Chapter 13
“Eat, mate,” Carmine murmured. “You will need your strength.”
I grabbed another leg of roasted zaza and dutifully took a bite. Carmine had kept me by his side all day. He still wasn’t convinced that my alliance with the other supernaturals was severed. The two minutes I’d expected to find today to tell Tsan where the blue gems were had proved impossible.
Carmine stood, and the feasting demons in the chamber fell silent. “Tonight, we go to war to execute a strategy that will tip the scales of victory in our realm’s favor.”
The reds and crimsons cheered, and Carmine waited for their clapping to die down.
“The charge is led by my mate-intended, and your future queen. Syera, I know that you will not fail us. May every demon in the realm await news of your triumph over our enemies.”
Bastard. If I backed out of this deal or failed, then every demon in the realm had the king’s permission to blame me.
I smiled and rose, then swiped up my goblet.
“Thank you, mate. I look forward to showing our realm what their queen can do. I would also like to make an announcement. The king and I have decided to continue with the next ritual in the immediate wake of my triumph over our enemies. Please raise your goblet to celebrate the ever-strengthening union of your king’s mating. ”
Goblets were pushed high in the air. Carmine was slower to lift his.
I sat, but the king remained standing.
Once quiet resumed, he said, “I pass you to my sister, who also has an announcement.”
Carmine sat, and cut me a cold look.
Yeah, two can play at that game.
I turned my focus on Gratia.
The crimson princess took Raes’s hand and drew him up with her.
“My mate and I have completed all but the final ritual,” she announced, beaming at him. “We have decided to take the last, immortal step to unify in our mating bond. The ceremony will be held one week from now, and we invite all in the fortress to join in our joy.”
The applause was polite. Some clapped louder—mainly those who’d fought alongside Raes, or those he’d trained.
My ears pulled enough words from the surrounding, muttering demons to decipher they were comparing the speed of Gratia’s mating with the slowness of their king’s. I’d run away for three years, which was also being discussed. No one understood the nature of my mating with Carmine.
I hadn’t understood it until recently.
I finished eating and waited until Carmine stood. He extended a forearm to me, and I had no choice but to go with him. Dammit. Was two minutes too much to ask?
“I’ll need to change,” I murmured.
“What you’re wearing will suffice,” he replied, ice in his tone.
I glanced down and arched a brow. “A crimson gown with a plunging neckline and thigh slits?”
Thigh slits. Not a loincloth.
“Yes.”
We were down to one-word answers. Someone was nervous his mate would betray him.
I was led to the hangar where soldiers had already gathered to check their weapons and to get their briefing on the battle ahead.
Carmine left me to speak with Hiub’s team.
Finally. All day with Tyran. I was exhausted.
Gratia passed by with Raes and smiled at me.
I smiled back, truly amused that she could act so friendly while conspiring against me.
Well, more like conspiring against her mother, but I’d be caught in the crossfire if Gratia informed the king of her suspicions, and my downfall was absolutely fine with my sister-in-law.
Which I enjoyed, except it did complicate matters more.
With Gratia on the hunt, I couldn’t risk hiding any letters to Tempest in my room.
With Tyran keeping me so close, I couldn’t risk keeping any letters on me.
Gu greeted me, and I ignored him. He hovered for a minute, then pretended to respond to someone calling him from across the hangar.
Tsan stopped beside me. “Mate-intended.”
At last.
“Yellow.” I glanced at him. “Try your best not to cower in front of the enemy. The king is relying on you to uncover any treasure yet unfound. He has bizarre faith that you can locate something that others have not. Surely he knows that if anyone had the skill to find anything, it would be me.” I snorted after.
Tsan bowed after blinking a few times. “I will try my best, mate-intended.”
“It is important to look in every crevice, in every shadow, and under every piece of furniture. I don’t care how tired you get. Don’t forget it.” I moved away to join Raes.
As far as cryptic hints went, that one had felt pretty clunky, and I was left with a dreadful fear that Tsan wouldn’t figure it out. But if anyone could, then it was my lucky yellow accomplice. He’d spotted Carmine’s far more subtle hints.
