Page 27 of Night Fae (Monsters of Veridia #3)

Behind Leon stood a tall figure with midnight blue hair and eyes that shone like stars. Yuri. The rogue Barrier Keeper watched them approach, his expression calm, almost satisfied.

"You're earlier than I expected," Yuri said, voice carrying easily despite the distance. "But not unwelcome. In fact, your presence here completes something I've been working toward."

"Let him go," Daniel demanded, straining against Caelen's arm.

Yuri smiled. "Leon isn't a prisoner. He's a collaborator."

"Collaborator in what?" Caelen's voice held dangerous calm. "Breaking down the barriers between worlds? Creating chaos?"

"Creating healing," Yuri corrected. "The barriers are unnatural constructs—prison walls between realms that were meant to be one."

Zev studied the ritual circle. The symbols were unfamiliar but clearly powerful. "And what happens to those caught in the collapse when your healing destroys everything they know?"

"Everything will be reborn," Yuri replied. "Everything and everyone . Wouldn't you like that, night fae?"

Zev's hand moved to his sword. "Don't pretend to know me."

"But I do know you," Yuri smiled. "I know all of you. I've been watching for longer than you realize."

Daniel stepped forward, breaking free of Caelen's grasp. "Leon! Leon, can you hear me?"

Leon's eyes remained closed, his body rigid as energy continued to flow through him.

"He can hear you," Yuri confirmed. "But he cannot respond. The mapping ritual requires his complete concentration."

"Mapping?" Knox asked.

"The weak points between worlds." Caelen's eyes narrowed. "He's using Leon to find where the barriers can be most easily broken."

"Precisely." Yuri inclined his head toward Caelen. "Shadow King, always so perceptive. Yes, I'm mapping the fracture points. Breaking something is always easiest when you know exactly where to stab your blade."

"Why Leon?" Daniel demanded. "Why use him?"

Yuri smiled. "Leon and I have been working together for a very long time. I could not have accomplished all of this without him."

"You're lying!" Daniel insisted.

"Am I?"

Zev felt the air shift as Yuri drew magic to himself. His hand went to his own blade, but Knox stopped him from attacking.

"Not yet," the incubus whispered. "We need to break the ritual first."

Daniel called Leon's name again, more desperately this time. For a moment, Leon's concentration seemed to waver. His eyelids fluttered, and the energy flow faltered.

"Leon," Daniel pressed. "It's me. Look at me."

Leon's eyes opened, glazed and unfocused. "Daniel?" His voice sounded distant, confused. "I'm sorry. I didn't know... I didn't…."

Yuri's expression hardened. "Enough of this." He made a sharp gesture, and the ritual circle flared with renewed power. Leon gasped, his back arching as energy surged through him once more.

Before any of them could move, a cold voice cut through the shifting reality of the Fields.

"Well, isn't this convenient? All our targets in one place."

Zev spun toward the voice, ice flooding his veins. Emerging from the mist were ten figures in the black and silver of the Night Court. At their head stood Andras, his grandmother's half-fae lieutenant and commander of her personal guards.

"Prince Ashelon sends his regards," Andras said with a mocking bow. "Particularly to you, traitor." His eyes fixed on Zev.

"Take Leon and go," Zev told the others, drawing his sword. "I'll handle them."

Knox cursed under his breath. "Don't be stupid. There are too many."

Caelen pushed Daniel behind him, ice crystallizing around his fingertips. "The incubus is right for once. We fight together." His tone made it clear this was a tactical decision, not one born of camaraderie.

The Night Court soldiers attacked as one, their movements in perfect coordination. Zev blocked a thrust from the first to reach him, spinning to slash at a second. Beside him, Knox engaged three guards while Caelen's ice magic lashed out at two more.

Daniel darted toward Leon, ducking beneath a soldier's swing. He reached the ritual circle and grabbed Leon's arm, trying to pull him away from the glowing symbols.

Yuri made no move to stop him. Instead, the Barrier Keeper stepped back, watching the chaos with calculated interest.

"The amulet," Caelen shouted to Daniel. "It disrupts magic. Press it against the circle's edge."

Daniel fumbled for the pendant, then slammed it against the ground where one of the symbols glowed brightest. There was a flare of power, a sound like glass shattering, and the ritual circle went dark.

Leon collapsed forward, Daniel barely catching him before his head hit the ground.

Zev cut down another guard, spinning to check on Daniel's progress. The human had managed to get Leon to his feet, though Leon looked dazed and disoriented.

"We need to go," Knox called, his blade dripping with dark blood. "Now."

Yuri observed them impassively. "This changes nothing." He stepped backward, his form beginning to blur. "We will meet again, when the walls between worlds are thinner still."

As Yuri faded from sight, the remaining Night Court soldiers pressed their attack with renewed fury.

"The way we came," Caelen ordered, ice spears impaling two guards at once. "Stay together."

They began to retreat, Daniel supporting Leon, while Caelen cleared a path with devastating ice magic. Knox covered their left flank, and Zev took the rear position, facing the remaining soldiers.

Andras stepped forward, his face twisted in contempt. "Running again, Zev? Just like when you fled without your werewolf?"

Zev's grip tightened on his sword.

