid step, reappearing on the path where West had gone. One of the men closest to him turned to chase after him, but I whipped a rope of shadow around his ankle, tripping him.
He fell with a thud, and I yanked him toward Rider, away from Ash so he could get away, while whoever it was who possessed the wind magic shoved me into the oncoming jab from the swordsman in front of me.
I twisted away from the blade, but it still caught my shoulder, pain flaring hot and sharp.
This was taking too fucking long. West had disappeared down the path, Rider and Quill were still caught up with at least two men each, and I had no idea how many more men Crane had hired or what they were doing to Sage right now.
My shadow heaved inside me, clawing at my control. She could be hurt. Bleeding. Dying. And I was stuck out here fighting these assholes when every second mattered.