Chapter Twenty-Two
RAZE
Midnight
The clubhouse breathes differently at night.
Not silent.
Never silent.
Just… quieter.
The kind of stillness that settles after a storm when warriors finally allow themselves to exist without watching every shadow for teeth.
Roxy sits sideways across my lap on the battered leather couch tucked into the alcove off the main club room, far enough from the noise that the world feels smaller here.
One of my hands rests at her waist, thumb tracing slow circles through the thin fabric of her shirt while the other threads idly through her hair, combing through strands that still smell faintly of soap and smoke.
Fire hums low beneath my ribs, restless but calmer than it’s been in weeks.
She leans back into me without hesitation, trusting the space I create around her, trusting me. The weight of that never stops feeling unreal.
“I keep waiting to wake up and forget again,” she murmurs, voice rough from sleep and everything we burned through hours earlier.
“You won’t,” I say, more promise than certainty. My fingers curl gently at the nape of her neck. “Not this time. The witch took what she wanted already. What’s left is yours.”
She tilts her head back, eyes finding mine, and the faint smile she gives me is enough to ease something old and jagged inside my chest. “I’m glad I remembered,” she says. “Even the hard parts.”
A low sound leaves me, something almost like a laugh. “The hard parts are usually my fault.”
Her hand covers mine, where it rests against her stomach. “You didn’t make me choose you,” she says quietly.
No.
She chose anyway.
The memory of her beneath me only hours ago flickers sharp and vivid, heat ghosting through my blood despite the quiet around us. The way she said my name like it mattered. The way my dragon stilled for the first time since she returned.
“I should’ve told you sooner,” she adds. “About my mother. About everything.”
“You’re here now,” I murmur, pressing a slow kiss against her temple, letting myself exist in this fragile moment without thinking about curses, courts, or consequences. “That’s enough.”
For a while, we sit here, her breath slow, and my hand moving through her hair in a rhythm that feels older than memory.
The mountain outside hums low, alive and watchful.
Then a piercing, harrowing scream tears through the clubhouse. Thorn yells, a sound like trees being ripped from the earth by their roots, and the forest itself begins to die.
I hoist Roxy off my lap, and I’m out of my chair before the sound fully registers, fire and ice detonating across my skin in equal measure as we sprint for the main club room.
Scar materializes beside me in a blur of supernatural speed, fangs already descended, red eyes blazing with the kind of fury that comes from seeing family threatened.
Behind us, boots thunder against stone as the rest of the brothers converge, weapons appearing in hands with the practiced ease of men who sleep armed and awake, ready for war.
Thorn collapses against the doorframe, bark-like skin splitting open in deep fissures that weep sap instead of blood.
His eyes, usually the deep brown of rich earth, have gone white with agony.
Thorns erupt from his shoulders and spine in violent bursts, growing wild and uncontrolled as his connection to the forest fractures.
“They’re killing the trees…” He gasps, each word scraped raw from a throat never meant for human speech. “Burning them. Poisoning the roots. The forest is screaming, Prez. It won’t stop screaming!”
“How many?” I demand, already knowing the answer will be bad.
Thorn’s body shudders, more thorns sprouting as the forest’s death throes translate through his flesh. “All of them. The entire Seelie Court is forcing its way here. Led by the prince himself.”
The words hang in the air for one crystalline moment.
Then the windows explode inward in a shower of glass and fae magic.
The first wave hits like a tsunami of violence and impossible beauty.
Fae warriors pour through every opening, their ethereal features twisted with battle lust, armor that seems woven from moonlight and malice, gleaming as they flow into the clubhouse with predatory grace.
They move like water, like silk, like nothing human or earthbound, and their magic carries the scent of pale lilies and the clean, metallic sweetness of old enchantment, beautiful enough to be trusted, wrong enough to raise every instinct I possess.
Not all of them rush blindly.
A seelie knight raises a hand, and the air fractures into geometric sigils, silver lines slicing through space like drawn blades.
Magic slams into the floor and erupts upward in spears of crystallized light, forcing Maul and Coil to break formation as stone explodes beneath them.
Another fae moves like a shadow cast backward, dragging a ribbon of twilight behind him that devours Thorn’s vines wherever it touches, turning living wood brittle and gray.
