Chapter Twenty-Seven
Legend
There’s a moment in the middle of chaos where the world narrows down to a single sound. Or lack thereof.
For me, it’s Haide’s voice disappearing.
One second, she’s there, screaming through the bond while Arabella’s water tries to drown the entire ravine. The next second she’s just—gone. The bond stretches thin enough that something ugly claws up my spine.
My first instinct is to move.
My second instinct is to kill something.
Neither of them work.
Because Arabella still stands in front of me, her hand cupping my jaw like we’re lovers meeting in a garden instead of enemies in the middle of a fucking war. The pale thread she buried in my chest pulses the moment my power shifts.
The reaction is immediate. My magic surges, the thread tightens, and everything inside me slams into a wall so hard the air leaves my lungs in a ragged burst.
I hate that she sees it.
I hate the quiet satisfaction that curls across her face as my shoulders lock.
“There,” she murmurs softly, like she’s praising a well-trained animal. “Every time you try to reach for it, the thread pulls you back.”
Her thumb brushes across my cheek.
I do not move.
The water roars somewhere behind me as Zev hurls another blade that evaporates before it ever reaches her. Sinner swears loud enough to rattle the ravine walls. But Arabella doesn’t bother looking at them.
She’s watching me, studying me.
Enjoying her fucking self.
“You could stop fighting it,” she says conversationally. “You know that, don’t you? It would be easier. I built the thread so carefully, Legend. It only hurts when you resist.”
I let the silence stretch, because if I open my mouth right now, I will say something that ends with my teeth in her throat and we already established how that story ends. With me choking on my own power.
She tilts her head slightly. “You’re quieter than usual,” she notes. “Did she run?” The question is casual, but I feel the thread twitch when she says it.
Testing, trying to drag my attention in the direction she wants it.
I instead focus on breathing slow and fucking controlled when I feel anything but.
Because underneath the choking pressure of that thread and the overwhelming urge to tear the entire fucking world apart, something else is happening.
I can sense it in the air around me and the silence that fills my chest.
Something is wrong. so fucking wrong but also…right.
And then the heat comes. It’s not the furious surge of dragonfire, or the burning need of my mating bond, but something deeper, older. It moves through my ribs like smoke sliding through open air.
My ribcage stretches, the swell an intense, harsh pain that has me gritting my teeth, but I don’t dare show any outward signs.
What the fuck is this?
A hint of panic washes in, but then it’s snuffed out and in its place, a satisfactory rumble.
With my next breath, the reason reveals itself.
“Well. That took long enough.”
My spine goes rigid, the voice unmistakable.
The Nightkin, as she calls him.
“As I am named.”
“You’re—” I cut off, panic surging through me so fast I nearly buckle.
“Calm. Our mate is as fierce and alive as ever. Do not give us away.”
The relief is nearly debilitating.
I feel the power, then. It’s deeper than bone, built and woven into the very marrow of my being.
My soul fucking sings and I feel like a man born anew.
My Ethos has risen, my demon born and fucking fierce.
Unstoppable.
Untouchable.
“And angry.”
Yes. That.
I blink, realizing Arabella is still running her damn mouth.
“—such a shame,” she’s saying, her fingers still resting against my face like she’s trying to remember what it felt like to own me. “All that power, all that darkness, and you can’t even touch me with it anymore.”
The Nightkin answers with a low, vicious chuckle. “Oh, sweetheart!”
The darkness spreads through my chest like something waking up from a deep slumber.
“That leash she built?”
Arabella’s eyes narrow slightly, like she senses something shift even if she doesn’t know what.
“Legend?” she says slowly.
I keep my expression neutral, my breathing steady.
The Nightkin stretches through every inch of me, sliding past the pale thread wrapped around my heart like a predator studying a trap.
“Need little trick.”
He grabs hold of that thread, taking it between his teeth. “I could cut it now, but I think someone else wants a close-up.”
My brows pull and, across the ravine, the wall of water surges higher.
And that’s when I see her.
Haide.
She appears on the other side of the barrier like a storm given legs. Black flames crawl over her skin, power rolling off her in waves so violent the air itself seems to bend around her. For a second, she just stands there, breathing.
Watching.
Through the water, chaos, and the screaming magic tearing the ravine apart, our eyes meet.
Arabella is still speaking, convinced she’s in control, she hasn’t fully noticed the change yet.
My mate does immediately.
I let the Nightkin rise just enough for the gold to flicker across my vision. My lips curve into a deep smirk. “I’ve got this, baby.”