Indecision warred in me. Should I try to whisper the location of the blue gems in his ear? What if the demon king wanted to get down to mating ritual business straight after the battle?
Athira wasn’t here. If she wasn’t returned, then Tsan would need to get to the desert and back without the help of her portal.
I had to tell him.
I started to turn back.
“Mate-intended,” Carmine called.
I jerked, then hastened toward him. “What is it?”
“You will remain beside me for the duration of the battle. If you need to portal closer, then I will take us. Do not expend any unnecessary energy.”
I murmured vague agreement.
The hangar filled, and I remained by the coven gates as Carmine addressed his army. His words floated in one ear and out the other because I was suddenly wondering if my confidence in my ability to fake kill Tempest was misplaced.
Inspired by our grandmother and mother, our favorite childhood games had involved maiming and death—and our demon side must have factored into that too. We’d fake killed each other hundreds of times, using props to help make it look believable—fake blood and guts.
We weren’t playing anymore. A five-thousand-year-old demon had to believe this act.
“It’s time,” Carmine said.
Was he done talking?
I looked up at him – at the shell of my mate. Really, I looked at Tyran, and nothing else could have helped me more in that moment.
I was going to fake murder my butt off tonight.
Carmine led the charge through one of the gates, and I ran in his wake with the thunder of the demon army at our backs. Like an explosion, we burst through the coven gates to descend upon the knolls.
An eerie mist crept over the rolling green hills, and through the mist, another army was visible. One of magus and Luther and Vissimo.
My sister stepped forward with Wild. Kyros stepped out in front of Basilia. Andie and Sascha stalked in front of the other leaders, ready to protect them against demon smoke.
They were ready.
Carmine slowed, and I walked forward with him as his army surged ahead, roaring and shrieking their battle cries.
A chill hung in the air. “Something doesn’t feel right.”
“What?” he said tersely, his focus on the battle.
“They’re planning something. Let the army move in first so we can see what she plans.”
Carmine leaned down and hissed in my ear. “If you are seeking to play games—”
“No game,” I shot back. “My attack won’t work if I do it now.”
As the words left my mouth, the ground began to shake. Ghosts erupted from beneath the surface.
Carmine’s army had only one type of experience with ghosts. My ghosts. Their battle cries morphed to screams of terror, and the army shoved back the way they’d come.
“Hold,” Carmine roared.
His threat was enough to stay them, and I could already feel the problem with this attack, but I took the time to crouch and swipe a hand through the nearest ghost. “Not solid. They can’t harm us.”
Carmine relayed the information, and the demons cautiously resumed their charge, slow at first, then with mounting confidence when the ghosts’ attacks passed through them.
“I was wrong to doubt you,” the king said. “You would have been left exposed. What does your magus power say?”
“That the time is right to kill my sister. Take us closer.”
“How close?”
I didn’t want him to have a great view. “Middle of our army.”
Carmine opened a portal, and we stepped through.
“Do what you must,” he said low and fast. “I will not let anyone disturb you.”
Tempest had done me a solid with the ghost routine. She’d made their defense believable instead of giving the order for everyone to await my fake attack.
“Sister,” I called out, magnifying my voice so it speared across the battle. “It is time. Come and face me, and we will know who is stronger between us once and for all.”
Not the time for such thoughts, but I was almost certain we’d said something similar to each other at nine years old.
The clashing armies separating us paused to glance between us; then the supernaturals filling the space between Tempest and me parted like a wave before resuming their fights to the death.
Tempest padded forward, barefoot and appearing extra foraging-linen-magus than usual. I wasn’t the only dramatic one.
“I would not fight you, sister,” she called back, her soft voice blanketing the battlefield. My heart panged at how much she sounded like Mother.
“The fight is inevitable,” I answered. “Only one side can win, and I will not see demons fail. Face me now, and perhaps more of your kind will survive this war.”
