Page 48

Ivy

W e held our breaths as Hawk pushed his way out of the secret tunnel into the ruins of the old palace. As soon as the trap door opened, a cool breeze caressed my skin. The smell of the ocean wasn’t as strong up here, but there was a different smell that made my nose crinkle.

The smell of rotting flesh and death.

Elias’s hand tightened around mine. I want you to stay close , he said. No matter what. You remain by my side.

I barely suppressed a chill as our entire group exited the tunnel. Around us were stone walls that might have once stood tall, but now crumbled. There was no ceiling, just endless starlight above us. It felt like we’d entered an entirely different world to the one on the beach.

The ruins were mostly reclaimed by nature, too.

But even so, I still felt a tingle of residual magic from those who had once lived here.

It felt like the items from the Queens who came before me.

From Queen Aura’s set of twin blades, to Queen Daphne’s ornamental dagger. And my own magic recognised it all.

I ignored the way my throat tightened and gave Elias a sharp nod. I will. I promise .

There was no way I was letting my mates out of my sight again.

Weapons, guns, and daggers were unsheathed as Orion closed the door behind us. Adrian burned a charm into the wood, one that appeared and disappeared in the blink of an eye. I didn’t even need to ask what it would do. I felt it.

He’d locked it so only he could open it.

He and I shared a quick glance. There were dark circles beneath his green eyes. He looked more than just exhausted—but drained.

Let me help you, I told him, reaching for his hand. Adrian entwined his fingers with mine, lips pursed. You can’t keep going like this.

I’m fine, Sweetheart, he replied.

Before I could call him out on the lie, a low whistling sound echoed through the ruins.

My magic exploded to surround not only myself, but our entire group.

A purple haze appeared around us like a protective bubble before settling into an opaque dome.

There wasn’t any resistance to it, but I felt everyone else’s magic fill the area.

Shadows whipped from Ry’s hands to surround my shield. Damon shifted into his full demon form, horns sprouting from his head, death magic filling the air.

Claws ripped through Maeve’s fingers, her eyes changing from blue to dark red. Elias’s skin rippled with his shift, though he didn’t take his wolf form immediately. He did, however, move to stand at my back. My protector always .

Hawk let his wings burst free, standing at the front of our team, while Rowan and Adrian pulled matching, glowing daggers from their belts.

The whistling turned into what sounded like a horn, low and deep. A shiver rolled down my spine as I tasted electricity in the air, my magic wanting to play.

From the edges of my vision, something appeared in what might have been an old hallway of the palace.

At first, it looked like a shadow. Something from my nightmares; one of the creatures who tormented me as I ran from the giant fleshy beast, who called for my doom and promised I would fail in my rise as Queen.

My breath caught in my throat when it disappeared. I turned my head towards the hall. But all that was left was stone and debris. Vines crawled up the walls, reclaiming the structure.

I don’t think we’re alone , I said, pushing the thought to all my mates.

Behind me, Elias stiffened. The others moved to tighten our formation.

As much as I appreciated their desire to protect me, I also didn’t want them risking their lives, especially against the unknown.

I had all the power of the Queens who came before me now.

The women who had ruled this land and Avalon.

Thousands of years of power rose like a tidal wave to defend the team.

I could protect them now.

My fingers tingled with electricity, lightning now taking to the sky. Where there had once been endless stars, now was an eternal darkness caused by dark clouds that carried with it the rumble of thunder and violet lightning.

The sound of the horn came again, louder this time, and it carried with it a battle cry.

The hairs on my arms lifted, my head snapping in the direction from where it came.

Senses born from my connections to Maeve and Elias heightened; my eyes picked up something in the darkness of the ruins, not on the ground, but on what was left of the walls.

Not a giant spider, thank the Goddess, but something else. Something made of shadow and smoke. It had eyes of silver, and when our gazes met, it disappeared entirely.

Smoke-shadow creature on the walls , I told the team.

A what? Adrian asked, his eyes meeting mine briefly before searching the walls around us. A pit opened in my gut.

There were three clinging to the walls. One with silver eyes, one with red eyes, and one with gold eyes.

They all had a smoky, black, opaque look about them; more solid than shadows made by the sun, thick like heavy smoke from a fire.

They were almost wispy, too, in how they looked, especially around the edges.

And they were unlike anything I’d ever seen before.

Based on the reactions of the rest of the team—and Damon especially, whose barely concealed shocked expression made my heart twist—they’d never seen something like the three shadow-creatures, either.

There’s a reason why we call this the realm of monsters, Rowan said, his voice thick with tension even through the bond.

The shadow-creatures didn’t move from where they watched us, their eyes unblinking. My skin prickled with awareness, like they weren’t the only ones watching us. But I was scared to take my eyes off them.

I fortified the protections around us just in case. My fingers tingled with power as the bubble of magic turned from a soft purple hue to an electrifying violet that crackled with the intensity of my lightning.

The creatures didn’t even move. They remained where they were on the walls, watching, as if they knew we wouldn’t move until they did .

We’re sitting ducks, I said to no one in particular. There’s something else here. I know it.

Elias brushed my hip with one clawed hand. I know, Angel. We all do. But if we go out in the open, we’re fucked.

We can’t risk going back into the tunnels, Ry added. They could already be flooding it now.

My stomach dropped, and I gritted my teeth. Then we need to do something other than just stand here. If they don’t attack us, then Dante could find us and do it himself.

There was no response to that. We were stuck either way. There was the enemy we didn’t know, and the one we did. And I didn’t really want to take chances on either.

The optimistic part of me wanted to believe these creatures were curious. Why else would they just watch us? But I also knew that in this world, anything was possible. Despite being humanoid in shape, they could be anything but.

