Page 14

14

Fenryr

The silver sun beams into my eyes, searing my retinas and blinding me to everything other than the sight of my mate floating toward me. Her beautiful feather wings flutter gently in the howling wind, reflecting the sunlight like millions of gleaming black diamonds.

Waiting for Malice to bring her to me is agony, more so than the pain throbbing from my shattered wings or the dozens of oozing, festering wounds that cover my body.

Malice lands silently on the ice, his hands curling protectively around the luminous creature in his arms. The light beaming from her pores casts a silver glow along the left half of Malice’s face, casting shadows along the hollow of his cheek and highlighting the soulless void of his damaged eye.

“Is this what you’ve been looking for?”

“ Yes, ” I whisper, reaching for the woman my soul has been yearning for—dying for. “ Give her to me. ”

A puff of vapor billows out from Malice’s nose as he clutches Dagny tighter to his chest, unwilling to let her go. “Only if you promise to give her back.”

My lip peels back in a snarl, my vision flickering with shadows. “ She’s MINE. Only mine.”

Malice’s eyes trail to the skies, another breath puffing from his chest. “I don’t have fucking time for this…” He takes another deep breath, closing his eyes in an attempt to calm his beast. “You can hold her until she wakes. But that’s all.”

He walks the last few feet to where I’m waiting, passing Dagny into my arms with an order I can’t hear past the violent rushing in my ears. Electricity flows through my veins as soon as I touch her, warming my chest and filling my eyes with tears. A desperate whimper echoes into the air as I push my face into her neck, needing her closer, needing to be inside her skin. To be the air she breathes, the moisture leaking from her eyes, the words rolling from her tongue. To occupy every single molecule that touches her, every object she lays her eyes on, every thought in her mind.

Even that would not be enough.

I pull back, my eyes glossing over as I stare down at my beautiful mate. Mine. Always mine. The bond settles with a great sigh of relief as I reach a hand up to her face, brushing the dark brown hair off her forehead, wishing I could stay in this moment for an eternity.

Dagny’s eyelids twitch gently, and a moment later, I’m blessed with the beautiful warm brown of her eyes. She stares unblinking, the silver ring around her iris gleaming with the same power as the sun.

“You’re so beautiful,” I whisper, my voice cracking. “So mine.”

Her lips part, but no words form. Instead, she reaches up, placing her little hand over mine with a look of wonder as the bond purrs in contentment. I’m about to lean in and kiss her when Malice’s voice sounds out, breaking me from my trance and dragging me back down to earth.

“I hate to break up the warm welcome, but we don’t have much time.”

I tear my gaze from Dagny, looking past the horizon to the spot where Slaine’s castle used to be standing. Sure enough, from the depths of the chasm, beneath the rubble and destruction, hundreds of bodies are starting to rise, dazed and hurt but still alive—calling out to the skies with promises of pain and revenge. Whether Slaine survived the chaos matters little—if he’s alive, he will want someone to answer for the destruction of his castle. If he’s dead, his remaining army will want someone to pay for their lord’s demise.

Malice shuffles over to Kaebl, pressing his palm to Kaebl’s shattered wing as a weak golden light flares to life. The skin begins to knit together, forced closed from the healing magic sputtering from Malice’s veins. But then the light dies—the wounds half-mended and bone still broken—and Malice falls back on his heels, his chest heaving and the color rushing from his face.

Sweat beads across his forehead as he leans forward, his face pinching as he attempts to fix the wing again. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. ” He shakes his head, trying a third time only for the golden light to sputter out faster than the last. “ No. This is not supposed to happen… ”

“What’s wrong?” Dagny asks, her groggy voice laced with worry. “Can I help?”

“Nothing,” Malice quickly answers. “And no, sweet thing. We can’t risk you using too much of that wonderful power too soon. Your mind is already so close to breaking.”

His brows furrow as he pushes the last of his magic into Kaebl’s wing, his skin growing paler the longer he tries. And with each passing moment, the cries of Slaine’s army grow nearer, rising from the depths of the rubble with the promise of revenge and death. We don’t have much longer before they’re on top of us, but we can’t leave Kaebl here. If he dies… we all do.

“Why isn’t it working?” Cyprien asks.

