Page 41 of Horns of Wicked Ebony (Deathcaller Duet #2)

My self control shattered . “Selfish desires? My selfish desires? Who do you think all of this is fucking for?” I took a menacing step around the table. The strike of my boot against the ground was louder than the storm outside.

Xannirin stood his ground and didn’t relent in his contempt. “If your focus is on her, you won’t win. You said so yourself before you left. It’s because of her that we’re losing. Again .”

“Watch your mouth,” I snarled, attempting to restrain myself from pummeling him into the ground. This discussion was going nowhere good with how he kept pushing me with Assyria.

“What happened to you, Rokath? Clearly sinking your cock into the cunt of your mate has made you weak and thrown you off your game.” Xannirin laughed, but it was a dry, jaded sound that scraped at the primal beast inside me.

Red coated my vision as I swung. Xannirin ducked to dodge the blow, but I was prepared for his counter.

With my left hand, I uppercut, landing squarely on his jaw.

The blow knocked him backward, and the air whooshed from his lungs as he thudded against the ground.

I stalked forward and drove my heavy boot into his chest. From my thigh, I unsheathed a dagger and flipped it end over end, not caring which side I caught.

Xannirin coughed, his eyes widening. Lightning cracked again, highlighting his fear in sharp relief.

“Who the fuck do you think this Fates damned war is for?” I repeated my earlier question, pressing more of my weight down. Trust in our alliance had clouded my judgment too long. I needed to hear his true answer to confirm what I already suspected.

“The Demon race–” Xanirin started, but I cut him off with the force of my boot.

“Do not give me that horseshit, Xannirin.” Shadows unfurled from my fingertips, swirling around my arms in a violent frenzy. If he wouldn’t confess, I would make him. He’d always broken when army tactics had been used on us as younglings.

“I am your Kral ,” Xannirin snarled, eyeing my magic like he too recalled our fathers’ abuse from this very room. “You will respect that, Rokath.”

“I’m not one of your precious nobles,” I spat. “You do not command me. You do not compel me.”

“Oh, but I do,” he snapped. “And if I say jump, you fucking jump. If I say we’re not having females in the fucking army, then we’re not having females in the fucking army.”

Too late, I noticed the dark tendrils gathered in his hands. With a jerk, he flung them at me, knocking me off balance. In seconds, he was on his feet, dipping into a fighting stance.

“Like you would know anything about winning a battle,” I bit out, sliding my foot back and tensing my muscles in anticipation of the fight.

“So what, I’m supposed to return to Uzhhorod lauding your new strategy after you lost fifty thousand soldiers ?

Oh, and that strategy now involves allowing females to volunteer for the cause?

The noble houses will riot. They were already on edge before you left, and after this, they’ll mutiny.

How am I supposed to spin this so I stay on the throne?

” With each word, his face turned a deeper shade of red.

“Yes, because that’s all you care about, Xannirin.

That’s all you’ve ever cared about.” Darkness expanded as I allowed myself to feel everything I’d smothered for so long.

“All of this has always been for you . Your vision for ruling all of Keleti, inspired by your talks with monarchs from other worlds. Saving the Demon race was always the mask for your true ambitions, and you’ve sacrificed nothing to get it. ”

A cold, furious expression slid over Xannirin’s face. Obsidian spilled on the floor as his own magic rose to meet mine.

“Stop it, both of you!” Kiira screeched, stepping between us. Without even looking, I flung onyx threads in her direction and pinned her to a plush chair. My entire focus was on my cousin, the Kral, who had sucked everything from me and deigned to tell me that I could not protect my mate.

“I am the Fates-given leader of all the Demons. Not you,” he boomed, ropes of pitch sweeping toward my feet. But he was sloppy from years of disuse, and I was fresh off the battlefield. Wielding my magic like whips, I snapped them away.

“Have you really come to believe all the stories we spun? When did our propaganda become your reality?” I demanded, my voice crackling with more energy than the storm outside. We’d crafted these stories to save the Demons. Not for his fucking ambition alone.

