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CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

“ Y ou .”

Arran’s voice was as terrifying as ever as it boomed across the killing field that had been a wedding celebration less than an hour ago. Wild strands escaped Arran’s braided hair and a gash on his cheek spilled blood into his copper beard.

Bodies were strewn everywhere, piled among the red-and-green-smeared chairs that had been white at the start of the ceremony.

It was impossible to tell which side had won. Though Cael wasn’t entirely sure victory could be claimed by either.

This had been a massacre—an explosion of senseless, avoidable violence fueled by a centuries-long feud that had chewed up far too many innocents.

Phidion and Zosime were nowhere in sight, neither live nor as bodies on the field. Cael wondered if they’d escaped.

Not important at the moment.

Right now, Cael’s sights were set on the three males atop the altar using wind and Typhon steel to fight off the few remaining members of the Cynn Drakan.

Arran left Viktor and Tomas to the task and stomped down the aisle toward Cael, who approached with a casualness that belied his volcanic rage.

Arran had done this. Arran had forced this marriage. Arran had endangered them all for betrayals committed half a millennium ago.

And Arran was the reason Xenia was barely clinging to life and on her way to Akti.

Arran and Cael paused before each other in the center of the aisle.

“This is your fault,” Arran ground out. “You and that meddling human bitch.”

“Do not speak about her that way,” Cael said, voice low and dangerous.

Arran stepped forward, attempting to loom over Cael. But Cael was far from the skinny youth he’d been, cowed by his father’s beatings. Cael’s shoulders were at least as broad as Arran’s, his arms threaded with sleek, lean muscle where his father’s were doughy bulk.

Even despite all that, fear coursed through Cael’s veins.

Could he do this? Could he strike down the male who’d sired him?

Less than a month ago, even two weeks ago, he might not have dared.

But the world would be better off without males like Arran Zephryus. Arran didn’t care about his family’s wants or wishes. He had one goal in life: capture as much power as he could for himself and ensure everyone who bore his name got in line to maintain it.

Cael had barely been able to stomach it when he thought he had no other options.

But now, he did have options.

And he was ready to fucking exercise them.

Arran laughed. “What are you going to do about it, boy ? Kill me?”

“With the greatest pleasure.” Cael snapped his gaze toward the dagger in his father’s hand. “And with my bare hands. No weapons. No back-up.” Viktor and Tomas, having dispatched the last two surviving members of the Cynn Drakan on the field, ambled over. “Just you and me. You always preferred fists anyway, right?”

Arran sniffed, wiping the blood from his nose on the back of his wrist, then held up a hand to halt Viktor and Tomas. “You want to wrestle with your father, huh? Will that make you feel better? Make you feel big and tough for your little human slut? You’ve never been half the male I am. Even before you lost your wing.”

Cael focused on his breathing. He would not let Arran bait him any longer. He’d taken his father’s cruelty to heart too often. Believed it to be the way of the world.

But Xenia had taught him otherwise.

He grinned, a broad, dazzling smile full of joy. Despite the day’s evils. Despite the day’s violence and bloodshed. Despite the daunting road ahead.

Cael smiled, and he laughed.

Then he rushed for his father.

He caught Arran unaware, knocking them both to the ground. Viktor and Tomas stood off to the side, nervous glances bouncing between them. Unsure if they should intervene.

Arran twisted himself on top of Cael, who blocked his face with his forearms as Arran smashed down with massive fists. Cael swiped out his wing, slicing the talon across Arran’s neck and drawing a line of blood.

Arran roared, clapping a hand over the wound, and Cael took advantage of his father’s distraction to buck his hips and throw him off.

Arran shook out his wings and shot Cael a crazed smile. “Got some fight left in you after all. Maybe you’re more like me than I thought.”

“I am nothing like you,” Cael spat as he tackled his father to the ground.

And beat him bloody.

Cael was a tempest of rage and joy and instinct that Arran could do nothing to counter. One blow delivered for each and every time his father had dared to lay a hand upon him.

Arran’s face was a swollen, pulpy mess as he garbled out a wet laugh beneath his son. “You don’t have the fucking balls to kill me, cripple.”

Cael wrapped his hands around his father’s neck and squeezed. “Wanna bet?”

Arran’s choking gasps severed as a force stronger than a battering ram crashed against Cael’s back.

His brothers dragged him to standing and held his arms behind his back.

“Get off,” Cael yelled, struggling against their hold. “ Get off !”

“You’re not worthy of the name Zephyrus,” Tomas hissed. “Father should have ended you as soon as he saw your pathetic wing.”

“A disgrace to our family, to Brachos,” Viktor echoed, ripping Cael’s arm back so violently he might have dislocated it.

Arran staggered upright, wiping the blood out of his swollen eyes, then cocked his arm back and smashed his fist into Cael’s stomach. Cael braced, but it still emptied the breath from his lungs. He would’ve doubled over if Viktor and Tomas hadn’t been holding him upright.

Arran pummeled Cael in the face. Broke his nose, cracked his cheekbone, smashed his jaw. Blood poured from Cael’s nose, his limbs sagging in his brothers’ grip. Arran pulled back for another blow, and Cael spat at his feet, cackling.

“Go ahead.” Iron-rich spittle dripped down his chin, his voice slurring. “Fucking teach me another lesson, Father .” He stared into Arran’s eyes but there was nothing in them. No love, no pity, no compassion. As if his father was more machine than male.

Cael was all too familiar with his father’s mechanical gaze—one he used to try to emulate. It was why he’d joined the Vestians, why he’d aspired to a position with the Vasilikans. Arran had always seemed so in control of his emotions. Like he’d solved the great mystery of survival.

Feel nothing, bury everything, don’t cry, don’t show affection, suck it up.

Be a male .

But that was no way to live.

Tristan had tried to teach that to Cael over the years, but Cael had been too stubborn to learn the lesson.

It was only when assaulted by Xenia’s positivity, her compassion, that he realized how wrong his father had been. About everything. How wrong Cael himself had been.

And if Cael survived this mess, he’d spend the rest of his life becoming a better male. For her.

He held his father’s gaze, the mad smile never leaving his mouth. “If you’re going to end me, you’d better make damn sure to do it permanently. Because if you don’t, I’m going to marry that little human and pump her full of half-breeds. And I will relish destroying the Zephyrus family name.”

Cael howled, hysteria overtaking him at his father’s horrified expression. He felt no terror, barely any anger. Only pure joy. Because in his heart, he knew that end was waiting for him. A staunch belief in the most positive outcome.

He was moments away from blissful unconsciousness when something slammed into the ground behind Arran, rattling the chairs like bloodied bones.

Viktor and Tomas’s hands trembled as they looked over their father’s shoulder.

Signys’s horns and scales glistened in the twilight, her iridescent wings tucked against her back and her long, spiked tail swiping the ground behind her.

Arran turned and all the color fled his face. He whipped his petrified, furious gaze back to Cael. “ What did you do?”

Cael caught the dragon’s kaleidoscopic eyes. What’s the word for fire in your language?

He wrenched his arm from Viktor’s distracted grasp, then pulled the flute out from underneath his shirt.

“No,” Arran whispered, suitably horrified.

The word was crystal-clear in Cael’s mind, uttered in a deep, lovely female voice.

Fieyrtes.

Cael tapped the opal on his cuff and portaled out of Tomas’s grip. Right to Signys’s side.

And Cael stroked her scales, grinning as his bonded dragon roasted Arran Zephyrus and his two eldest heirs alive.