Something in another hallway made us all turn.

It could only be described as the sound of metal scraping against stone.

I cringed, pushing myself into Elias’s back as the sound grew louder.

My shifter mate growled low in his throat.

The clawed hand that brushed my side before now gripped my hip in warning, holding me as close to him as possible.

No way was I going to try and face whatever the fuck was out there.

I was sort of confident in my ability to protect myself, to fight now that I had all the power of one of Nyx’s Queens.

I just didn’t know how to use it effectively—or without hurting someone I cared about.

I was not going to dumb-bitch my way through this one.

And no amount of calming energy from my mates would help, either.

That ship had sailed into a storm and sunk dramatically below the waves ages ago .

Still, though, I brushed my fingers over Maeve’s dagger. It probably wouldn’t help much against the shadow-creatures, but whatever was in the other hallway…

No, it probably wouldn’t help much there, either.

Time to rely on my magic. That’s why Hawk was forced to be my mentor at the academy. Why he pushed me so much to stop running from my power.

At least there was something I could thank him for.

I rolled my shoulders back, summoning the magic I knew all too well. The sky rumbled, but there was no rain that came with the dark clouds covering the stars. A chilling wind swept through the ruins, carrying with it the stench of death and rot.

My nose crinkled. I tried not to cover my face with my arm as the smell overwhelmed us. Goddess above, had they dragged a rotting carcass in with them? Or worse, were they zombies?

I doubted I could handle more zombies. It didn’t matter what Maeve called the ocean dwelling revenants , they were zombies, and whatever was coming for us now might have been the same.

Vampires, shifters, witches, and a number of other things were real.

But why zombies?

Focus, a mhuirnín, your thoughts are spiralling , Maeve said, her voice stiff, but not in her normal team leader way.

I understood what she meant. No panic. We did not have time to be dealing with whatever the fuck these monsters were, and me having a panic attack.

I pulled myself out of my thoughts, focusing on what was around me. The dark, unending sky. The three shadow-creatures watching us from the walls. But even they shifted. Like they didn’t like the rotting death smell either .

It was different to the scent of death that Damon carried with him. Oddly enough, his was always comforting.

But what came from the ruins was…something else.

The thing in the other hall made a sound that could only be described as flesh hitting the ground.

It reminded me of when Thea would accidentally drop a chicken breast on the floor back home.

Or the whole pound of ground beef that one time during a storm.

A gross, wet, smack against the tiles in our little kitchen.

That’s what the thing in the hallways sounded like now. Each time it hit the stone, it matched the thundering of my heart. Wet smacks, over and over again, until something finally appeared in what once was an archway.

The stench of rotting flesh thickened the air. The breeze that had been coming off the water disappeared entirely, the air stilling.

“Zombie creature,” I whispered, eyes widening in horror.

Because there was literally no other way to describe the hulking, rotting thing waiting to pounce.

It was larger than Elias’s wolf, and not humanoid like the three shadow-creatures watching us.

Nope, this thing looked like a giant rat .

Large front teeth and all. It had no eyes, however, but rather maggots crawling from the sockets.

And the wet smacking sound had been flesh literally falling off its body.

Oh, Nyx, I was gonna puke.

My stomach turned, and this time, I didn’t stop myself from covering my face with my hand. Even the others pulled their masks up with grimaces and shared, disgusted looks. Adrian moved in closer to my other side, his hand tightening around mine protectively.

The rotting, zombie-rat thing made a hissing, whining sound that made my blood run cold. And as it lowered itself on its haunches like it wanted to pounce, I strengthened the wards around us. Forget propelling this thing into the air, toasting it might be the only way to get rid of it.

From the corner of my eye, the shadow-creatures didn’t move. Not an inch. They watched, but they appeared to have no intention of helping—either it or us.

When the rat pounced, I tightened my hold on our protective shield.

The team lifted their weapons, but they held their formation around me.

The shield was alight with violet lightening, and it crackled across the surface of the bubble.

As soon as the rat-zombie hit the shield, it made an even louder whining sound.

Flesh fell right off the bone, the stench of death quickly replaced with the odour of burning meat. And yet, it didn’t stop the creature at all. It tried to dig claws into my shield, attempted to sink its rotten teeth into it, but with each attempt, more of its body fell away.

“This is just sickening,” I muttered. “Can I please just—get rid of it?”

“If you don’t, I will,” Orion said, glancing back at me with a grimace. “That’s so fucking?—”

“Gross?” Adrian finished, gagging as he did.

Cringing, I lifted my palm, which intensified the power of the shield. From the sky, I let my lightning free.

A strike of purple light hit the zombie-rat, throwing it off the bubble entirely. It hit one of the other walls with a loud thud, the hit powerful enough that the already weakened stone crumbled from the force, taking the zombie-rat with it. There was no way to tell if it was actually dead or not.

For a moment, beside the rumble of thunder, there was no other sound in the ruins. No wet flesh hitting the ground or hissing from the creature. No scraping of metal against stone? —

“The rat couldn’t have made the scraping sound,” I whispered, searching the darkness for the source. “It couldn’t have.”

Behind me, Elias cursed. Rowan raised both his daggers, and Adrian had his charmed blades at the ready. Shadows sliced through the air from Orion, and Hawk’s wings stretched out behind him as he widened his stance. Damon’s death magic whipped out from him, and Maeve palmed her own gun.

The shadow-creatures on the walls moved, fast like smoke, disappearing from my view. I searched the walls around us, craning my head for any sign of them—or anything else.

“Not a zombie,” Adrian said, shoulder bumping mine.

I followed his gaze and sucked in a sharp breath.

Definitely not zombies. But not regular creatures either.

Monsters.