“There was never a question of its truth,” Xannirin snarled, twisting his fingers and enshrouding himself in onyx.

“We were simply informing the populace of it. Me, the Fates-given leader. You, the Fates-given hero. Kiira, the Fates-chosen Seer. What else is our magic for if not for me to rule for millennia to come?” His words were smooth as glass, exactly how he talked circles around the nobles to compel their compliance.

Yet they also gave me pause. Because I realized then that the narrative had become part of my story too. But I distinctly remembered its origins, and while his words held a semblance of truth, I was still humble enough to admit I was fallible.

“Before we walked down this path, we decided we were equals. Or have you forgotten in all your years of living in luxury and peace?” I asked, the words bitter.

My neck muscles bulged for how hard I forced restraint upon myself.

I couldn’t—wouldn’t—let his mastery of cunning and manipulation distract me from the task at hand: fixing what we broke.

“Yet the people listen to me above all others,” he snapped back.

I was getting fucking tired of his delusion.

Kiira and I had destroyed ourselves for his ambition, and he couldn’t see that.

With a growl, I reminded him exactly how much power I wielded.

“I control the fucking army. Do not press me, Xannirin. As much as I loathe the idea of ruling, I could kill you and take your throne within a second of making that decision. After all, look how easily I slaughtered our fathers.”

His teeth flashed, and he threw more magic at me.

But I was fucking ready as years of resentment boiled to the surface.

Dodging his attack, I leaped, catching him around the middle and sending us careening to the floor.

We landed with a heavy thud, my dagger clattering away.

I wasted no time in rearing back and cocking my fist. With an animalistic snarl, I slammed it down.

At the last second, he whipped his head to the side, and I collided with the hard stone.

The pain didn’t even phase me. I struck again while Kiira screamed at me not to kill him. Xannirin grabbed my arm before I could bloody his lip further and rolled me off him. We squared off, shadows disappearing as we prepared to fight bare-knuckled.

“Assyria has shown me the ways we need to change,” I snapped at him. “That’s why she is essential. Because we were walking the wrong path.”

“Assyria is nothing more than a murderous fallen. She should have been burned for her crimes the moment you discovered them.” Xannirin swung, but I caught his fist and twisted his arm around his back, pinning him to my chest. He struggled for a moment before relenting.

Otherwise, I would have had no qualms about tearing up his shoulder.

“Rokath, stop!” Kiira screeched, thrashing against my magic restraints. “Assyria is the best thing to happen to you. You deserve her. You deserve happiness. You are not alone in your grievances with Xannirin!”

Her last statement, more than any other, made me pause. The beast thrashing inside me, begging me to make Xannirin pay for claiming to be able to protect my mate better than me, for saying she should have been killed, still fought for me to continue.

Dragging in a breath, I smacked it like an errant soldier into submission. I tore my attention to my female cousin. “What did you say?”

“I resent Xannirin too,” she repeated, her lower lip trembling. A tear spilled over and clawed down her cheek. Xannirin attempted to shift in front of me, but I tightened my grip on his arm.

Kiira swiped at her eyes. “When I got your letter, or I should say, intercepted it, I felt relief like I’d never known. I felt like I could breathe again. Xannirin wasn’t the one who brought the females here without question. It was me.”

The air fled my lungs as I beheld my cousin.

At the time, a hint of suspicion had curled in my gut when the only reply I received was a confirmation of their imminent departure.

I’d been relieved, believing they both trusted my decision.

Yet as the image of it appeared in my mind again, I realized the note was written in Kiira’s handwriting.

I snarled in Xannirin’s ear. “Is this true?”

Xannirin nodded, ruby spilling from his nose and onto his tunic. “That’s why they’re all priestesses. She didn’t even tell me until the day before she was set to leave.”

With their statements, composure slipped within my reach. My racing heart slowed and clarity returned to my thoughts. With a wave of my hand, I released the onyx binding Kiira to the chair.

