Page 58

IRIS

A voice echoes from far, far away.

I can hear my pulse. Remy’s heartbeat. Vhex’s delicious fucking growls.

Can we kiss forever, just like this?

I groan into the heat of Vhex’s mouth as Remy caresses every bare inch of skin he can reach without stripping me naked in the middle of?—

A hole in the ground.

Right.

Fuck.

Fuck!

The bucket of cold water finally hits. I pull away from Vhex and jump off Remy’s hips, stumbling a step that I blame on the overturned earth instead of my watery knees.

Simms holds Tan to his chest, clear-eyed, but with a slightly puckered cheek—half confusion, half disgust. Tan hugs his Sentinel’s arms with eyes widened in perfect circles. Not from fear. He’s enjoying the show.

That’ll change soon.

I wipe my lips and look up, finding endless crooked rock walls instead of a ceiling. “Take us back to the tower.”

Remy’s shadows flash. As I squint against the sudden sunlight, my heart pounds. The rhythm deepens as I take in the empty ground.

“Kevan and Luca are gone,” my voice sounds hollow, even to me.

I made that choice.

I’d make it again, even if it makes everything so much worse.

“Who’s gone? What the hell is going on?” Tan wrinkles his nose, looking out over the smoking battlefield.

The next wave of undead is massing. Some stumble toward the walls. Others rise as bones from the ground.

I rub my aching forehead. Our ticking clock just skipped ahead to midnight. I’m afraid of what happens if the real lich king turns my ex into a custom meat suit.

Fingers trembling, I press both badges to blast an all-hands alert. “Someone find Cherise and gather the captains in the courtyard.”

I wince as death magic pulses much too close for comfort. The kobold army lets out a hissing roar that would be deafening if they still had working vocal cords.

Now it’s just fucking eerie.

Tan peeks between the tower’s ramparts. “Tell me those aren’t death knights.”

“They’re not death knights,” I say without looking, even though I can hear the scrape of their heavy armor and feel the spectral energy dancing against my skin.

Vhex lights up—literally and figuratively. “They don’t have to exist.”

“Save your strength.” I take his hand and turn to Remy. “Will you take us down?” I refuse to do hundreds of stairs in end-of-the-world conditions.

I may die, but my calves don’t have to.

Remy winks us all to the courtyard. Cherise is waiting, all blood-spattered and ash-streaked.

She rushes over with an axe in each hand. “The kobold mages are chanting for the second wave.”

“Did we lose anyone?” I touch my badges, dreading the answer.

Cherise’s grip tightens on her axe poles. “Two Guides dead, three Sentinels missing.”

My gut rolls with guilt.

Vhex tugs my back against his chest. His warm palm settles on my stomach.

I stiffen, then slowly relax under the gentle rub of his fingers.

Guides and Sentinels cling to each other all over the courtyard, both for comfort and healing. It’s a totally normal thing, but I’ve never been the one who’s comforted.

I don’t know if I can get used to the treatment, but… I need it right now.

As the last Farguard and Deathguard captains hustle over, Cherise runs me through the number of injured, our supplies, and potential tactics for the coming siege. I mostly nod, only chipping in strategies for handling possessed Sentinels.

She’s the logistical leader.

I’m only wearing these badges because I can herd Vhex and Remy and look everyone in the eye when I promise to stand with them until the end.

I don’t want to lose anyone else.

With a sigh, I find Tiago. The Deathguard’s leaders stand clustered to my left, not mingling with the Farguard. “Any casualties?”

“A handful of minor injuries.” He hesitates, but finally pushes back his shoulders and gathers the courage to ask, “Is the duke alive?”

“I don’t know.” Based on everyone’s grim looks, I don’t have to say what we’re all thinking.

Whether or not Kevan’s soul can escape, the lich king just recruited an S-class body that comes built-in with his bloodline and the fully leveled necromancer skill pack.

No one asks about Luca.

“Godsdamnit.” Cherise grinds the butt of her axe into the flagstones. “We have to clear a path through these bodies.”

“How many monsters are out there?” I ask.

