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OBSIDIAN

I cradle my son. He’s perfect. None of my agony transferred to him, the curse of my blood that torments me. He’s got her nose, and I gently stroke his cheek, feeling his smooth skin.

Mine is marred. I’ve gone through hell. The scent of my Mate is in my nostrils as Fay holds me, unable to even wrap her arms around my bulk, sobbing tears of relief into my side.

She’s relieved that I’ve been brought back from the dead.

She still doesn’t know that the horrors have just begun. This close to me, my pain is soothed, the volcanic burn of my veins that I grew up with cleansed. Only she can assuage my torture.

I hand my child to her, gently, like he could shatter into a thousand pieces, and search her eyes and aura for any sign of disgust.

I know what I’ve become. My melted flesh, my scarred body, my DNA poisoned by the nuclear blast. I’m a shell of what I used to be. A monster. I kiss her on her forehead, and she doesn’t recoil.

My mind is full of her. Yet, it’s emptied.

I had so many pinpoints of consciousness. Eighty percent of the warships and sentry drones were blotted out in an instant, ripped out of existence by the mad queen.

She did the unthinkable.

She, and her Imperial triad, unleashed the Planet-Killers. My network of eyes was not enough. They slipped through the cracks, the ships barely bigger than Reavers, and they waited to unleash death.

Thirty-two planets, my mind recoiling from the number. Scorched earth. All those who opposed her, the trillions of lives, innocent civilians and so many of my soldiers, snuffed out. I was linked to every Reaver, to every battle-station and orbital defense.

I heard the screams of their last messages as they were pulled into the Rift and annihilated.

I send out one message to those that survive, like how I used to speak to my wolves who recuperate in my vile, oily veins.

“Stand down.”

In the face of her madness, and with my Mate and son at my side, my resolve is broken.

I spent long days in the temples, the black waters coursing over my body.

I listened to the Priests and their prophecies.

That I alone would sit on the throne of the Aurelian Empire.

That I would forge our species into the sword and shield that could defend the universe from the things that lurk in that place between reality.

They told me stories of conquest. Of war. That I was retribution for the sins of the Empire, for their sloth, their greed, their laziness.

That my rage would melt down the failing society, that I would hammer us into something stronger.

Instead, it was her.

Queen Jasmine. It was she who was more cold-hearted than I ever could be. I thought I would break her. That when her firstborn was cut down by my sword, she would lose her resolve.

Instead, Doman sacrificed his life to trade it for mine, leaving himself open to a killing blow to give himself a singular chance to drive his blade through my heart. I run my hand over my scarred flesh, feeling where the searing blade burned into me.

I know what it is to die now.

To have my final thoughts filled with horror of comprehension, that comprehension that even warriors don’t let infect them. That it was all over. That I would never feel my Mate again.

It broke me.

“Stay here,” I tell my Mate. I tear myself from her, each step as I walk from my Mate and son torture.

It’s not just the burning that starts in my veins the second I stray from her.

It’s leaving her unguarded. All I want is to run away with them, to go back to how things were, so long ago, before I knew that there were others like me.

I leave the hilt of my blade on the black sands that drank my blood, and walk towards the triad who cut me down.

Around me, the stands are packed with worshipers. I led so many of them to death. I crane my head up, glancing at my empty black throne.

Two of my most trusted advisors, ancient priests who have lived thousands of years, are speaking together in hushed tones. They leave the arena.

They just watched me cut down. I felt myself die.

I’m no longer a God. I’m no longer the invincible warlord.

I’m just a man, who’s already lost everything once.

Doman’s hand slips down to his belt, where the hilt of his blade rests. Titus steps forward, with a warning glance in his amethyst eyes. I open my hands, showing I have no hidden weapon, and stop ten feet from him.

“Doman. This war can’t go on.”

Cold blue eyes stare back at me. He is his mother’s son. Her blood courses through his veins, and he will stop at nothing to win.

“Surrender.”

One word, an order, his lips curling back as hatred flashes in his eyes. He felt me crush his battle-brothers and rip them from his mind.