“To become what?” Tempest asked. “Slaves to be slowly drained?”
Nice touch.
I laughed, and the sound was as cold as intended. “Yes, sister. To become that. Fight for your life. Because that is what I am about to take. Goodbye.”
I could almost hear Tempest’s internal applause. There should be an Academy Award for supernaturals.
I summoned my power forth, and Tempest did the same. As her magus power split through the air toward me, my crimson-tinged black smoke funneled a spiral toward her. I never want to hurt my twin.
My intention was that Tempest would live a full and happy existence with her mate and coven, and hopefully me, Adeuto, and Carmine—if she could accept my mate after all “he’d” done.
Our power connected, and lightning cracked in the air. Was that her? I didn’t do that. Nice touch.
I made sure to stagger back and whimper even though utter harmony filled my body and mind at the connection to my twin.
She’d fallen to her knees, but we maintained the connection. I grunted and winced, screwing up my face. Carmine was beside me, shouting words of encouragement, and I ignored him.
Wild was beside Tempest, and I could sense the harmonious feeling in me lessen. My twin’s power was fading, and that had to be Wild taking her power into their mating bond and himself.
I dropped to a knee, fixing my sights on Tempest. I panted and groaned. Ooo, that sounds good. I groaned again, more pained this time.
The spear of her power was fading against my smoke. Heat radiated off my black and crimson power, forcing the split in the army to widen.
Amazing. I could feel her power lessening as Wild drew it into himself.
I smirked. “She’s weakening.”
“The deal was her death,” was his icy reply.
I pulled back on my smoke, ensuring that it faded slower than my twin’s. The connection to Tempest was nothing more than a tiny presence in me now. Her power flickered, dulling to an uglier shade.
“Close,” the demon king breathed from his crouch beside me. “More, mate.”
I collapsed to all fours, but kept my head raised. I kept dragging back on my smoke to make it appear as though I was weakening too.
When Tempest’s power faded to a mere wisp, I gathered up “everything I had left” and screamed with the effort and force of my last attack. My smoke collided with her unconscious body, and in all honesty, warm fuzzies filled me. Hopefully her too.
Her power faded from the meadow.
Every supernatural paused to look at my magus twin, who was limp in Wild’s arms.
Every supernatural listened to her heartbeat.
Boom.
Boom-boom.
Boom…… boom….
Nothing.
More nothing.
I slid forward on my stomach and closed my eyes, feigning weakness. “Is… she… gone?”
The demon king wasn’t too bothered about his drained mate at his feet, though. He was confirming Tempest’s death like everyone else.
Wild’s tormented roar erupted across the battlefield, and soon after, demon screams rose in a wave at what I assumed was his unhinged attack upon the death of his mate.
“She’s dead,” Tyran roared, and then—like a true villainous maniac—he threw back his head and laughed for all to hear.
Nice.
Only then did he pick me up. I remained limp and let my head loll.
“Have everyone ready their smoke,” he ordered someone close by. “On my command.”
I really hoped that Tsan had been horribly wrong about how to destroy four-affinity barriers.
“Attack,” Carmine called. Not loudly. Calmly. Coldly.
The coven leader was dead, and in Tyran’s mind, I’d just won the war for him.
The demon king released his smoke alongside the rest of his army. I couldn’t see the smoke colliding with the four-affinity barrier around the supernatural alliance leaders. But the cheers of the demon army rose in a thunderous roar.
Dammit, Tsan. Demons had gained a new advantage. One crimsons would never have thought of because the answer was laughable for demons of our scale color most of all—teamwork.
I remained weak and drained as I awaited Carmine’s next order. If he pressed his attack, then the game was up. The stack of cards would collapse.
“My king, we have your mother,” a demon reported.
I felt the deliberation in the monster that cradled me in his arms. I felt the war in him.
He could win this now. Tempest was dead. They’d figured out the four-affinity barrier at long last.
“Retreat.” He hissed the order.
And his order spread and was obeyed.
That single word might have just lost Tyran everything he’d worked five thousand years to achieve.