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I ron allowed himself one last memory of Anna’s smile before he buried it beneath the shards of his broken heart and attacked. He swung his ax high, sending an arc of blue flames clear through the mystic in front of him. The crackling sizzle and scream were the fuel that kept Iron’s legs pumping, his arms slashing. If he kept moving, kept chopping down the forest of charmers like so much overgrowth, he’d crowd out the billowing need to drop to his feet and grieve.

He ducked to the left, dodging a blow from an elite charmer, then swung back around and bashed his flaming mace into the side of the bastard’s head. Blood sprayed, then atomized within his fire. Iron was just about to swing his ax again when a booming command froze every charmer around him.

“Hold! He is mine.”

The crowd parted enough for Cyro to charge forward, bone swords swinging. Iron erupted and lunged for the demon ruler. With a mighty swing, Iron’s mace connected with Cyro’s shoulder, sending him crashing into a nearby boulder. Iron was getting ready to charge again, but a green light flared from Cyro’s chest and punched out on a tether to hit Iron squarely in his. He grunted, then roared as he was dragged toward the boulder like some animal on a lead. He tried to dig his heels in, but the pull was too strong. Cyro’s fist met Iron’s face when they collided. Bone crunched. Pain exploded behind his eyes. He stumbled back on his ass to the sound of taunting laughter.

It was all too much, yet not enough. The hits did nothing to fill the void of despair that blossomed like a chasm within his chest. All they did was annoy the fuck out of him. This wasn’t a warrior or anyone close to a worthy opponent. Cyro was simply the queen of the hive who’d grown fat on his drones. The true blow had already been dealt by Iron’s hand. He’d made it up here, hadn’t he? Left his whole life behind so those he loved could keep on living? Lost it all, including Anna and her child, for the sake of the realm?

And this piece of shit thought he could steal Iron’s focus away from what truly mattered?

Rage morphed into blind fury as Iron took in the smug bloodied grin painting Cyro’s face. It was a mockery of not only him but his brothers, the mates, Anna, and every soul they had ever saved. It flew in the face of all the emotions Iron had witnessed during his time among the mortals, every smile and sob that were as much a part of him as they were the human condition.

Iron threw his hands behind him, whipped his legs overhead, and vaulted backward so his feet were on the ground again. The flames of his and his brothers’ fire barricading the Empyrean cast a hellish hue on the scene before him. Thick, soupy orange mist choked the landscape while monstrous warriors as far as the eye could see surrounded themselves in dark magic capable of destroying not only any life imaginable but any souls as well.

This was what Cyro brought to the Empyrean’s doors and what he’d turn the highest realm of Heaven into. A barren wasteland with nothing but death, destruction, and eternal darkness.

And Iron was only one man. One sentinel. Against an army.

But he could still fly.

Iron took to the skies and, instead of firing his flames at Cyro, spun in the air and rained sheets of flames down on the front line of charmers. Many had shields up, but many didn’t, and he smiled as the sickening screams of engulfed demons rose around him, registering on Cyro’s smug-as-fuck face.

Black blood and dark fury coated the demon ruler’s visage, and Iron drank that shit up. “That was the wrong move,” Cyro warned.

“Was it? Because it looked really efficient.”

Cyro got to his feet, sank into a crouch, and crossed his bone swords in an X over his chest. Dark magic swirled about the blades, then arced through the air. Iron threw his flames out but couldn’t turn in time to block the blow entirely. His body twisted in midair while his wings took the brunt of the force, seizing them into stillness. Iron plummeted to the ground. Blood filled his mouth with the shock of the impact. When he tried to rise, the weight of his wings, now limp and useless, pulled him back down.

Cyro stalked toward him, grace and swagger filling every movement. “Poor downed little bird.” Then he tapped the tips of his swords together. The sound was like a beast’s canines sharpening each other.

Iron went to hurl his ax, but he’d lost the damn thing somewhere in the fall. Off toward his right, a charmer skulked forward, toed at something on the ground, and quickly slammed down its glowing shield, crushing the thing. Iron saw a burst of blue fire spread out beneath the shield’s rim, then extinguish on a hiss.

His ax.

Fuck.

Iron shot to his feet and spat blood on the ground. His equilibrium was barely hanging on. He still had his mace, thank the mages, and he swung it like the wild savage he’d become. Cyro threw up a blade just in time, but the force of Iron’s strike was too strong to withstand one-handed. One bone sword clamored to the ground. The demon ruler staggered, then recovered by gripping the tip of the remaining sword in one gloved hand while steadying the handle with the other. Iron poured every ounce of strength he had into the strike and was renewed when his efforts finally forced Cyro to take a step back.

A surge of satisfaction emboldened Iron’s muscles, and he pushed harder, hoping for one more inch to throw the bastard off-balance.