He felt the pure emptiness of losing the aura of men he has been linked to for centuries. Then he felt his own life drain.

I look back at Fay. She’s so pale, from being trapped under the palace, rarely seeing the sun.

She’s endured so much. All I want is to go back in time, to my birth planet, before I had ever heard of the Priests or the Aurelian Empire.

When I lived like an animal in my cave, my wolf brothers at my side, hunting for fresh meat. I was in paradise with her.

Until Queen Jasmine’s men hunted me down.

Until the Priests found where I lived, and saw the birthmark on my heart that marked me as their leader. They tried to make me into their puppet.

Maybe I was.

“Grant clemency for my men, that your Queen Mother will not punish them.” I swallow. “I know my fate, Doman. Don’t let my actions damn anyone else.”

I’ll have my head cut off in the Arena of the Gods, broadcasted to the universe. There’s nothing I can do to stop it.

If she’s willing to use the Planet-Killers on worlds filled with humans, she’ll use them anywhere I set up a home. Anywhere my men gather will be blotted out of existence.

“There are no conditions.” Doman’s pitiless gaze pierces me. “Surrender, Obsidian, and tell them to lay down their swords. It’s over.”

I pull the drones down lower. They are linked to my mind. I thought the surgery and my mastery of the Rift would win me this war.

I had no idea what they were willing to do.

I could set the drones against him. I could pull the Reavers from their bays and have them fire down death on this triad.

But if I did, the Emperor and the spider of a queen would do things to me and my Mate I couldn’t dream of. I threatened her. I told her I’d torture her spawn for eternity in the Rift.

It was a bluff, to keep my Mate safe.

But if she had that power, she would use it against everyone I love.

I pilot the drones down lower to get a view of my surrender.

“I surrender to the Aurelian Empire. I beg mercy for my warriors, who followed a false God.”

“On your knees.”

He glances down at his smart-watch as he speaks, and I understand. It’s not him. He’s a conduit for his parents, and they want my humiliation to be complete, so that no one will ever confuse me for a God again.

I drop to my knees. I can’t fight this. I can’t fight an enemy willing to annihilate trillions of lives in an instant. Not when I was killed in front of the universe, shown to be nothing more than a mortal. My armies would splinter off, even if I tried to rally them.

“I surrender.”

“You will come to Colossus, to answer for your transgressions. Along with your Mate.”

I look up at him, with pleading eyes, and his Mate squeezes his arm. With a grimace, he glances down at his watch, then back to me. “You have my word, Obsidian, your son and your Mate will be safe. I pledge it, by my authority as Crown Prince of the Aurelian Empire.”

“Thank you,” I whisper, because I know that came from him, and not his mother’s orders. He’s making a public statement to force her hand, so that even as I am slain, my bloodline will survive.

Doman points to his Reaver. The door is open. I glance back at Fay, whose aura is screaming in my mind. She endured so much, a captive of my enemies, and now she will lose me.

My son will be safe.

“Stay back. You can only make this worse,” I telepath to her. She ignores me, walking over the black sands to me. Side by side, we go into the crown prince’s Reaver. Titus follows us, and barks the order to get into the cell at the back of the ship.

“We can’t escape. Please, Titus. The queen mother can’t see us here. You don’t need to throw us into a cell,” says my Mate, her voice soft, without an ounce of resistance.

Titus looks at me, then to her, his amethyst eyes trailing over my son. He swallows. I know his anger. With a scowl, he points to one of the bedrooms. I go in with my mate, into the sterile whiteness, and the door locks shut behind me.

“Fay...”

“Shhh,” she says, and we sit on the bed together, feeling each other in our minds, the terrible ring gone from her finger, and then, the mighty War-God, the man who killed thousands, who led fanatics, a man raised by wolves.

.. I am all those things, but they melt away as I sit silently by my Mate, and the tears flow freely from my eyes that have seen too much.

She cradles my head against my lap as I weep, her touch so much more than I deserve.