She laughs wryly. “Tens if not hundreds of thousands.”

Great.

Cool.

Fun.

I lean back, letting my head bump Vhex’s chest. Cradled half in his arms as a shadow strokes my cheek, I swallow a belly full of regret.

It’s my fault for calling Kevan.

I should’ve stayed in Remy’s bed, racing to see how many threesome positions we could hit before the world ends.

Or maybe I should’ve stayed in Kevan’s guest wing, quiet as a doll, waiting for the next engagement contract to a Sentinel who’ll tell me they need me just before they pull out the rug and pass me to someone else.

Ugh.

Uggggghhhhhhhh.

Vhex rubs his chin along my collarbone. “I’ll clear a path. I love clearing the path.”

I drag his wrist back up a few inches before his belly rubs start rubbing somewhere else. “Could you shadow-walk a group below ground?”

Remy tilts his head. I feel his shadows working. “It seems not. There’s a spatial lock preventing movement in or out. Some defensive arrays must have survived underground.”

“Does that also mean the lich king can’t leave?” I ask, suddenly hopeful.

“Temporarily,” Remy offers.

Optimism cured.

Simms waves without letting go of Tan. “Speaking of underground? There’s a shortcut. Or maybe half a shortcut? I drilled pretty fucking deep while I was losing my shit.”

A few of the captains toss other ideas, but the horizon starts to crackle with kobold spells.

“We tunnel,” I declare without wasting any more time. “Me, Tan, Vhex, Remy, and Simms. Tiago and Cherise, you hold the line above ground.”

“Five people isn’t enough,” Tiago protests. “Let me bring a squad with you. It’s our commander down there.”

So much for handing me the job . “There are death knights in the field. We need A-classes on the walls. Once you’ve cleared the keep, work toward the lich king’s position and find a way to enter the main pit from above.”

They’d be cannon fodder for an S-class monster.

Tan and I are also about to be cannon fodder, but we have no choice. If we don’t back up our Sentinels, they’ll never make it to the lich king un-possessed.

Tiago starts to argue, but a booming explosion drowns him out.

Vhex drags me against the wall as Remy throws out a shadow shield to stop the shower of rubble.

“Grab supplies,” I call to Simms and Tan. “We’ll meet you in the hole.”

“Five minutes,” Tan answers, already running out with the fighters hurrying to their positions on the walls.

“Let’s go.” I take my Sentinels’ hands. Before I can say where, Remy winks us out.

We reappear in his bedroom. I crash dizzily onto his mattress. Remy lands on top of me.

Vhex thumps to the floor.

Vhex snarls, but Remy’s kiss drowns the sound.

His knee grinds between my legs as his tongue and fangs tease my lips.

I tilt my head away, groaning as Vhex crawls across the sheets. Unbothered, Remy kisses down my jaw. His nose brushes my throat, the heat of his breath mixing with a graze of fang that leaves me squeezing my thighs around his well-positioned knee.

“We can’t. Not now. I have to?—”

“Pack?” Remy asks. “Done.”

Something that isn’t Vhex thumps on the bed.

I twist my neck to spot my own backpack, plus the glaive I left on my weapon rack upstairs. “Did you grab energy potions?”

There’s such a big difference between trusting a man and trusting him to pack.

Remy’s hands slide under my uniform, and his shadows flatten under my bra. As they circle my nipples, he murmurs against my skin. “Potions, medicines, rations, wipes, socks, and,” his voice heats, and his lips glide to my ear. “A radio.”

Vhex drops to his elbow on the side that Remy isn’t kissing.

“Five minutes.” His fingers runnel in my hair. “We can do a lot.”

Vhex drags my mouth to his molten lips.

He tastes like hellfire.

My spine melts into the mattress.

Remy nips my earlobe as Vhex breathes smoke into my soul.

I should tell them to stop.

Or at least, I should guide them while we’re rubbing together?

Make sure they’re up for a boss fight?

Shadows slide beneath my panties, and my good intentions die in a whimper that’s kidnapped by Vhex’s tongue.

Fuck it.

“Five minutes.”

Let’s make them count.