Chapter 50
SAPHIRA
Ikept my focus on the fae male before me as I sensed that barrier shatter and watched Kaeleron collapse to his knees.
My every instinct howled at me to go to him, but I couldn’t.
I ducked beneath one of the twin blades the blond seelie wielded as he slashed it right at me and sprang backwards, placing some distance between us. I risked a glance at Kaeleron.
Vyr held him, and gods, he was too still.
Silver flashed across my right eye and I barely managed to leap to my left in time to evade the two blades that swept down through the air. The fae growled as they slammed into the dirt where my head had been just a moment before, and I growled right back at him.
He bellowed as Morden leaped on his back, snarling and gnashing fangs, sinking them into his shoulder as the male tried to shake him.
On a savage snarl of my own, I sprang at the male, burying my fangs into his arm as he went to stab Morden.
He went down under our combined weight, and I leaped off him as Morden finished him off, tearing his throat out.
Blood gushed like a fountain, flooding the ground beneath the fae as he desperately reached for his throat, a pointless attempt to save himself.
It sprayed across Morden’s face, soaking into his dark fur, but he didn’t care.
His bright silvery gaze was on the mansion as noise came from that direction.
I shifted my focus there in time to see Kaeleron and Malachi running headlong into the building alone. Vyr ran towards me instead of chasing after her brother, and I shifted back as she reached me.
“What the hell are you doing? Go after him!” I snapped and she drew up short of me, a startled look on her face for a heartbeat before it darkened.
“I cannot protect you both, and my brother’s orders trump your own. Kaeleron sent me to protect you.”
I loosed a feral growl. “Reckless idiot. Not you. Him. Go. Go after him.”
“No.” She shook her head and drew her sword, gracefully pirouetting to decapitate a wolf who leaped at her back while she was distracted with me. “I have my orders. I will not disobey my brother.”
“Even if it gets him killed?” I went to run towards the mansion, but she snared my arm, holding it in a bruising grip, and I bared fangs at her hand.
“My brother is more than able to handle whoever waits inside, especially with Malachi’s help.” But she didn’t look convinced. She looked awfully as if she wanted to go after him.
“How weak is he?” I said as Morden and Chase took down a fae with the help of two unseelie guards, keeping us safe. “I saw him go down.”
“I gave him some of my strength. He will be fine. By now his strength will be returning.”
“Returning but not returned. How hard was it for him to break that barrier?” I looked at the house as several males ran out of it, entering the fray as unseelie blocked their escape.
“Extremely difficult.” Vyr slashed at a fae who dared get too close to her and when he evaded her strike, she used shadows to snare his ankles and hold him in place so she could gut him.
She glanced over her shoulder at me as the male fell.
“He will be weaker for a time. He had to summon a connection to this ancient land to give him the strength to shatter it.”
And now he had run into a mansion with only Malachi as backup.
“Reckless idiot,” I muttered again.
I shifted to go after him.
And locked up tight as I smelled something.
I snarled, jowls peeling back off my fangs.
Lucas.
My gaze sought him, wildly running over the battle, skipping over Morden as he tackled a large blond wolf with the help of an unseelie, and Chase as he launched at one of the two seelie Jenavyr fought, as Riordan appeared behind her to behead the third that had been sneaking up on her unprotected back.
Where was he.
My gaze swung back several feet.
There.
I kicked off, sprinting as quickly as I could, pushing myself to the limit to catch him as he ran for the woods. Not again. I was damned if I would let him escape again.
I launched at him as soon as he was within striking distance, sailing through the air to slam into his back, knocking him hard into the ground. He grunted as he hit it, sprawled out on his front, and momentum carried me forwards, sending me tumbling off him and onto the grass. I recovered quickly.
Lucas was quicker.
He had shifted and was on me before I could get fully to my paws, his larger body slamming into mine to knock me backwards.
I staggered and leaped to my left, turning to face him and snapping fangs at him as he lunged at me.
I couldn’t let him near my nape. He might have rejected me, but there was only one way to truly sever our fated potential bond.
Death.
He kicked off, coming at me fast, much faster than Morden had when we had been training in our wolf forms. I did my best to evade him, springing over him, but he twisted his head and snared my back left leg, biting down hard.
I yelped and air whooshed from my lungs as he slammed me into the ground on my side.
Chase slammed into him, his head striking Lucas’s side, shoving him away from me.