"Your father sends a message," Andras continued, circling to Zev's right. "About your human pet."

Zev kept his expression neutral, though his heart pounded in his ears.

"Such fascinating results from our experiments," Andras's smile was cruel. "He should be quite valuable to us. Lady Morvena has plans for him—assuming he survives the extraction process."

Red edged Zev's vision. Andras was obviously baiting him.

Zev should ignore him.

He should retreat.

But Malik's face flashed in his mind.

Promise you'll come back. To me.

"Tell my father," Zev said, voice lethally soft, "that if he touches Malik again, I will burn the Night Court to the ground and sow the ashes with salt."

Andras laughed. "Bold words from a traitor who cannot even save himself." He glanced past Zev. "Your friends are leaving you behind."

Zev didn't turn to look. He could hear the others retreating, their footsteps fading as the mist of the Fields thickened between them.

"You've always been a fool," Andras said. "First for that mangy werewolf, now for a fragile human who will wither and die in an eyeblink. Pathetic."

The pendant at Zev's throat grew warm, pulsing with warning. Control your emotions. The Fields feed on emotion.

But rage—icy and demanding—surged through him despite the warning. Rage at what they'd done to Rhys, what they wanted to do to Malik.

Zev was going to shut this bastard up once and for all.

"Enough talk," he snapped, and attacked.

Andras met his blade easily, their swords ringing in the strange silence of the Fields. The other guards hung back as if the two of them were putting on a spectacle for their viewing pleasure.

As if all of this had been planned.

But Zev couldn't give ground now.

He knew Andras's techniques. They had once fought side by side. Zev also knew that he was stronger than the lieutenant, but Andras had clearly learned new tricks in the years since Zev's desertion.

A slash opened Zev's arm, another his cheek. He ignored the sharp pain as he landed his own blows, drawing bright blood from Andras's thigh, shoulder, and side.

Under different circumstances, they might have been evenly matched, but Zev was fueled by something Andras could never understand.

"Your father has already begun preparations," Andras said, blocking Zev's thrust with casual ease. "We've got everything ready for your little pet."

Zev's nostrils flared. His next strike came harder, faster.

"We found that humans from Earth respond quite uniquely to the shadow paths." Andras spun away from a slash, smirking. "By the time we're done, your human will barely remember his own name, much less yours."

Blood roared in Zev's ears. His blade whistled through the air, missing Andras by mere inches.

"You know who had the honor of executing your lover?" Andras's voice dropped to a theatrical whisper. "It was me."

"Liar!" Zev's vision narrowed to a tunnel of red. His sword became an extension of his rage, each strike carrying the full force of his fury. The sound of metal striking metal echoed strangely in the misty air.

Andras retreated. Blood seeped from a new gash across his shoulder, but his smile never wavered.

"Why would I lie?" he taunted. "It's such a happy memory for me, ruining your joy. You always thought you were better than me, but you're just a traitor."

Zev slashed at the filthy half-fae bastard again. His blade caught Andras across the thigh. The lieutenant hissed but kept moving backward, drawing Zev deeper into the swirling mist.

Knox shouted something, voice distant and muffled.

A warning, maybe.

Zev would heed it. Later.

For now, he needed to make Andras pay. For all the pain he'd caused Zev. For all the pain he'd caused Rhys.

How dare he lay a finger on what was Zev's?

Mist closed in around them almost as if it had a will of its own, wrapping around Zev like a shroud. Andras's form blurred, then split—doubling, tripling, multiplying until a ring of identical figures surrounded him.

Zev spun.

What was this?

A trap.

The path back to the others had vanished, swallowed by the hungry mist of the Fields.

He clutched the amulet at his throat, trying to clear his vision, but the pendant felt cold now, its protection weakened by his emotional outburst.

Damn it all.

The Andrases around him laughed, an ugly, echoing sound.

Zev slashed through all of them.

They vanished into mist, leaving him to stand there by himself, breathing hard, blood dripping from his wounds. He turned, trying to catch sight of the others, but it was hopeless.

"Knox?" he called. "Daniel?"

No answer. Just the soft sigh of thick fog sliding over silver grass.

There was nothing for it; he had to start walking.

He tried to retrace his steps, but they didn't lead him back where he'd come from. Instead, the mist seemed to stretch out forever in all directions.

But Zev wasn't about to give up.

He was not going to get lost here. He had to push through. He had to?—

The mist parted, revealing a small clearing. In its center stood a tree—ancient, gnarled, stretching toward the sky. Zev froze, recognition washing over him like ice water.

This tree. He knew this tree.

It had been their meeting place. Their secret sanctuary when stolen moments were all they could have.

As if summoned by the thought, a figure stepped from behind the tree. Tall, broad-shouldered, with tawny hair that caught the strange light of the Fields. Brown eyes that still held warmth despite everything they had seen.

Rhys.

The werewolf smiled—that same mischievous smile that had undone Zev so many times before.

"You're late," Rhys said, scolding him softly as he had so often. "I've been waiting for you."

Zev's sword trembled in his hand. "You're not real."

Rhys cocked his head, regarding Zev with fond exasperation. "Does it matter?"

And Zev—despite knowing better, despite the amulet's warning pulse against his skin—found he had no answer to that question.