Finaan
Chapter twenty
So Fucking Brutal
“Tell Ruxi to come get us,” I hiss at Wregen, hopefully quietly enough to evade the ears of the dozen elves nearby.
His head spins and he glares at me, narrow eyes and thin lips telling me exactly what he thinks about that idea. “Fuck, no,” he mutters. “We already established this. I don’t speak with the turnip beast.”
“What we established, dick, is that you will talk to them if we need it. We need it now.”
“I don’t know what you two are chatting about over there,” Balin bellows, “but you both will shut the fuck up.”
Wregen steps forward, placing himself between me and the others, as the archers pull back the strings on their bows. He throws his shoulders back the way he does when he wants to make himself larger. “Back off, brother. I won’t let you keep us here.”
“Do you think you have a choice?” Balin scoffs.
“They won’t hesitate,” he adds, looking around him at the waiting elves.
“If I see any hint that Wrath is rising or that you’re hoping to fight your way through us, they’ll fill you with more holes than they did last time.
” His voice lowers, a sneer twisting his lips.
“Even Wrath must have a limit,” he adds.
“I’m not ready to kill you yet, but I will if I must.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Wregen snarls. “You’re too much of a coward.”
“Try me,” Balin says, his tone almost conversational.
“Fuck,” Wregen mutters under his breath, his jaw shifting as one of his legs bounces. He stands even taller, and then casts the words I’ve been waiting for. “Be ready,” he whispers in my ear.
When he lifts his head, I sense him reaching out to Ruxi. It’s not a sound. More like a vibration that dances across my mind, as if his words pass through me on their way to his dragon.
“What do you want, Balin?” I ask, stepping closer to Wregen to make it easier for whatever Ruxi will do.
“You’ve never explained why you want us here,” I continue as the headstrong male shifts to stand in front, again placing himself between me and the arrows as he obstructs my view of the waiting elves.
Before I can respond, though, Ruxi shoots into the middle of the unicorns, choosing a path that lets the dragon throw them all off-balance.
My stomach catapults into my throat as I watch the beasts scramble to right themselves, many of their riders reaching for bows that fell to the ground with the unexpected assault.
As quick as they came, they pivot and streak in our direction.
Wrapping a claw around each of us, they yank us toward their gut and spear into the sky.
Two arrows fly as we ascend, one scraping their claw, while the other nearly impales Wregen’s skull.
The remnants of my last meal gurgle in my stomach—as if it would have bubbled up and out if I hadn’t clamped my throat shut—when I realize that if Ruxi had been a split-second slower, it would have been a death blow.
The bastard I deplore, who I’m desperate to escape after he helps free my dragon, wouldn’t have survived.
Every single cell in my body revolts at the thought, coming alive with a single intent: protect my mate.
I glance back as Ruxi carries us away, but I can barely focus on the herd of unicorns racing after us.
The bows in their riders’ hands are pulled tight, arrows barely missing the massive target we provide.
The rational part of my brain insists that the horror burst inside me because I need Wregen to get Panta. The rest of me knows the truth.
I need him. I refuse to accept our bond. I can’t see any possible happiness by his side. But the life I’ll live alone will be bleak and dry. He’s a piece of my puzzle, and I’m incomplete without him.
I turn to my mate, heart galloping as frantically as the hooves of the unicorns chasing us, and swallow the truth like a bitter pill.
It’s not the bond. I wish I could blame the fates or the gods or whoever else decided we belong together.
But that’s not it, and I can’t lie to myself.
His kiss lit a fire in my veins in a way I never could have anticipated.
And I saw a side of him in álfheimr that I like.
When he’s not being an ass, he’s fun and funny.
I’m more alive in Wregen’s presence than I’ve ever been before.
Underneath the male Hel constructed, I’m seeing the elf the fates intended for me, before they fucked it up by giving him a beast no child should have to endure.
And much as I hate to admit it, I’m starting to understand him.
Wrath ate up Wregen’s childhood and spit it out through bloody teeth, and then Wregen spent centuries merely existing in Helheim.