Scar doesn’t wait for orders. The vampire launches himself at the nearest cluster of fae with a snarl that belongs to something far older than civilization.
His speed renders him nearly invisible, a blur of violence that leaves shredded bodies in his wake.
Blood sprays in arterial arcs across ancient stone as he rips through fae flesh with claws and fangs, his centuries of existence distilled into pure, lethal efficiency.
A fae warrior tries to hit him with a blast of silver light. Scar simply isn’t there anymore, displaced to a new position before the magic can connect, already tearing into another target with vicious precision.
“Not fast enough,” he taunts, voice carrying over the chaos with dark amusement. “You’re gonna have to do better than that.”
A fae captain pivots mid-air, cloak unfurling into wings of living glamour.
He lets Scar close the distance, then detonates mirrored illusions that fracture the vampire’s trajectory.
Silver chains of light snap tight around Scar’s arm, burning where they touch.
Scar hisses, ripping free with brute strength before launching forward again, fury sharpened by the sting.
Wreck materializes in the center of a cluster of fae, his gaunt frame wreathed in shadows that seem to devour light.
The wendigo doesn’t fight with weapons or claws…
he feeds. The fae warriors’ expressions shift from battle rage to dawning horror as Wreck inhales deeply, his hollow chest expanding impossibly wide, and their fear rips free of their bodies in visible tendrils of psychic energy.
They scream.
All of them scream.
But one steps forward, eyes glowing with ancient runes, voice rising in a song older than memory. The melody wraps around the others like armor, slowing the drain, forcing Wreck to push harder. Shadows tear violently around him as he crushes through the resistance and devours their terror anyway.
When he exhales, frost patterns race across the floor in spiraling fractals, and the temperature drops twenty degrees in as many seconds.
“More,” Wreck whispers, hunger saturating every syllable. “Give. Me. More!”
Coil strikes from the shadows, his basilisk form already fully manifested, scales gleaming bronze and black in the flickering light.
A fae warrior turns just in time to see massive jaws unhinge, revealing fangs that drip with venom caustic enough to melt through enchanted armor like tissue paper.
The fae tries to raise a defensive shield, magic crackling to life around him in layers of protective energy.
The shield fractures, but not before a blade of condensed starlight lashes across Coil’s flank. Sparks sizzle where enchanted metal meets scale. Coil recoils with a hiss, eyes flaring brighter as rage sharpens his focus.
It doesn’t matter.
His venom eats through the shields in seconds, dissolving magic and flesh with equal efficiency.
The fae’s scream cuts off abruptly when his throat melts, skin sloughing away to reveal bone that immediately begins to corrode.
Within heartbeats, there’s nothing left but a puddle of steaming organic matter that smells like burning flowers.
Coil’s hypnotic eyes find another target, gold irises spinning in patterns that trap unwary gazes and hold them prisoner while venom does its brutal work.
Maul’s transformation completes in a spray of shredded clothing and primal fury.
The werewolf that emerges stands eight feet tall, all corded muscle and dark fur, with claws like curved daggers and a maw filled with teeth designed to tear meat from bone.
He hits the fae line like a battering ram made of rage and hunger, scattering warriors in every direction as he rips through their formation with savage efficiency.
Two fae weave a binding spell together, threads of pale light wrapping around Maul’s legs like living wire.
For a heartbeat, he stumbles, muscles locking as magic tries to drag him down.
He roars, tearing free, but the delay gives another warrior time to drive a spear into his shoulder, enchanted metal flaring white before snapping under his grip.
A fae blade catches him across the ribs, opening a wound that would drop a human instantly, but Maul doesn’t slow. He grabs the warrior responsible by the head with one massive paw and squeezes. The sound of the skull collapsing is wet and final.
“That all you got?” Maul roars, voice distorted by his werewolf throat. “Come on? Make it interesting!”
Ruckus stands in the center of chaos, grinning like he’s watching his favorite show, gold glinting at his throat and fingers, and probability bends itself into new configurations around him.
Fae warriors slip on suddenly treacherous footing.
Their weapons jam at critical moments. Magical attacks veer off course, hitting their own allies instead of intended targets.