“Enough of this.” Cyro gritted his teeth and ducked out of the way, avoiding the head of the mace and sending Iron to the ground with the force of the feint. Startled but not stymied, Iron rose to his hands and knees, furious. The asshole was playing with him, letting him flounder and bob like a goddamn lure on a hook. Meanwhile, the press of charmers around him was churning, growing increasingly impatient with their lack of orders.

Already, his strength was waning. His muscles screamed in protest as he turned over, but he’d been far too slow.

Cyro jammed his glowing bone blade into Iron’s thigh and pushed past his armor, past his femur and tendons and muscle, until the tip popped clean through to the other side. Then an added striking force of dark magic shot into the weapon, dragging it deeper through Iron, finding an anchor in the ground beneath.

Iron roared and reached for the hilt, determined to pry it free, but when he grabbed it, the enchantment coating the weapon singed his hands with acid, which had already begun to eat away at his leg.

His vision dimmed at the corners. He tried to call upon his fire, but the pain drowned out his ability to focus.

Cyro stood next to Iron’s head and leaned his forearm over his knee. The relic at the bastard’s throat swung like a pendulum counting down the minutes until that army would be unleashed on the Empyrean. It was a taunting affront, and they both knew it.

“This has been a long time coming, Daegan . You fought well. But well isn’t good enough against me. You know that.”

Iron pursed his lips and spat blood all over Cyro’s chin. It was a weak parting shot, but it was all he had available.

Cyro smiled, letting the tracks of gore paint his features into a gruesome battle mask, and returned the favor, twisting the blade in Iron’s leg as a reward for his efforts. Breath ripped from him, and the chaos around him flickered in and out of focus.

When he tried to sharpen his gaze once more, Cyro turned to face his minions like a king holding court. “My children, I do believe we are late for an appointment.” Then he cocked his head back at Iron and grinned. “Give my regards to the rest of the sentinels. You shall see them soon enough.”

The swiping arc of Cyro’s long arm toward the Empyrean’s gates was the battle charge that had made up so many of Iron’s nightmares. Swarms of charmers fell upon the barricade with those damn enchanted shields chipping away and snuffing out the protective fires that had been erected so long ago. Anywhere a shield touched the sentinels’ celestial magic, the flames fizzled out and died down. Blood mixed with bile in Iron’s gut as entire rungs, now cleared of their wards, were being hacked to pieces and sawed through.

Iron let his head fall on the stone supporting him and couldn’t even feel the pain of the acid ripping through his leg. He just lay there, frozen, helpless.

Whether it was the pain or despair that forced his eyes closed, he didn’t know, but when the darkness stole him from his agony, the first thing it showed him was Anna, all smiley and sunny and wearing the new glasses he had given her.

Horror gripped him more tightly as he recalled her beauty, her heart, and the beating heart of her child. All perfect. All gone.

The truth of his realization dragged him further down into his pain, even as the victorious shouts grew louder beyond him.

“She was perfect,” he gasped around a mouthful of blood. “She and her child. They were perfect together. Perfect for . . .”

A sharp tug at a burgeoning thought pulled him away from the unconsciousness he so greedily sought. It was just a kernel, an immature seed of something, but the thing grew weightier the longer he latched on to it.

Mother. Child. The bond is always there, no matter how far apart they are.

He thought of the bond that brought him there, of his connection to the Empyrean that had stretched wider than anything could, despite the pervasive weakness of the link.

It had always been there. Would always be there. Calling the child home. The message just needed a vessel.

Iron’s eyes flew open, and he called forth the shard of the relic that had been absorbed into his armor and kept safe against his heart. Cyro still hovered near him, but his attention was diverted, held by the massacre at the gates. Working quickly, Iron palmed the shard and then, with his good leg, hooked the toe of his boot behind Cyro’s ankle and yanked him down. The demon tumbled forward, landing on top of him. The impact jostled the blade in Iron’s leg, spiking his pain and clouding his vision further.

But he didn’t need his vision.

He held Cyro by the neck and growled, “If you’re going to come for a sentinel, you better fucking kill him.”

Shard in hand, Iron swiped the remaining relic dangling from Cyro’s throat and summoned every ounce of fading strength into his muscles. Blue flames balled around the pair of relics in his fist. Then he pushed his power out so hard and fast, commanding his fire to carry the relics toward the Empyrean’s gates.

The long-forgotten pieces of the gates connected with their source, finally returning home. Fueled by Iron’s celestial powers, the gates exploded with magic and light. A fireball of Empyrean energy burst forth, incinerating every charmer on contact who had been attacking the gates and blowing Cyro off Iron. There was no time for any of those demons to scream, only die in a blazing blue inferno.

