Chapter 40
“Mama, you need rest.”
I was on my back. When did that happen? I opened my eyes and looked up at my son. My beautiful, incomparable son. He was older than the last time I saw him, but toddlers changed so quickly. “I don’t need rest.”
He frowned. “You do. Daddy said.”
Carmine entered the room behind him. I didn’t recognize the space, but I felt… warm. Reassured. My body was heavy, and a relaxation permeated my mind that I hadn’t felt since my mother was alive.
I smiled. “Did he now?”
“He did,” Carmine’s deep voice vibrated through me.
My family.
I was so lucky to have my family. Because…
Adeuto grabbed my hand. “Mama, go to sleep, so we can play later.”
“I can play now,” I said, trying to stand.
Carmine pressed a hand on my shoulder. “No, enamai. Not yet. Later.”
I glanced between them. “What’s happening? Are you two up to something?”
My heart stopped at their grins. Their twin grins. I was looking at the mini version of Carmine, and this was everything I’d ever wanted. Because…
My brows drew together. Because this hadn’t always been assured.
Because…
“How can we convince you to relax?” Carmine sat on the bed next to me. “My usual methods won’t work with our son present.”
I shook my head at his smirk, but then what were his usual methods? We didn’t relax. We didn’t spend days in bed unless recovering from near death. Because we…
He leaned in and kissed me.
My mouth curved against his lips at the sound of Adeuto’s giggles.
“Syera—”
I propped up on my elbows. “Who was that?”
“No one,” Carmine murmured, deepening our kiss.
“Syera… fight.”
I pressed a hand against his chest. “There’s a woman talking in my head.”
“And this is why you need to relax,” Carmine joked.
Adeuto peeked around him. “Don’t worry, Mama. I hear voices in my head too.”
“Tyran—”
Tyran. I blinked at Carmine, then glanced at Adeuto. “How are you both here? How did we get here?”
I scanned the room. A villa. Was there an ocean outside? I couldn’t see through the bright light pouring in the door. “Where are we?”
I pushed Carmine aside and wobbled to the door, holding my arm up as a shield against the white light.
“Get back into bed,” Carmine growled.
I ignored him, obeying the horror building in my gut instead. My magus power. I obeyed that, and the force grew stronger.
I made it to the door to peer outside, but wrenched to a halt when I found the ground fell away to a sheer drop without end. Darkness existed outside the room I’d woken in—darkness in every direction.
Footsteps approached behind me, and the warning in my gut surged.
I twisted my shoulders, and Carmine stumbled, catapulted forward by his attempt to push me off the cliff.
In a nightmare—because that was surely what this had to be—I lifted my own hand and extended my foot, then shoved Carmine to keep his momentum going.
“Syera!” he screamed, toppling into the dark.
My heart hammered at the fear in his gaze.
I turned to my son and nearly fell to my knees.
Ice. Ice filled him, evident in the hardness of his gaze and the slight smirk of his lips. He should be a child, but he wasn’t. Not any longer.
“Tyran,” I whispered. This was his doing. I couldn’t recall how I’d gotten here, but he was trying to erase who I was. Take me over.
My magus power found a foothold in that knowledge, and I latched onto the magic, drawing it into my center. My demon power, where was that? I couldn’t feel it!
I drew magus magic under my ribs in gulps and couldn’t spare the energy to wonder how I suddenly had so much.
“Syera, it’s Andie. Tyran’s trying to take you over. The pack can help. Let us in.”
I grabbed my head between both hands.
“Stop fighting, young demon,” Adeuto said in Tyran’s chilled voice. “You are a child, and certainly no king. How could you succeed where so many powerful demons have failed?”
Mother be, I remembered where I’d been before waking here. The tiara was on my head right now.
I thought back at Andie, “Get the tiara off my head.”
As I opened my mind to her, the power of hundreds of Luthers filled me. I staggered with the force of it and latched onto the doorframe to avoid falling into the abyss behind me. I couldn’t fall in there. I’d never make it back. Somehow I knew that to be true.
Their voices were louder now. As if they were here beside me.
“Fight back!”
“Remember your battle.”
“Face the enemy.”
Luther voices filled my mind, overwhelming my ability to sense Tyran’s presence. Adeuto’s lips were moving, but I couldn’t hear anything. The room didn’t seem so bright either. The Luthers were interrupting the illusion Tyran wanted to portray.
The wall behind Adeuto crumbled, and I blinked at the scene beyond him as the dust settled.
Carnage.
Stampeding demons. Nismus. A butyker.