Malice doesn’t respond for a long minute, his eyes wide and fixed on Kaebl’s wing as if he can’t quite believe what’s happening. “Her wounds… I wasn’t… I didn’t have enough power to heal her and Fenryr and Kaebl… I knew it, but I couldn’t… I wouldn’t…”

Malice trembles, crumbling under the weight of his mistake, but the rest of us are silent for a different reason. Malice never does anything that would indirectly harm himself. He knew healing Dagny was the wrong thing to do in the moment, yet he still did it, knowing it might doom us all.

I gaze around the circle, taking in the injuries of the other soul piece. There’s no way we can run fast enough to escape, and Roark’s wings are useless, meaning it would take both Cyprien and Lir to carry him in their state. Dagny is the only one other than Malice who has use of her flight muscles, but it’s not like she has the experience to fly in a blizzard with a three-hundred-pound demon in her arms—not like she could carry me or Kaebl after she’s already used up too much energy.

I make eye contact with each of the demons, the same thought ringing throughout all our minds. We’re not going to make it out of this alive.

But Dagny still can. I gaze down at the beautiful creature in my arms, my chest aching at the thought of being apart from her, of death separating us. But it’s the only way.

I look toward Kaebl, who dips his chin in a terse nod. His golden eyes then trail to Malice, an unspoken conversation warring between the rivals.

Take her, Kaebl says, his eyes on Malice but his voice echoing into all of our minds. Fly as fast as you can to the space between worlds—get her as close to the doorway as you can. The rest of us will stay here and fight.

“No!” Dagny’s voice breaks the silence, filled with desperation. “No, you can’t! We’re all making it out of this alive!” She turns her head toward Malice, her eyes filling with unshed tears. “You promised! You promised we would all get out of there alive.”

“And we did, wildfire,” he whispers, stepping toward us with an expression pinched in agony. “But I made… I made a mistake. Now, we just have to make sure you live. As long as you’re okay… so is everything else.”

“No!” She fights against my hold as Malice reaches for her arm, her eyes filling with a blinding silver light. “No! There has to be another way!”

“There isn’t, sweet thing,” he whispers, his voice cracking heavily. “You can’t fly like this—not in a blizzard and not fast enough to escape them. Even if you could, you would have to carry one of us?—”

“Then let me do it!”

“Dagny…” Cyprien shuffles forward, his face set in stone. “You have to go now.”

“No!”

“Dagny, please, ” Malice begs. “Please… don’t fight this. We need to get you to safety. We need to get you away from here and back home.”

“I am home. With you all, I finally am,” she whispers.

Malice smiles, but it's not a happy one. “I know. And you’re mine —you are all of ours. Which is why we need to do this. Please let me do this, wildfire. Let me do this one good thing for once in my miserable fucking life.”

Dagny stares for a long minute, seeing past the mask I’ve worked so hard to build over the years. The one I didn’t realize I was wearing till I laid eyes on her.

“I’m sorry,” she says, the silver ring around her eyes spreading, consuming the color in a single blink. “But no. ”

She tears away from my grip, barreling toward Kaebl’s slumped form before Malice has a chance to stop her. “Wait!” he screams. “You can’t use any more magic!”

“I know,” she says, crouching down to wrap her arms around Kaebl’s torso. “I don’t need it.”

Dagny’s skin bursts with an iridescent glow as her feathered wings spread out, fluttering violently in the roaring blizzard. Sweat beads across her brow as her flight muscles strain, attempting to lift their bodies into the air.

A burst of power explodes from Dagny’s throat, filling the air with a scream that shakes the ground and cleaves the skies. Frozen in utter disbelief, I watch my mate—the most powerful being in this world—soar above the canopy, her beautiful wings staining the dark skies with brilliant inky feathers.

Too awestruck to move, to react, I stand on the ground, my heart following my mate into the atmosphere. Malice wraps his arms around my middle, pushing off the ice with a mighty roar as Lir and Cyprien carry Roark into the air.

We fly up, up, up, chasing the shadowy streak flying across the landscape. And from down below, a furious roar thunders across the distance, filled with enough hatred and rage to bring the castle to its knees a second time.

Slaine’s bellow fades to nothing more than a whisper as we continue our climb into the upper atmosphere, then disappears entirely as we cut horizontally through the sky, heading back into Abaddon’s territory.

But the fury lingers long after it’s gone.