But a foreign sound of terror exploded through the mist around him. Cyro was on his hands and knees, trying to scramble toward the ashen remains of the charmer contingent that had just fallen. “No! No! ”

“Yes, motherfucker.” Iron reached out and grabbed Cyro by the ankle. The meager wisps of his fire were just enough to bond with the celestial power pouring off the gates. He pulled it all toward himself, every last ounce, using his body like a beacon. The connection was a thunderclap of power that left him and Cyro twitching and gasping, but for different reasons. The demon ruler writhed in Iron’s grip, bucking and bending to avoid the oppressive light any way he could.

But it was no use. Iron had seen this show before and knew how it ended.

Cyro, the creator and ruler of all demon charmers, gasped and shuttered as he twitched beneath the light’s onslaught. Blue flames curled up his body before the thing disintegrated into a puddle of ash at Iron’s feet. Across the misty acres cowering in the Empyrean’s shadows, more cries from charmers rang out, until the battlefield settled into a deathly silence.

The air buzzed around Iron, culminating in a jarring pop. His impaled leg twitched, and he sighed as Cyro’s dark magic that had fastened Iron to the ground steadily faded away. Relief kissed his temple like a cold towel to fevered skin, but he couldn’t lie there and soak it all in. Not yet. Able to touch the bone sword once more, Iron bit down on the handle of his mace and screamed as he yanked the weapon free of his thigh.

The dizzying pain was a new fresh hell. He groaned and rolled over to his side, grateful for the hard ground to cradle him instead of the grave he’d envisioned a breath ago.

Cyro was dead. Actually dead. Along with his armies of charmers.

It was an unfathomable reality to behold, and Iron would have let himself sink into it further were it not for the sizzling crackles of the compromised gates winking down at him.

He took a deep breath and let the reality of what he was witnessing soothe his rattled nerves.

He was staring at the gates of the Empyrean, which no longer needed to remain sealed.

Iron tried to stand on one leg, hoping like hell the celestial light from the Empyrean’s gates would speed his healing along at, say, Superman-level speed. No dice. While the acid burns had stopped actively chewing his flesh to pieces, there was no hope for using his mutilated leg until it healed more.

His wings, on the other hand . . .

Iron forced himself up onto his good knee and tried to spread his wings wide. Like old friends stiff with arthritis but still up for a good time, they creakily stretched out on either side of him. Now free of Cyro’s magic and mostly restored, they lifted him from the ground and carried him toward the one door he never thought he’d see again. He didn’t know how much time he’d spent staring at the monumental structure. A minute? A handful of seconds? Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. He was finally home.

Iron descended upon the center of the gates, gripped two of the rungs on either side of the port’s main fastener, and, using his good leg as leverage, pulsed his power into the central locking mechanism. A muted resonance swept through his core, and he used his feeble strength to pull the gates wide open.

If the raspy breaths wheezing from him were anything worth collecting, the light that poured out would have stolen all of them.

But he was too exhausted to catch the show. It didn’t even feel like anything worth tuning in for, not when a far-more-pressing bone-deep weariness sat on his shoulders and insisted he sleep.

Just . . . sleep.

If I can sleep, I can dream. Maybe I’ll see . . .

With his eternal charge finally completed, Iron surveyed the battlefield as he drifted to the ground. Good and empty, as it should be. Flat on his back, he was content to let the Empyrean’s light get to work on healing the parts of him that could be physically stitched up. But a hollow ache kept knocking at him behind his ribs that had nothing to do with the painful bone, muscle, and sinew regrowth he was in store for.

He’d destroyed Cyro. Wiped out the charmers. Opened the gates to a home that he and his brothers had long been sealed out of.

He was finally fucking home , and down to the very essence of his soul, he knew there was zero truth to that statement.

His heart, his true home, had been in a comfortable modest mountain cabin with questionable plumbing, rich charm, and a woman he’d loved more than the spark lighting his soul.

He loved Anna. Fuck, he loved her, and she was gone.

A trembling sensation stirred within his chest, but he choked it back. Later, he would find a time to properly grieve and care for the few memories he had of her. Mages dammit , but there were so precious few of them.

And then another memory alighted itself upon his mind. One from only a few moments ago.

Helpless to leave that particular scab alone, Iron sat up and looked out at the battlefield. The very empty battlefield. He scanned as far toward the horizons as his celestial senses would go, and when they all came back just as vacant as when he’d sent them out, Iron dropped his head into his hands and yanked at his hair for all his damn foolishness.

There was no severed arm of Anna’s winking back at him from the battlefield, and there never had been. It had vanished along with Cyro and the rest of the prick’s dark magic.

It had all been an illusion meant to trap and coerce Iron into battle, and it had worked.

Which also meant that Anna had never been dead at all and was still very much alive.

Alive and waiting for him to come home.

And with the full healing light of the Empyrean beating down and returning his powers to him, nothing was stopping him from doing just that.