My sister. She was kneeling at the base of the jutting rock, her gaze locked on where I still sat on the throne. Her power was funneling into my chest.
She was the source of magus power in me. That was why more accumulated within me by the second, far more than I’d ever possessed myself.
Andie’s voice filled my mind again. “Syera, you can do this. Force him out. You need to force him out.”
But how? What was this place?
I returned my focus to Adeuto, and the answer rose from deep within me.
My twin and I were impossibilities. Our power should have meant we killed each other in the womb. Magus and demon power should never have coexisted, and certainly not within each of us. In us was the poison, and in us was the antidote too.
I latched onto Tempest’s gifted power and pulled it into my body. As she staggered forward, I saw Wild step up behind her. He placed a hand on his mate’s shoulder and pushed his power into her.
I’d asked Tempest for a sword filled with magus power to fight back with, as our father had. But Tempest was my sword. Better yet, with her championing and nurturing my magus side, Tyran couldn’t utilize the main strength of my dual nature—my ability to raise the dead to battle on my behalf.
Fresh power filled me through the bond shared with my sister. More of Tyran’s illusion crumbled, and I gasped at the bed where I’d woken. White vines snaked over it, writhing and searching in vain for their next victim. They would have covered me, choked me to submission.
In the realm, I stood from the throne, half aware of the sensations of my body, while the other half could feel my body here.
The whispered encouragement of the pack continued to fill my head, and I could see that Tyran’s illusion of Adeuto was shouting now, hands balled into fists.
I looked beyond to the realm, and my gaze fell on Carmine. He was still kneeling before the throne, frozen by the power Tyran had left in him. To me, in this place, an age might have passed, but the Istg hadn’t reached my mate yet. They were trying to get through a barrier to heal him.
My barrier.
My demon power, which I had no access or control over right now, pulsed out in waves to keep demons and Vissimo at bay. The Luthers weren’t affected, and neither were magus, who had their own barriers.
My mind remained with the icy version of Adeuto in the darkness, but I felt my feet moving toward Carmine in the realm.
My clawed hand lifted above my head.
Athira planted herself in my path, and I backhanded her off the jutting rock.
Magus power still poured into me, and in its warmth, I felt the first returning flicker of me. Because I wasn’t a magus, I was a demon, and Tyran was trying to claim that part of me, but so much of me existed in my twin.
The power from Tempest and Wild, and the whispers of the pack were thwarting Tyran’s attempt to control me. Just enough for me to find footing.
He wanted me to kill Carmine.
I dragged in a breath as a foreign power probed around my heart.
My mating bond.
He was trying to sever it. I reversed a step toward the throne, and my heel hit the chair.
That’s it, Syera. Don’t give in! Andie shouted in my mind.
Tempest’s gaze fixed on mine, and her fury cut through some more of the numbness separating me from myself.
My body wasn’t my own, but I had to drop the barrier. Allow the nismus in. They had to heal Carmine before the mating ritual could start.
Smoke poured from my palms. My center was bursting from so much magus power.
Time to use it as the antidote it was. A scream ripped from me as I released the magic through my entire body. If my sister’s intention had been to harm me, then I truly might have died in that moment.
The sudden explosion dislodged Tyran’s hold.
My demon barrier disintegrated. Neti charged forward.
My lips curved, and Tyran swept back to claim me again. He charged me forward to meet the leader of the Istg.
She spun as I drew near, and her hind legs snapped out, connecting with my chest. I flew off the jutting rock, spinning through the air.
Tyran shot smoke from my body, flinging me back to the top of the peak. I landed near the fortress entrance and slowly turned in my crouch.
Demon soldiers filled the peak—they fought the armies of the supernatural alliance. An enormous magus barrier blocked the road to the realm, preventing demons of all colors from joining the battle.
White-scaled nismus converged on Carmine, and the alliance leaders sprinted toward me.
Neti burst through the fighting armies, and a chilled laugh left my lips.
I released smoke into my right hand and formed it into a blade.
My body was forced into a sprint, and as Neti lowered her head to fight her age-old enemy, I lifted the blade high.
I need her, I screamed from my straitjacket around my own mind.
I latched onto the spark of myself that I’d noticed earlier and pushed magus power into it. The spark grew, and I focused the tiny bit of control on my hand holding the smoky blade.
The blade dissipated, and Neti’s head connected with my middle.
My back smashed against the stone fortress.
Tempest and Wild had arrived. Andie and Sascha were circling close. Both of their voices urged me to fight.
I clutched my head again.
And then Kyros filled my vision. I noted his fist, and then my head was snapped back into the fortress.