Chapter 37 #3
“You’ve wasted your time, Sonya.” Istvan was the one to speak out, his voice echoing off the buildings, his figure on the last bit of wall left up, peering down at his challengers. “Unless you want to lay next to your pet?” Istvan motioned down to Andor’s dead body.
She barely gave Henrick Andor a glance. “You did me a favor. He had already fulfilled his use and was becoming a nuisance.”
“Really? Because here I stand.” Istvan motioned to himself and his domain.
“Taking back what is rightfully mine. All your soldiers here are dead. And I have troops from the north moving in around the palace to take that too.” Istvan’s smugness billowed off him, his certainty he was many steps in front of everyone.
“You are done, Sonya. Might as well take a knee or die where you stand.”
“Oh, Markos.” Sonya shook her head like she pitied him.
“I almost feel sorry for you. Your incompetent brain and male ego couldn’t fathom what it takes to be a true ruler.
To spend decades being treated like you’re nothing but a side piece, biting your tongue and waiting for an opportunity.
To let stupid human males think they are the ones in charge when all along, I’ve been moving the pieces.
” She tilted her head. “Leon, you . . . you’re both the same.
Your weakness is your confidence, thinking nobody could be smarter, better—especially a woman.
And the greedier you got, the more predictable you became.
Easy to perceive when every move you make is out of pure narcissism.
” She clasped her hands as if she was slightly bored.
“They are already dead.” She brushed at her silk top.
“They were ambushed by my men. Every one of them was slaughtered. Oh, and the army you had coming from the east? They are dead too.” She nodded at a figure who stood next to her like a main guard, his pinched face snarling at Markos. “Thanks to his father.”
“Holy fuck.” Brexley sucked in. “Sergei.”
The little fuck she was supposed to marry.
My eyes shut briefly, realizing Mykel’s worry about Romania had come true. Her deal with Lazar gave her more bodies and ammunition to defeat Markos.
We were no match.
We were fucked.
“Thanks to Lazar and our deal.” She tilted her head. “You burned too many bridges with your pride and arrogance, Istvan. Turned against those who at one time might have helped you. This is all your own doing.”
Istvan stood still, his eyes watching her closely to see if she was lying or not. What he lost if it were all true. The armies he counted on to unseat her were now gone. His plan was failing.
“So, Markos, you are the one who is done.” She grinned cruelly. “You might as well take a knee, or would you rather die where you stand?”
Istvan’s throat bobbed, his jaw locked, but he rolled his shoulders back, his conceit never backing down. “Your armies will soon be under my rule. You are finished, Sonya.”
“Really?” Sonya tipped her head to the side as if she was appeasing a child.
“They are faithful to the hand which rules them. You won’t be around much longer.
” Istvan’s eyes went up in the direction where Kalaraja was hiding, his chin dipping in an unsaid order.
I could feel us all hold our breaths, waiting for the sniper’s bullet to hit its target, taking out one of the chess pieces.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The seconds went by. Istvan shuffled his feet. “Shoot her!” he ordered.
Still nothing.
A laugh came out of Sonya, like bells pitched with cruelty and self-satisfaction.
Two figures emerged from a building. One I recognized as Kalaraja; the other took me a moment, my brain not wanting to register who had a knife to his throat and something against his spine.
“Oh my gods.” Brexley choked.
“No.” Killian jolted back, his head shaking in pure shock seeing his old guard.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
“I thought I killed her?” Ash shot at me, his eyes just as wide and full of disbelief. “She should be dead.”
That bitch just wouldn’t die.
Nyx. The hawk-shifter who still had a deep vendetta against me and my mate.
Nyx was not only alive but now was Sonya’s pet. And she had that same stun gun she used on me at the back of Kalaraja’s neck, walking him to Sonya like a trained bird bringing back a kill to their owner.
Apprehension crossed over Istvan’s face. It was the first time I had ever seen him look scared. His grasp on this country was slipping through his fingers.
“You’ve lost, Istvan,” Sonya declared. “The war, your country, your position, and your li—” Sonya froze, mouth parting as her attention went to the river.
The sound of bones hitting concrete sounded like a drum and spiked the air, stabbing chills down my back, forcing oxygen to get stuck in my lungs as my eyes took in what my brain still couldn’t believe.
Bodies rose from their watery grave, marching for HDF, hundreds and hundreds of them carrying weapons from Killian’s stash.
“Bazdmeg,” I muttered. It worked.
Every step they took rattled down my spine and shivered my skin. No matter who you were, this would strike fear through your gut.
It was unnatural and wrong.
Screams of terror crashed through the square as the new players joined the battle.
Because this army wasn’t alive.