40. Arracher
Arracher
BASTIEN
What I had wasn’t bloodlust. It was blood rage. The scent of my wife’s blood unleashed the monster inside of me. The indiscriminate reaper. We’d cut down every guard outside the fort with little resistance. Now it was time to break through the gate.
“Uncle?” Tyson asked. “Is there a plan?”
I wiped a spray of blood from my face. “The plan is to kill anyone who gets in our way.”
“So we’re ignoring what Sera said and walking straight into a trap?”
I shook my head. “I already told you. The only thing I came for was my wife. And if you’re too scared to stand behind me, then go. I don’t need you.”
Tyson narrowed his eyes in a way that mimicked his cousin, Natalia. “I am a man of Roselyn.” He banged his fist against his chest. “And I will not leave one of my own to die.”
I clapped a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.
“Let’s get this door down,” Tyson said. “You get Claire. The wolves will take care of the rest.”
Together, we dropped our shoulders and slammed into the wooden gate, expecting it to buckle beneath our combined strength. I was angry enough to knock down a castle wall. Wood was child’s play. But the gate had been properly reinforced, as if they’d been expecting us.
A fine strategy. However, I’d been tearing into forts long before anyone here had been born.
The weakest points of these gates were the hinges.
I drove my hand into the narrow seam beside the hinge post and wrenched it to the side, trying to rip them from the wood.
Tyson saw what I was doing and joined me.
With one more shove, the door snapped free.
We tossed it toward the woods. I drew my blade as an army of weres barreled toward us. Behind their half-transformed limbs, I saw my wife in a crumpled heap on the ground, lying in a puddle of her own blood. Her heart was still faintly beating, and that was all the hope I needed.
I set my teeth. Let them come. There was no army that could keep me from her.
Sword raised, I tore through the yard at a sprint. Claws tore at my sleeves, teeth snapped at my neck, but I did not slow. They were only obstacles. Only distance. Only the last cruel seconds between my wife and me.
But when I cleared the mob, and I saw the true horror before me, I collapsed onto my knees.
“No,” I breathed, though the word had no power here.
Pain lanced through my heart, like I’d been struck by an arrow.
It was so sharp, so horrible, I thought I might die from the agony.
Unable to stand, I crawled to her on hands and knees, through the thick mud and blood that surrounded her lifeless body.
I touched her neck, which was slick with blood, knowing I couldn’t even apply pressure to her wounds, because it would make the barbs sink in harder.
There was nothing to do but watch the life drain from her, while magick I could not break stole her from me.
And all I could think was how this was my fault.
I should have made the deal with Gorrath as soon as he offered it.
I should have fallen to my knees and agreed to anything. Anything.
Had it not been for my jealousy, my possessiveness of her, she could be immortal and alive. I had failed her.
Tears fell down my face as I wept for her, and for the child we were supposed to have. The one I promised to protect. The one I barely dared to believe I was strong enough to have. It was all slipping away from me.
Without anything left to do, I pulled her into my arms and cradled her limp body. But as soon as I lifted her, my dagger slipped from her hand. A choking sound tore free from my throat when I saw it tumble into a puddle of her blood. She’d tried. She’d tried to save herself.
“Claire, I’m here,” I said, smoothing back her hair with my bloodied hands. “I’m here.”
Beside her, a woman with long white braids, covered in black pustules, began to laugh. She was weak. Near death herself. I hadn’t paid her any attention until now.
I knew Shayla’s face, and this wasn’t Shayla. Which could only mean this was Angelina Prideaux.
Beat.
Beat.
Beat.
There was too much space between Claire’s heartbeats. But before me was a gift. If I killed her mother, the originator of the curse on her necklace, then perhaps I could save her life.
“You,” I snarled at the witch. “You have tortured her for the last time.”
Carefully, I eased my wife off my lap, but the motion was too much for her injured body, and the beating stopped. I leaned down and pressed my forehead to hers, my body shaking. “No,” I whispered. “You can’t leave. You can’t go.”
She was gone. And I was… nothing. Not a prince. Not a warrior. Not a general. Not even a vengeful reaper. The only thing left of me… was nothing at all.