Chapter 9
Well, drek.
That went well.
Not.
I half-rose from my chair, every instinct inside me screaming to storm after her, seize her by the wrist, drag her back, and make her listen. To remind her what she was—and what that meant. What she was to me.
But I froze, the only thing that moved on me were my fingers as they curled into fists at my sides.
What in all the Abyss was I supposed to do?
This—this—was not how it was meant to work.
The bond should have bound us instantly, seamlessly, as it had for my father and his Aelyth, as it had for all Arkhevari before the severing. Recognition. Acceptance. Balance.
Not this chaos. Not this firestorm of rage and attraction and denial, tearing me apart with every breath.
I pressed my palms flat against the table, and my aura crackled in dark colors wildly around me.
Gold flared, red surged, black licked at the edges, threatening to consume me. I forced it back, grinding my teeth.
She was supposed to fall into my arms, not storm out of them.
Her temper. Drek, her temper was arousing.
No Arkhevari, no warrior, no one had ever dared stand against me like that, spit fury in my face, jab her finger into my chest, storm away as if I were some spoiled prince to be dismissed.
It shouldn’t have mattered. It shouldn’t have sunk its claws into me. But it did.
I’d had my share of release on Auris Prime.
Like the rest of my brothers, I’d taken females when the hunger clawed too deep, when battle-lust and blood left us raw and burning.
Mortal females eager for a night in the arms of a god, who left just as quickly as they came, whose memories of what happened faded with the dawn.
But I had never wanted one, not like this.
I never wanted to own, to claim, to brand one with my name and power until there was no question, no doubt. Never wanted to hear one surrender to me, scream my name as proof that she was mine and mine alone.
I swore under my breath, raked a hand through my hair, and watched my aura turn into a tornado of red and black. The Abyss help me, if I followed Ella now—if I caught her in this mood—I wasn’t sure what I would do to her.
There was only one path left. Only one thing ever cooled the fire in me.
Battle.
I needed the battlefield. My second-in-command would already be rallying the lines, preparing for the next wave of Mmuhr’Rhong. He needed me, and I needed the blood and fury to burn this madness out of me.
Yes. A good battle.
I shoved away from the table, the stone groaning under my palms, and stalked forward. If war couldn’t silence the chaos she had woken in me… nothing would.
A heartbeat later, I was there, standing in the ruin-fields where the clash never ceased.
The ground trembled beneath my boots, split open with gashes of light from the Abyss itself.
The sky boiled black and red above, lit by the shrieks of Mmuhr’Rhong tearing out of the void.
Their pale hides gleamed in the half-light, their eyes glowed with that sick, hungry fire.
“Praetor.”
Korvath was at my side instantly, bowing once before straightening to his full height. Taller even than me, his silver-black armor was already streaked with ichor, his eyes burned bright crimson with battle lust. Loyal. Unshakable. My second for longer than I could count.
“The lines are holding,” he reported, in a steady voice despite the chaos all around us. “They pressed harder last night. It took three phalanxes—armies— to force them back.”
I let my aura flare, black sparking through the gold until the nearest Mmuhr’Rhong reeled back with a screech. My sword materialized in my hand, and its molten light poured from its edges.
“Then we press harder,” I snarled.
Korvath's grin was sharp and cruel, the grin of a warrior who lived for this. “As you command, Praetor.”
For the first time since Ella stormed from my hall, the chaos in my chest sharpened into something I understood.
War.
The first wave broke against us in a spray of blood and ichor— the Mmuhr’Rhong substance.
My sword cut through two, three, four of the pale beasts before the stench even hit me.
They shrieked, their glowing eyes turned wide with that feral hunger of theirs, and their claws tore at the ground as though they could rip open reality itself.
I carved a path through them, my aura flaring blacker than it should.
Korvath was moving in perfect rhythm at my side.
His blade sang, precise where mine was brutal, disciplined where mine was wrath.
“Praetor,” he called over the roar of the battlefield, “they’re pressing harder.”
“I can see that,” I snarled, driving my sword through a Mmuhr’Rhong’s chest, its screech splitting the air before it fell to the ground to be trampled like so many others.
Korvath pivoted, cleaving another in half, ichor spattering across his armor.
“They’re probing. Testing us. If they break through here, the portal will be exposed. ”
My aura crackled hotter, red bleeding into black. “They won’t reach it.”
“You know what they want.” Korvath’s voice was grim, steady, even as he drove his blade through another throat. “They’ve been clawing at Nox Eternum since before the Arkhevari set foot here. The Abyss is their womb, their cradle, but Auris Prime—”
“—is their feast,” I finished, as rage twisted my chest. “They want to corrupt it. To spread their hunger into every world seeded by the Portal and beyond. To devour everything we fight to protect.”
A shriek split the night as a larger Mmuhr’Rhong burst through the lines, towering above the rest. Its hide was ridged with bone, its eyes burning like coals, and in its claws it carried the shredded armor of one of my soldiers.
I roared, the sound ripping from me like fire, and launched forward, my sword a comet of gold and shadow.
Korvath moved with me, his blade carving clean arcs that sent the beast stumbling.
“We hold the line,” Korvath said, his voice cold steel. “Or everything dies.”
I cut the monster down, my aura flaring black in the aftermath, the air shaking with the violence of it. I growled, “Even if it kills us.”
The Mmuhr’Rhong swarmed again, a tide of pale flesh and glowing eyes. And for a moment—for a precious, burning moment—I was not thinking of Ella, or the chaos she’d awakened in me.
I was Praetor of War again. I was rage, I was blade, I was storm.
And gods help anyone who tried to breach my lines.