Page 54

IRIS

Power pulses from the horizon.

The lich king’s summons is meant for the dead, but the call is so strong that it does more than raise soldiers.

The living aren’t spared.

A cold, overbearing will hammers into me. My right boot lifts before I even register that I’m being forced to move.

I stomp.

Our mental tug-of-war only lasts a few intense breaths, but as I buck free, I sense the call behind the call.

The first and strongest command says to move, forcing me and everyone else to walk into the mountains.

Come to me.

The worse command is hidden underneath.

Die.

Only the dead can join the king’s army.

For a sickening second, I’m willing to be recruited.

Gasping and shivering, I shake the last of the lich king’s thrall.

Guides won’t struggle to resist.

We’re trained to manage mental energies.

But Sentinels?

Especially the deeply damaged ones, desperate to end their pain?

Holy stars.

I whip to find Vhex and Remy.

Vhex stumbles in front of me first, snarling and clapping his hands to his ears. “Get the fuck out of my head.”

“I’m here. I’m here.” I cover his hands with mine.

He shudders, falling into my arms and almost knocking me over.

Bracing my feet, I strain to hold his weight.

His skin is always too hot.

Now Vhex’s fingers are ice.

Something flares through his silks, moving too fast to follow.

“Don’t listen to the voice.” I shake him as I dive into his meridians. “You only listen to me.”

Threads of green and yellow warp Vhex’s magic.

The lich king’s command opened the gates. Now physical death magic crawls through Vhex’s veins.

The lines are faint and frigid, but they’re growing thicker fast.

Vhex is made of flames.

His physique is a nightmare mismatch for death magic. Every rotting thread sparks a backlash chain reaction. Explosions of hellfire sear through his meridians like firecrackers, eating off pieces of his soul.

Vhex is burning.

Fire and rot escalate their fight at heart-stopping speed.

A rampage isn’t just inevitable.

It’s imminent .

Vhex’s claws extend. His eyes flash between pink and shocking crimson.

Shaking, he drags my hands to his mouth and kisses my knuckles with a voice carved from smoke. “Let me go.”

Let him go?

The heat of his lips tickles my skin. “You’re holding my wrists.”

“Oh. Weird.” Vhex doesn’t change his grip. His chin sharpens, his skin reddening, but his smile softens as he curls his flaming wings around me. His silks make the same motion, reeling me in with a bittersweet rasp that aches in my soul. “Firefly. It’s getting dark. I think I have to go?—”

“Shut up.” I wrench Vhex’s horn and drag him to my mouth.

No one’s fucking dying while I’m here.

As my kiss crushes Vhex’s lips, his wings cocoon me. His soul shivers with pleasure, even as that creepy, crawly magic fights a war inside his veins.

I hiss.

Sentinels can’t resist this necrotic energy for long.

After they rampage out, they’ll become puppets for the king.

This one is mine.

Levering Vhex’s horn and digging my fingers into his hair, I make the claim with my whole soul.

Vhex boils inside.

He has no defenses. He has no resistance to me at all. His body is mine to control, and his magic flows where I tell it to flow. Together, we attack the king’s invading claws.

Death magic stings. Its sharp, icy touch bites into my brain.

Gritting my teeth, I isolate a rotting thread, then guide Vhex’s hellfire to ash the poison.

Thread by thread.

Inch by inch.

Flame by flame.

Controlling Vhex’s power is easy.

I can never begin to control his kiss.

I started out claiming, but I end up being taken.

Vhex’s wings recline me in their cocoon. He cups the back of my head, pressing deep between my lips. He doesn’t have a brain-cell left to watch the war— he trusts me to fix him —leaving him free to pour his soul through his lips.

My skin pebbles, and a shiver curls my toes.

He needs me.

He trusts me.

He thinks about me and only me.

He’s also fucking crazy.

Guess I only get to pick three.

I’m not supposed to pick any.

We know how that ends.

“Vhex!” I gasp free of his kiss. The last invading wisp of death fights my grip. Before I can bring the hellfire, it slips free.

A pinprick pierces my middle finger.

My arm freezes to the shoulder. My body locks.

So cold.

Before I can gather my mental defenses, Vhex snatches my arm. Thick as honey, liquid fire slides along my silks.

Instant thaw.

I guide his hellfire to incinerate the rot.

Shivering and tasting smoke, I gasp. “It’s gone.”

Vhex cradles my hand, glaring murder at the drop of blood. Flames spark from his eyelashes. “He hurt you.”

“You can destroy him for me later,” I promise, gently stroking his horn. “I need your help now.”

“Tell me.”

His thoughts are fuzzy, but not because he’s losing to the monster.

His hands run all over my body. My cheeks. Shoulders. Hips.

At first, Vhex is making sure I’m okay.

Then he can’t stop touching.