The two of them clashed and I growled at the sight of my cousin intervening in my fight, even as I appreciated the backup. But this was my kill to make. As soon as I had recovered, I leaped back into the fray, channelling everything Chase and Morden had taught me.
I used the agility I had over Lucas because of my smaller form, the speed it gave me, and managed to get in several nips of his flanks before he could retaliate, drawing blood that stained his fur and coated my tongue. I wanted more.
Lucas bit down hard on Chase’s shoulder and my cousin yelped as he went down under Lucas’s weight.
When Lucas went to adjust his bite, aiming for Chase’s throat, I saw red.
I shifted and leaped on his back, wrapping my arms around his throat and hauling his head back before he could make contact. His fangs snapped shut with an audible ‘clack’ and he growled as he wrestled against my hold.
“Saphira!” Riordan yelled.
I glanced at him in time to see my dagger flying at me, striking the ground point first just a few feet away. Lucas saw it too, and snarled as he struggled harder, beginning to wriggle free of my hold even as I wrapped my legs around him too.
He shifted back and elbowed me in the face, hard enough that I saw stars and lost my hold on him.
He kicked off, sprinting for the dagger.
Riordan launched something else at me.
My holster.
It hit the ground right next to me and I grabbed it as I launched to my feet, freeing one of the blades and releasing it in a fluid single motion. The smaller blade struck Lucas in the back, and he grunted as he fell forwards, losing his balance.
Landing close to my dagger.
I launched another blade, putting all my strength, all my anger into this one.
It flew fast—hard—nailing him in the shoulder as he grabbed my dagger and turned on me.
That shoulder jerked backwards from the force of the blow and his wide eyes met mine as he shoved a foot out behind himself, bracing himself.
Chase lunged for him, but Lucas swiped my dagger at him, driving him back.
And then the bastard ran.
On a vicious, wrathful and rage-filled snarl I hurled a third knife.
My aim was off.
Rather than lodging in his shoulder, it flew just to one side of it.
Slicing across his right arm.
Blood sprayed and he staggered forwards, going down hard.
“Godsdammit.” I ran at him as he fumbled with his arm, his bloodied hand slipping over it, and still tried to get to his feet.
And slammed into his back, sending him sprawling in the dirt.
He released his shoulder and fought me, backhanding me across the face, and I growled as my cheek stung, my bones aching as pain spider-webbed across my skull.
“Son of a bitch.” I punched him, hard, knocking his head to one side as I gained the upper hand.
Or so I thought.
He bucked and threw me off balance enough that he managed to grab me and twist with me, landing on top of me, my own dagger pressed against my chest.
It wasn’t going to end this way.
He plunged it towards my chest.
I flinched away.
But the pain didn’t come.
I stared at the dagger where it stuck out of the dirt between my ribs and my arm, at Lucas’s furious expression as he glared at his hand—at those shadows wrapped around it that had pulled it off course.
I threw my fist in his face, slamming it with every ounce of my strength into his jaw, and twisted as he pitched sideways, reaching for the dagger. I grabbed it as I threw him off balance, as I rolled on top of him.
And pinned him to the dirt.
My dagger aimed at his heart.
“Kill me,” he chuckled, blood coating his lips and tracking down his cheek. “Do it. You know you can’t.”
“I will,” I snarled right in his face. “Just as soon as you tell me where Danica and Everlee are.”
He coughed, bringing up more blood, and spat it in my face. “Bitch. You’ll never find them. Not without me.”
His blue eyes mocked me.
Because we were too late.
And he thought he had leverage.
“You know the best thing about unseelie courts?” I smiled down at him, into those amused blue eyes that were laughing at me, because he thought he was safe—that I couldn’t kill him. Not without risking losing Everlee and Danica. He was wrong about that. “They have the most wonderful necromancers.”
I shoved the dagger into his heart.
His eyes flew wide, his mouth hanging open as he stared up at me, as that mocking look morphed into disbelief and then into fear, into terror.
I stared down at him as all the light drained from his eyes, as his heart ceased and his body stilled beneath mine, unaware of the battle raging around me.
I had killed my fated mate—the male I had once foolishly loved—and I felt nothing but relief and a hollow sense of satisfaction as that fragile bond that had tied our souls fractured and snapped.
Forever broken.
And my wolf howled in joy.