Immediately, she rose, coming to my side. With gentle care, she wrapped her hands around my arm and tugged. Surrendering to her request, I eased off Xannirin.

He stepped away and spun, backing into a nearby couch for protection.

My attention never left him. “To win, we need females to fight too. We need them to help in other ways. They can help in other ways.”

“How will we control the people then?” Xannirin snapped, using the hem of his tunic to clean off the blood on his face. “With the females subservient, we only needed to convince the males.”

“I think we’ve got the populace well in hand,” Kiira said, crossing her arms and glaring at him.

“The stories we spun have most believing that we’re essentially Gods who walk the earth.

Those who do not, you can deal with as you always have.

Rokath and I have done plenty of work to ensure we are venerated like the Fates themselves. ”

“Aye,” I agreed, cracking my neck to relieve some tension. Xannirin didn’t move, and I sensed we were finally getting somewhere. “Not only that, but now we have Assyria too. Her magic is powerful and useful. It is because of her we rescued Banand.”

Xannirin sucked in a sharp breath. “He’s alive?”

“Yes, and we can use him, just as we can use other females, to turn the tide back in our favor once more. He insisted he remain at the front to help Trol rather than return here to recuperate. There are people who want to fight, Assyria included, because they believe in saving the Demons too. We are going to let them.”

The storm raged outside, rain pounding harder against the windows as if to further my point.

“Perhaps we should call it a night and meet again in the morning when we’ve all had time to think on what’s been said tonight,” Kiira suggested, her posture softening.

“Tempers have run hot, and I know the two of you well enough to know neither of you will yield anything else until you’ve had time to calm down. ”

A muscle feathered in my jaw as Xannirin and I glared at one another. She was, unfortunately, right.

“Besides, what we built over centuries will not tumble down in a single night. This will all take time. And we will do it,” Kiira said, offering Xannirin a look hot enough to burn.

Our cousin pressed his bloody lips together like he was attempting to refrain from disagreeing.

I gave him my back and poured myself another measure of scale. One shot, then another, seared my gut. Kiira joined me, downing the last of her wine.

“Where are you staying?” I asked her when Xannirin made no move to join us.

She shrugged. “I have my own room just below, but I figured I would call for a cot to be brought to Rapp’s, just in case he needed tending in the night.”

“He’s lucky to have a friend like you.” I dropped my voice and angled myself so Xannirin couldn’t overhear my next words. “As I am blessed by the Weaver to have a cousin like you.”

She offered me a soft smile. “And I you. We’ll convince him. Together.”

Squeezing my hands, she backed away and fetched her veil.

After settling it and the circlet over her head, she paused.

Then, she took them both off again and tucked them into a pocket in her dress.

“Starting tomorrow, no more veils for me. Or any of the priestesses here. Assyria has already made her stance on it, and I will not allow her to receive the stares of everyone for it. The first step for females being seen as equal is to remove the very thing keeping us hidden. ”

Silence lingered for a moment. Then, Xannirin blew out a long breath. “Whatever you wish, Kiira.”

“Exactly,” she said, her words harsher than the lightning arcing through the sky. “Now, I will retire for the evening as I know exactly how early that gong rings.”

“Good night,” Xannirin and I said simultaneously as she swept out of the room.

Then, the two of us were alone. After another shot of the spicy alcohol, I offered him a final threat. “You will treat Assyria as an equal to us, as you treat Rapp. No more attitude or threats like you offered her at dinner. Am I clear?”

“Abundantly,” he replied, though I didn’t miss the sarcasm in his tone.

He shifted from foot to foot, and I waited for what he would say next.

“I can’t imagine how you felt once you realized the Angels had her.

It’s not a situation I would ever wish upon anyone, let alone the one person who has been by my side since we were younglings. ”

His words dulled the edge of my anger toward him, but I didn’t trust that they weren’t carefully chosen to do just that. “Actions speak louder than words,” I reminded him. Then, I grabbed my shirt and left him standing in the middle of a storm of his own making.