Page 18 of The Stolen Bride (Kings of Fury #2)
Chapter
Eighteen
Crashing the Party: Dodging Drama At the Reunion
–HOW TO TRAIN YOUR BERSERKER
By Elizabeth “Elle” Darcy-Bruce
A nother set of guards, dressed formally in black tuxes with embroidered floral vests reminiscent of ancient folklore, opened the doors with a flourish. We stalked into the ballroom, and my jaw slackened.
Ornate chandeliers dripping with crystals cast the room in a kaleidoscope of hues. The polished parquet floor gleamed. Scantily clad aerial dancers hung from ribbons anchored to the vaulted, frescoed ceiling, depicting heroic deeds of the past, and the beautiful turul birds of Hungarian legend. Arched windows lined the walls, allowing views of the courtyard and jungle. Massive mirrors flanked another wall, reflecting the lavish splendor of long tables laden with food. Gleaming golden platters and bowls overflowed with succulent meats and savory vegetables. The scent of baked bread and decadent desserts filled the air.
I had to give it to Deco. He knew how to throw a party.
Despite being vile shifters, the milling guests awed. Women wore flowing gowns, the colorful and intricate beadwork on their bodices featuring bird motifs. Others donned feathered masks or headpieces. The men sported tailored suits, with wing pins attached to their lapels.
Women in simple black skirts and white shirts with golden sashes around their waists carted trays of prosciutto-wrapped melon, sushi rolls and miniature quiches. Okay, so, I nabbed a few handfuls to keep up my strength. But my last bite settled in my stomach like a lead ball when I spied an elegantly crafted stage.
Two women sat, chained to the floor with heavy links of iron. Juniper! There she was, in the flesh. My sister, my twin, garbed in a subdued golden gown that draped her restrained form. An ornamental comb secured her dark hair, the red highlights gleaming under the light of the chandelier. A jeweled collar encircled her neck, featuring a golden turul with ruby red eyes. Deco’s idea of staking a claim on the prized prisoner?
She was alive and well with no visible injuries, thank goodness!
She reclined on one arm, her calves tucked behind her thighs. She hadn’t noticed me yet. But. My hands. Warmth and tingles erupted from my wrists to my fingertips. Of their own accord, my arms lifted, stretching toward her like magnets drawn to metal. She must have experienced the same sensations. Her arms lifted as well. I had to actively fight to lower mine. What in the world?
The woman beside Juniper shifted and my attention swung to her. Wow. The dark-haired beauty appeared ethereal, otherworldly, as if she could meld with a waft of fog at any moment, her mere presence a blend of mystique and majesty. Attired in a luminous cascade of silver, the fabric of her gown flowed around her like tendrils of mist. She’d styled her hair into an intricate braid with threads of the ten colors of the Starfire interwoven in the strands.
Valkara. The woman who wanted Viktor for her own and me dead by fair means or foul.
There was something vaguely familiar about her. Had we met before? But where? When? I wracked my brain but came up empty. Maybe I’d glimpsed her in Viktor’s vargbane-root-triggered memories?
My sister noticed me at last, our gazes meeting. Wonder, worry and hope flittered over her expression. She tried to stand, but the chain kept her seated.
Anger and frustration collided within me, beating at my composure. Both emotions intensified as Deco ascended a set of steps and stalked across the stage.
Conversations quickly turned to hushed whispers. Even the clink of silverware and champagne glasses faded.
Still grinning, he stopped beside the women, unfurling his massive wings behind them. His meaning was unmistakable: mine.
I shuddered at the menacing sight he presented, which only made his smile grow. Dang it, I’d let him know he’d gotten to me.
“Guess we don’t need to fight our way to the dungeon,” Bodi muttered.
Nope. The women were here. So what was Plan B? If any of us erupted, we might kill the innocents. Perhaps that was why Deco arranged this.
Viktor remained silent, fisting and relaxing his hands, shaking his head. Hearing whispers in the fog again ?
I focused on Valkara. Her eyes were closed, her lips moving. Oh, yes. She was definitely talking to him. Either she sought to warn him of some hidden danger, or she wished to distract him at a dangerous time. Because why else would she do this here at such an opportune moment?
