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The soldier’s hold on me weakened, but that was all I needed. I shifted, then took flight, all of them save for my mother, who cut down two of Bron’s men, gazed up at me. One dived at her from behind, but though I wanted to turn back, I had to trust she could take care of herself.
Wolves were everywhere, but they were no match for the number of soldiers who continued to overrun and push them back. In a valley beneath the city, fires raging on behind the hundreds in battle, the king and some of his warriors fought back to back, one of them falling and Dade roaring for him to get up.
A sword entered the wolf’s eye, and though I knew he longed to, the king could not break free of the crowd surrounding him in order to help one of his friends—the only family he had left.
This was a bloodbath that would only cease with the king’s defeat.
Not even my mother, I noticed while craning my neck, could reason with the prince as the two of them barked at one another back in the small clearing of dead bodies.
Dade knew this, but I hoped he knew that even if he surrendered, the carnage would continue. That they would not stop.
That he could not stop.
There was no safe place, nowhere to land that would help me get to him, nowhere to—
Tiny balls, golden and aflame, launched from the city sky. I tucked my wings enough to fall, swooping low and almost getting tangled in an old oak. Then I saw them.
More elves, this time on the rooftops of city buildings, with catapults three times the size of them, likely dragged up there by the crimson Fae who were standing upon balconies, launching catapults and arrows of their own.
The fireballs hit their marks and did not bounce off them, but rather stuck to their targets as though spelled to land and destroy.
I met the ground atop the valley, hope infusing each lurching step as I broke into a run toward Dade and his assailants, and nearly laughed with a relief so heavy and wild that I couldn’t keep from smiling.
Fire smacked into two of the soldiers battling with Dade, taking them to the ground where they rolled and screamed. One clawed at his chest as the fire ate away at his skin, then fell silent when it incinerated his heart, while the other bashed his flaming face into the grass before falling still.
Dade collapsed to his knees, bleeding everywhere but still fighting—still managing to kill another with a weak bout of fire blazing from his hand to the human’s face while two more advanced on him.
The fire went out when its task was complete, smoke sizzling from the bodies into the cool night air. It had to be nearing dawn, which meant more help would hopefully arrive soon.
Maybe we could do this, stop this, if we kept working together.
Snatching up another forgotten sword, I hurried to Dade, ru
“Get up.” The words carried across the valley, but on his knees, he couldn’t stop it, fire sailing through the air and hitting not the soldiers with their swords meeting Dade’s but the group fighting a small ways behind them. “Get up, get up, get up.”
One of those swords met his side as he sliced the arm holding the other, and then he fell forward. The remaining soldier kicked him in the gut twice, then forced him to his back.
I was close enough now to see that Dade’s eyes were closed, but his weapons still twitched in his hand, lifted slightly, then fell. Fear struck me cold, weighing each step as I screamed his name, screamed for him to shift, but of course, he couldn’t.
He couldn’t shift, which meant… “Dade,” I screeched at the top of my lungs as that sword came down, poised to pierce through his chest.
Then he grabbed it.
His hand wrapped around the steel, and with a swiftness no one could have predicted, he pulled it and the soldier to the side. The man cursed, lurched, and fell over the king. They rolled down a small slope, and I raced after them, dodging a man with a mace who ran past me, wailing, his other hand on fire.
They came to a violent stop before a giant rock, and then I was taken to the ground, a fist in my shirt and a blade aimed at my nose.
My dagger was lost within the grass, as was my sword, but I gripped the soldier’s wrist before my face and sent a wave of heat into my hands. It startled him enough for me to plunge my heated fingers into his eyes. They bulged, then darkened. He screamed, black flowers exploding from where his eyes had once been.
A growl, and then a wolf launched at my attacker, tumbling with him into the ground behind me with earthshaking force. A one-eyed midnight black wolf tore at the soldier’s face, then leaped toward the king as I climbed to my feet.
Scythe didn’t make it, an arrow hitting his side. He rolled, shifting back into his Fae form to pluck it free before engaging in hand-to-hand combat with a bleeding soldier who sprang up from the grass.
I blinked, my vision blurring. Dade. I walked on, breaking into a run when I heard it.
A snarl vicious enough to tear down the moon as another blade sank into Dade’s side. He’d shifted. His white fur soaked in red and brown, too much for me to know whether it was his or someone else’s blood.
Both, I acknowledged with a rapidly sinking heart as he was forced back to his haunches, that same soldier now dead next to him, but another having taken his place.
Bron laughed, the sound spurring me faster, then lunged forward, too fast for Dade to dodge as he shifted back from his wolf form. He missed his heart but hit his shoulder, the sword pushing right through flesh and tendon.
Dade roared, the agony within heightening my rage as I snatched a sword from a fallen soldier’s open palm and circled behind Bron’s back.
Too lost to his attempt at another killing blow, the prince paid me no mind.
My blade hit home, sliding into the back of his neck…
At the same time, his sword cut through Dade’s chest.
They both collapsed, and I screamed, shoving the dead prince from Dade and stabbing him again in rage, ensuring he was as dead as dead could get. And then, with shaking hands, I turned back to my king.
To my mate.
A crack flooded my ears, a ravine opening and yawning wide inside me, filling and overflowing with blistering pain.
No. No, no, no.
“Dade,” I said, brushing his hair away from his face. “Savage.” I pushed at the gushing wound at his chest. Blood oozed between my fingers, so warm. Still warm. “Hey.” I leaned over him, nudging my forehead into his. “Hang on.” I sniffed. “Wait, okay? I’ll get help. I’ll get a healer.”
Twisting away, I looked for one while knowing I’d find none. None that weren’t already tied up helping others or dead. Though it was fading, the elves and citizens’ assistance having helped to gain more of an upper hand, the battle raged on.
No one was coming.
I didn’t care. I called for help, shouted for it until my voice grew hoarse, then gave my attention back to the king. “Open your eyes,” I demanded through gritted teeth. “Right now.”
Silence. So much silence when I needed the solid thud of his heart against my blood-soaked hands. But he couldn’t.
He couldn’t because I hadn’t, and we hadn’t had the time to… My eyes burned then flooded, that chasm inside me too large, too overpowering, too much to bear.