“We got this, baby,” the Nightkin corrects.
I almost laugh.
While the unreadable expression on her perfect fucking face doesn’t change, she dips her chin in acknowledgment.
Behind her, a portal tears open across the ravine.
Knight steps through first, London in his arms, and the moment her boots hit the ground her eyes go black.
The water wall shudders and Arabella whips around. “What—”
London lifts her hands, Haide pushes out her flame, and the barrier breaks.
And the entire ravine explodes into motion.
The black current that had been roaring between us collapses like something punched through its spine. Sheets of water slam against the rock face before evaporating into nothing as Haide and her dragons take hold of their natural enemy.
For the first time since this started, the smug calm fractures across Arabella’s face. “What did you—”
She never finishes the sentence, Haide’s already moving.
I have watched that woman cross a battlefield before, but this is something else entirely. The power in her now isn’t just fire. It isn’t just dragon flame, or whatever strange darkness the Nightkin left coiled inside her ribs.
It’s every single soul stone in that cavern screaming through her blood at once.
Black fire lashes behind her like wings as she launches over the shattered water line and lands between us hard enough to crack the stone beneath her boots. The air around her hums so violently it rattles my teeth.
“Still alive,” she says with a soft, mocking smile, eyes flicking over Haide’s blood-streaked face. “How disappointing.”
Haide doesn’t even look at her, those green eyes finding mine first.
For half a second, the world narrows to that single moment, the bond between us roaring to life in a way it hasn’t before.
The Nightkin inside me stirs, pleased.
Haide’s gaze flicks briefly to my chest, then back to my eyes.
“She misses me,” the Nightkin boasts.
“She has you.”
He groans.
Arabella shrieks, and the water behind her rises again, dark and furious, towering over the space like an incoming tide. “You still don’t understand,” she continues. “The thread doesn’t simply restrain him. It anchors him. You rip it out and it tears everything attached to it with—”
The power surges up my spine like something finally given permission to breathe, colliding with the pale Argent thread around my heart with the force of a collapsing star.
Arabella’s eyes widen and my hand drives forward, straight through her fucking chest.
There is only brief resistance, then bone cracks.
Blood spills hot across my wrist as my fingers close around the beating thing inside her ribcage. Arabella gasps, her entire body going rigid as the connection between us flares violently.
“Silly little Argent girl.”
The Nightkin snarls inside my chest. “Pull. Pull and all that will be left is our mate.”
I tighten my grip and Arabella laughs. Blood pours from her mouth as she looks up at me with wild, delighted eyes.
“Do it,” she rasps. “I dare you. Without your Ethos, I take you with me.”
My laugh is hollow, fingers digging deeper.
“Wait.”
Haide’s voice cuts through the moment. She slowly steps closer, the heat rolling off her skin enough to make the air distort.
Something in her expression has the Nightkin going cold within my chest. He reaches for her, but she is singularly focused.
I can feel the bond between us vibrating with sorrow, but I don’t understand why until she speaks again.
“This one,” she says softly, stepping up beside me while Arabella chokes on her own blood between us, “is for the dragons you murdered.”
Haide lifts one of the black blades strapped across her thigh and drags it clean across Arabella’s ribs, and while she tries to pretend she’s as tough as my mate, her features give her away. The grimace contorts her expression, but Haide is too focused on her art to notice.
“And this,” Haide continues calmly, the blade moving again, carving a line across her face, “is for thinking you could touch, let alone keep, my mate.”
Arabella trembles but the smile never quite leaves her face.
Haide leans closer.
“And this one,” she says, her voice finally breaking just slightly, “is for him.”
The blade slides across Arabella’s throat, just deep enough to make the blood spill faster.
Arabella coughs.
“Oh,” she whispers hoarsely, eyes flicking between us with something like admiration. “So he did it after all.”
My grip tightens instinctively.
“Did what,” I snarl. “Who?”
“All I had to do,” Arabella murmurs faintly, “was mention it to Mommy. Tell her what would happen if the island was fed properly.”
My stomach drops.
Arabella’s smile widens despite the blood filling her throat.
“I knew your precious king would figure it out eventually,” she says softly. “He is the smart one, after all.” Her eyes burn with triumph. “Or should I say was.”
Haide’s hand covers mine and she yanks it back, helping me rip the bitch’s heart clean out of her chest.
The thin thread that tied me to her snaps with it.
And just like the Nightkin said, all that is left…is her.