Hel forced him to hold himself apart from anyone or anything except that bitch and her perverse pleasures.
Yet he somehow held onto a wry view of the worlds and his place in them.
I’d probably be worse than him if I’d had to endure that abyss without the other elves to keep me sane.
Worse—so, so much worse—I want him. Some depraved, self-destructive part of me craves the chaotic mess that is Wregen, nearly as much as I dread the bleak existence I’d endure at his side.
He knows it too. He must sense the emotions rippling through me. Despite the arrows flashing past us and the real possibility that none of us will survive, he winks, a hint of a smile lifting the edges of his lips. And my pussy clenches, as if his attention is the only thing she’ll ever need.
Well, not the only thing. She wants his dick too, and it’s getting harder and harder to tell her no.
I can’t flip him off—my hands are clinging to Ruxi’s claws like the lifelines they are—so I stick my tongue out at him. And I regret it the moment I do.
His responding laugh unleashes something inside me. I’m more alive than I’ve been in months.
Two months, I realize. The months I spent in Vanatia after escaping Helheim, before he came for me.
The longer I spend in Wregen’s presence, the more life fills me.
I’m so fucked.
I can’t give in, though. Memories of my time in Helheim rush into my thoughts, shoving aside my musings about Hel’s chosen lieutenant.
My time was better than Wregen’s, but I suffered too.
Hel soon learned that I led the elves, so she punished them through me.
The first time was the worst but also the least traumatic, because I didn’t know what to expect.
After that, terror and dread added to the horror of the “corrections” she preferred.
One of the younger elves had tried to sneak into Hel’s castle, éljúenir.
He paid for his mistake. He’s a wraith now, entombed and decorating her halls, along with anyone else who aggrieved her in some way.
When she finished with him, she called for me.
Hel carved her name into my flesh over and over again.
Splayed skin or my own blood covered every inch of me.
And then she froze me in rock like her other victims. I spent three days there, my body in stasis, every wound pounding through me as if she stood above my near-corpse wielding her knife.
That wasn’t enough for Hel, though. In addition to my own pain, she gave me the agony of the others, along with their thoughts.
All 917 of them. Some had been trapped in her castle long enough to break their minds, lunacy spilling through them day and night.
Others were still lucid, many barely, as their sanity slowly slipped away.
The elf who caused our trauma was the worst. His pain and guilt will find their way into my nightmares for the rest of my life. I’m not sure how I held onto my reason during that or the other 22 times she used that particular “reprimand” on me.
Ruxi drags my attention away from Hel and her punishments when they shift directions.
I exhale slowly, shaking my head as I remind myself that I won’t let Wregen take me back there.
The dragon is spiraling through the air, somersaulting as they somehow evade the arrows.
The stomach that tried to heave up its meager contents a few seconds ago redoubles its efforts.
Closing my eyes, I focus on inhaling and exhaling slowly, as I trust Panta’s draikani to save us.
Within a few seconds, I’ve got enough control to feel fairly certain I won’t spew all over myself.
And then something changes. Ruxi starts to level out, no longer twisting through the sky.
The gusts of air wrapping around us with every flap of their wings disappears, as if they’ve decided to stop flying.
Daring to open my eyes, I look up and see why.
They’ve tucked their wings in tightly, gaze focused on the cavern that will take us back to the underworld.
They pull us closer, their body as small as they can make it, and pivot.
“Hold,” Wregen whispers, his voice landing in my ear as if he’s right next to me. When I turn to him again, he gives me the smirk he loves. “Wouldn’t want to lose you now that you’re finally starting to realize where you belong. Who you belong to.”
I’d flip him off if I wasn’t terrified to let go. I am, though, so I settle for giving him my fiercest sneer.
Within a few seconds, we’re shooting into the cavern, the herd of unicorns barely a dragon’s-length behind us.
But this is where their odd relationship with gravity slows them down.
Ruxi aims straight for the ground, spinning and swerving to avoid the arrows that still fly toward us.
The unicorns can’t. They circled the tunnel coming up, and do the same thing going down.
Before my heart beats a half-dozen times, we’re too far away for their bolts.