Chapter 21 #2
But I couldn’t leave. I hadn’t finished the job I was supposed to do. I couldn’t abandon my mates to the fae hounds and whatever else was hiding in these trees. Couldn’t let my brothers be torn apart while I chased visions of power and glory.
I ripped myself out of the clutches of the magic.
It hurt. Gods, it hurt. Like tearing my own soul in half, like pulling my hand out of a fire after it had already started to burn.
The power fought me, clinging to my mind, trying to drag me back under.
But I held onto Damon like a lifeline, used him as an anchor, and forced myself back into my own body.
When I could finally see with my own eyes again, I realized I was in Damon’s arms.
He was holding me against his chest, his arms wrapped around me like he was trying to physically prevent me from disappearing. His face was pale, his eyes wide with fear, but there was relief there too. Relief that I was back. That I was myself again.
“There you are,” he whispered, and the tenderness in his voice made something crack open inside my chest.
I reached up and brushed my fingers through his hair. It was soft under my touch, dark as midnight, and I found myself wondering what it would feel like to run my hands through it properly. To take my time. To explore every part of him the way I’d explored the others.
Damon dipped his head, and his lips brushed against mine.
It was barely a kiss. Just a whisper of contact, a promise of things to come.
But it sent electricity arcing through my entire body, made my heart stutter and my breath catch and my magic surge in response.
His shadowy magic twined with my fire, darkness dancing with my light, and for one perfect moment, everything else fell away.
Then he pulled back, a smirk tugging at the side of his lips.
“Not exactly the right time, is it?”
I laughed, the sound surprising me. “I suppose not.”
“Later, then.”
“Later,” I agreed, never wanting to leave his arms. Because this was the first time I’d seen the true Damon.
The first time he’d held me. The first time he’d looked at me and truly seen who I was.
Not a queen, not a savior, not a collection of powers and prophecies. Just Alyssa. The woman who loved him.
But we didn’t have the luxury of later. Not yet.
He released me reluctantly, his hands trailing across my arms like he couldn’t bear to stop touching me. I drew my sword from its sheath, the blade singing as it cleared the leather, and pressed it into his hands.
He looked at the weapon in surprise. Then looked at me.
“You’re trusting me with this?”
“I’m trusting you with everything,” I said simply. “I always have.”
There was a risk in arming him. I knew that. The nightmare was still in there, caged but not destroyed. If it chose this moment to surface, if it managed to wrest control from Damon’s iron will, that sword could end up buried in my back.
But I didn’t believe it would. Damon was fully in control right now, more himself than he’d been since before the nightmare took him. And besides, even the nightmare wouldn’t want the fae hounds to tear Damon apart. Self-preservation, if nothing else, would keep it quiet.
I took a step back as Damon tested the weight of the blade, his movements sure and practiced. The soldier emerging from beneath the prisoner’s chains despite the unfamiliar weapon.
It didn’t matter anyway. I didn’t need help in teaching these fae hounds a lesson.
Whatever creature controlled this fog had dared to separate me from my mates. Had dared to scatter my pack across the forest, to isolate us, to try and pick us off one by one like prey. And I was not going to stand for it.
I was done holding back.
The smell of magic gathered in the air, thick and electric, like the moment before a storm breaks.
I could feel the fae hounds out there in the fog, feel their confusion as they sensed what was building inside me.
They could sense that something had changed.
Knew that they were no longer the predators in this encounter.
The first snarls reached us through the mist. Low, rumbling sounds that were meant to intimidate. Meant to remind us that we were outnumbered, outmatched, doomed. Saliva dripping from too many teeth. Eyes glowing in the darkness. Muscles bunching as they prepared to spring.
I smiled.
And then I reached for the trees.
There was a great cracking sound that echoed through the forest like thunder. The earth shuddered as roots tore free from soil that had held them for centuries. And then the trees rose.
Not all of them. Not the ancient ones, the ones that had stood since before the courts were formed.
But the younger ones, the ones whose roots hadn’t sunk too deep, the ones that were still flexible enough to answer my call.
They ripped free from the ground and lifted into the air, hovering around me like an army awaiting orders.
The first fae hounds stepped out of the fog.
They were massive. Larger than any wolf I’d ever seen, their bodies rippling with muscle beneath fur that seemed to absorb the light. Their eyes burned with intelligence and hunger and something that might have been anticipation. They hunched low, creeping forward, ready to attack.
I raised my hands.
The trees exploded.
Wood shattered into a thousand pieces, each piece sharpening itself into a spear as my magic wrapped around it. The storm of projectiles hung in the air for a single heartbeat, a constellation of death waiting to fall. And then they flew.
Fae hounds screamed as wooden spears impaled them from every direction.
The ones that dodged found themselves facing a second wave, and a third, as I called more trees into the air and tore them apart.
The air filled with the sound of splitting wood and dying howls and the wet thud of bodies hitting the forest floor.
But more kept coming. More emerged from the fog, leaping over the bodies of their fallen packmates, undeterred by the carnage. They were fearless. Relentless. Driven by whatever dark will had set them on this hunt.
I reached deeper.
Vines burst from the ground, thick as my arm and covered in thorns the size of daggers.
They wrapped around the legs of a fae hound that had been mid-leap, yanking it out of the air and slamming it back into the earth with bone-crushing force.
More vines followed, creating a writhing carpet of green that trapped anything that tried to get close.
The ground itself rose up at my command, forming walls of earth and stone that blocked attacks and crushed enemies.
Water from somewhere deep underground surged to the surface, forming jets that sliced through fur and flesh like blades.
Fire bloomed in my palms, eager to be let loose, and I let it dance across my fingers as I surveyed the chaos I’d created.
Behind me, I felt Damon move. He went back to back with me, the sword held ready, his stance perfect despite the weeks of captivity. A fae hound broke through my defenses, lunging for his throat, and he met it with a slash that opened it from chest to hip.
“You’re so fucking beautiful when you’re full of wrath,” he laughed, and there was joy in his voice. Real joy, uncomplicated by pain or fear or the shadow of the nightmare. This was what he’d been born for. This was what we’d been born for.
This was our bond. Wrath and destruction, chaos and power, two halves of the same devastating whole.
The fae hounds kept coming, and we kept killing them. My magic wrapped around me like armor, like a living thing that anticipated my needs before I even knew I had them. Damon fought at my back, his borrowed sword singing through the air, his movements precise and deadly and utterly fearless.
And somewhere in the distance, I felt my other mates. Fighting their own battles. Surviving. Making their way toward us.
We just had to hold on until they arrived.
We just had to survive.
And looking at the carnage around us, at the bodies of the fae hounds that had thought we’d be easy prey, I didn’t think that was going to be a problem.