Page 133 of The Queen’s Shadow

“Kitten, duck!” Rycon called as he slid forward, aiming his submachine gun over my head and pulling the trigger. I turned, just in time to block a quasar headed straight for us. The wards would prevent us from shadow walking, but not from getting hit.

My attacker’s head exploded from the spray of bullets fired from Rycon’s gun, despite his compromised aim. Balancing a now crying Kasha on his hip and attempting to use a machine gun with one hand did not look easy, but he made it work. In moments, he had passed through the wards and Jeremy was close on his heels.

I blocked another blast from more oncoming daemons and I realized suddenly that we couldn’t shadow walk away until the door had firmly shut behind us, or the city would be swarmed.

The second Jeremy slipped through behind us I called up to Zayne with my mind.

‘Shut the gate!’

Almost immediately, the door, which had never fully opened, began to swing shut again. It was moving so slowly, however, that I nearly exploded in frustration.

More and more soldiers broke free of Zayne’s hold and rushed us. Jeremy and Rycon fired into the oncoming mob of daemons, but the restructium armor the soldiers wore held up relatively well. Bullets to the chest and legs only seemed to slow them down.

Kasha was sobbing and Rycon was doing his best to angle her away from the battle, but he needed to reload and seemed unwilling to put her down. The broken sound of Kasha’s tiny sobs snapped something fundamental within my chest and I felt my eyes bleed black.

Enough of this.

Letting loose an enraged scream, I floated up and put both hands before me, releasing a relentless stream of dark energy into the oncoming army. Daemon after daemon vaporized before my eyes. The endless well of magick rode through my body and the familiar feel of ecstasy that seemed to take over when I claimed so many lives hummed through my bones.

I heard the door seal behind me and I struggled to slam the brakes on the relentless flow of magick so that I could switch gears and shadow walk us away. Just as I was able to put a stopper on the never-ending rush of death magick, a sound that had haunted my dreams since the day my mate had been stolen from me lilted through the air.

No, no, no, no, no.

“Fuck!” I heard Rycon roar next to me, Jeremy glanced back and forth at us, confused, as the magick of The Flute descended upon us. My aura and body froze in tandem, and I locked eyes on The Siren as I fell through the air. The wind was knocked from me, as I hit the ground, directly in front of Jeremy.

I couldn’t move. I watched in horror as The Siren advanced with The Flute pressed to her lips. Kieran approached beside her, sneering at us with unrestrained glee.

It was over.

We had lost. I had fucked up again!

“Raven, what-?” Jeremy asked, leaning over me, confused. I tried to tell him that I couldn’t move, that the magick of The Flute had rendered me essentially useless, when I realized suddenly that he wasn’t affected.

I remembered, in The Origin’s palace, The Flute had seemed to affect Amon, Kasha and I more than Conrad and Rycon. Did it not affect Jeremy because he was human?

‘The Flute! You need to get it from them!’ I shouted into his mind, and his eyes widened. ‘Don’t let them anywhere near Kasha!’ I warned. If they took her again, I didn’t know what I would do.

I heard a snarl and felt a jolt of pain rip through the bond and Rycon forced a shift, breaking free of The Flute’s magick. Kasha’s sudden cry of surprise at the shift made me reflexively attempt to turn my head to make sure she was alright, but I couldn’t move. Rycon crossed into the path of my vision, a dark streak running full tilt for The Siren. In an almost perfect repeat of last time, she switched tunes, and I winced as Rycon was forced, mid leap, to change back into his human form.

However, this time, he did not stop. He kept going, moving forward through each forced shift until he was on top of her. He tore into her shoulder in his panther form, and she screamed as blood exploded from where Rycon’s teeth buried into her clavicle.

Kieran blasted him in the side with a burst of raw magick, effectively throwing him off her. Kieran’s magick had the thick, wet feeling of lust that came from Ash Nevra’s aura, and I knew he was funneling power from her through their bond. It made him a much more formidable opponent than he would have been otherwise, and I worried that even Rycon would have his hands full.

Suddenly Jeremy had moved into my field of vision as well. I watched, as he sighted down his Carbine and fired a spray of shots directly at Kieran. The bullets cut across his chest, denting his restructium and knocking him from his feet. The Siren got up, preparing to face Rycon again as he prowled around her, looking for an opening. With her attention elsewhere, Jeremy took the opportunity to bounce his finger off the trigger again, aiming for The Siren’s head this time. She managed to leap out of the way just in time but took several shots to the stomach on her way down.

“Nytara!” Kieran coughed, clearly winded from the impact of Jeremy’s attack. I watched with satisfaction as he struggled to stand. “Retreat!” The dark wizard ordered. A brief flurry of snow swept around them without warning, and suddenly they were gone, taking The Flute with them.

The second The Flute was out of range; I was able to move again. I leaped to my feet and whirled to find Kasha curled on the ground where Rycon had been forced to drop her during his shift. She was crying into her chubby little hands, trying to hide from the chaos around us. Without stopping to think, I scooped her up into my arms, and ripped my shadows from the ground. They wrapped around us in a comforting blanket of darkness.

With one last push, we dissolved into the night, leaving the battle torn Court of Greed behind.

Ash Nevra

Ientered my Shadow’s cell and knew immediately that his consciousness was elsewhere. I tightened my bond around him, reveling in the feel of his darkness as it rubbed against my chains.

“Where are you, my Shadow?” I asked, touching the side of his face gently. He curled a lip at me, and I felt him push against the bond in an effort to turn his face away from me.

“I’m right here, Ash. You’re literally touching my face.” He snapped, as if he didn’t like it. It was a lie. I knew he liked it. We had never had this problem before. I had never needed to force him when he had lived with me before. Not until that disgusting half-human had resurfaced.