Vhex wants to kiss and stroke and join our souls while he fucks me so hard and deep into the ground, we’ll get to wave to his devilish ancestors when we bottom out in hell.

Later.

Holy heavens, I hope we get to have a later.

“Unfold your wings.”

Reluctantly, Vhex lifts me to my feet. When his wings part, I want to tuck right back in and pretend the rest of the world isn’t my problem.

The Deathguard is in shambles.

Sentinels stumble through the grass, fighting each other and themselves, their auras writhing with decay. Their Guides shout, but no one has a clue what’s going on.

Luca screams the loudest, but my gaze snaps to Remy first.

He’s a statue.

Not breathing.

Not blinking.

He stares at the mountain, but his soul-silks strain toward me.

Death magic isn’t compatible with hellfire.

But for a vampire?

Oh no.

I lunge to grab Remy’s sightless face. “I’ve got you.”

Kevan is stuck in the same statue mode. Luca cries snot bubbles while he tugs the frozen Sentinel’s cape. There’s no one to take charge as despairing pulses of Sentinel energy pop off like fireworks across the field.

Before I lose myself in Remy’s soul, I turn to Vhex. “Round up the Sentinels. If they can’t hang on, ash their bodies.”

Vhex grabs my sleeve and digs in his claws.

I can feel how much he doesn’t want to leave me.

I stroke the backs of his fingers. “I’ll run to you if I sense the lich. I’d never let him take you.”

“I know who owns me.” Vhex’s grin rattles my insides.

“Go,” I answer roughly.

Finally releasing my sleeve, Vhex skips off to do some jolly murder.

“Guides!” I shout. The harried Guides turn to me for a lifeline. “Isolate the death threads with your power and guide your Sentinel’s magic to destroy them. If you can’t purge the energy, just hold off the rampage. I’ll do the rest.”

I don’t wait to see if they listen.

Remy’s stillness chokes my heart.

I slide my pricked finger across his cold bottom lip.

My blood leaves a red stain.

Remy doesn’t respond.

I stare into his glassy eyes. Remy’s not home, but I sense something staring back.

My skin crawls.

“He’s mine ,” I hiss, lifting onto my toes.

I drag Remy in for a coppery kiss.

A rotting, yellow rope snakes through his central meridian, worming its way into the tangles that were already there.

My gasp sucks the breath from his lungs.

There’s no backlash like with Vhex’s fire-fight. The wisps of death are right at home in a vampire body where blood and shadow play.

The lich king doesn’t want Remy as a soldier.

That monster is trying to take Remy’s body as its own host.

A fist of anger squeezes my lungs.

Remy served a thousand thankless lives. Now this lich wants to fill Remy with its filthy soul and enslave him forever.

“Let. Him. Go ,” I grit and attack the threads.

I can’t burn out the decay, but I can cut it down.

The shadows that can still move jump to follow my command. I sharpen them into blades and shred the bastard’s magic.

Its icy bite makes me want to throw up, but I’m too pissed to take this slow.

Give him back.

Remy is mine.

Vhex is mine.

I can’t stop the lich from claiming the dead, but every living Sentinel belongs to me until they find a better match.

Wisp by wisp, I cut off the lich’s power.

Remy softens.

With a groan, he licks my blood from his lip, then joins the kiss with his whole soul.

He grabs my hips with clawed hands.

As more of his energy is freed to help me, our combined blades move at double speed. Finally, only a fleck of death magic is left.

I’m ready this time.

When it lunges to jump into me, I pinch down hard. Remy shreds the wisp to oblivion.

“Iris.” He kisses my fingertip, then flicks his tongue to seal the wound. “I’ve failed you, my love.”

My arm hair levitates.

I blank out, sensing the obsession brewing in his soul.

A bloody scream saves me the trouble of figuring out how to answer him.

I drill out of Remy’s arms.

The Deathguard has fought countless battles. After my hint, its Guides quickly re-establish order.

Every Sentinel freed from the lich king’s thrall rushes to help their squad-mates. Vhex herds the runners away from the mountains by tossing them back onto the teleportation platform.

Only Kevan stands frozen.

“Wake up,” Luca bawls, hanging off Kevan’s cape. “You can’t do this to me. It hurts. It hurts! ”

A scream rips from his throat.

Fucking stars.

I can save everyone but Kevan.

That one’s not mine.

He never was.

I swallow a mouthful of lead.

Maybe the lich king smiled at me because he knew I was the all-caps IDIOT who’d hand-deliver him the perfect host body.

One born from his own bloodline.

“Bind Kevan,” I order Remy. “Then help Vhex and bring me the possessed Sentinels. Just don’t stray far.”

“I never will again.” Remy flips open his palm. When he curls his fingers, shadows spike across the field.

One by one, shadows wink away the Sentinels. They reappear on the teleportation platform, bound and blinded by dark ropes.

Luca bellows and grabs his head, clawing his temples in pain.

I tune him out.