“Who’s ready for the show?” Deco called. He clapped his hands twice.
Soldier after soldier flooded into the room using every doorway, each man already partially shifted. They lined up against the walls, wing to wing, until completely surrounding us. Aggression and glee tainted the atmosphere. Next, Deco gave a quick hand motion, and the elegant guests rushed to the stage, taking up posts behind their king and his prisoners, leaving us alone on the polished parquet floor.
Well, okay then. Plan B crystalized. Fight, survive, and kill Deco. Viktor was right. The turul king had chosen his path. If it must end in his death to protect my loved ones, so be it.
Familiar heat bloomed in the center of my sternum, quickly spreading through my arms and pooling in my fingers. My nails darkened, sharpened, and extended into claws. Careful, careful . If I accidentally harmed my sister while she was helpless and bound…
“No, no, no,” Viktor muttered, his eyes squeezed shut.
Fighting for calm, I spun in front of Viktor and pressed my palm over his racing heart. “I need you to focus on me for a moment, baby, not Valkara. Okay?”
His eyes snapped open. Glowing golden rings flared in his irises, burning away the glaze of madness. “Ja?”
“Fight to kill.”
“Ja,” he repeated with determination. Between one blink and the next, his body doubled in size, pieces of his clothing tearing. Some even fell away. Jagged flashes of lightning crackled over his skin. “Bodi,” he called.
The prince understood the unspoken request and moved behind me. He, too, had doubled in size and now wore what remained of his ripped clothing. No wonder berserkers fought naked.
Viktor stepped in front of me. Together, they formed a wall of protection around me.
“You think you’ve won, but you’re about to lose your army,” Viktor stated. “Let’s do this in the way of the ancients. Challenge me one-on-one. Winner is king of the House of Turul, berserkers and shifters alike.”
How ironic. This was what Lena had desired all along–these two men battling for both thrones and all the power that came with them—but she wasn’t here to witness the fruits of her labor.
“Ah, but I have no desire to rule your house.” Hatred iced his golden brown eyes. His voice hardened, more unbendable than steel. “I intend to destroy it, piece by piece. I’ll start with your firebrand.” His attention slid to me but only remained long enough to blow me a kiss, throwing fuel on the fires of Viktor’s burgeoning rage. “Unless you can save her.” That said, he threw back his head and released a guttural squawk.
His soldiers sprang forward. The rasp of metal sliding against leather pierced the air as Vik and Bodi drew their weapons. The shifters reached us within seconds, attacking in unison. With matching roars, my teammates burst into action. A gruesome battle ensued, the combatants moving too quickly to track. I only saw bodies and body parts toppling and piling up around us. Grunts and groans blended with pops and gurgles I hoped to never hear again.
I tried to help, I really did, but my two berserker bodyguards worked so hard and so fast, no shifter got within striking distance of me. Except. Hmm. They were too busy to notice the newest threat headed our way. The windows above us opened, allowing additional turul-shifters to fly in from the ceiling.
“Incoming,” I shouted. Internal heat intensifying, I swung my claws at a member of the flock. Mistake! He clamped his talons onto my wrist and lifted me off my feet.
He tossed me across the room. Viktor roared a denial as I soared through the air and crashed into the floor—Ahhhh! Upon impact, a trapdoor opened, and I dropped. The heart-stopping plunge didn’t last long, but it might have been the most terrifying moments of my life. Air whooshed around me as I flailed about, unable to stop my momentum. When I hit the ground, I hit hard. Bones broke, and oxygen exploded from my lungs. Searing agony blasted through every inch of my body. Stars winked over my vision, and nausea churned in my stomach. Dust filled my next breath.
Groaning, I rolled to my side, coughing violently. Deep breath in, out. In. Out. Each inhalation was a gritty struggle. One moment. Two. Then the pain began to fade. The sharp stings diminished to a dull ache before vanishing completely as my bones healed. Thankfully, my stomach settled, and I pulled myself into an upright position.
Light flickered from a lantern, casting eerie shadows over uneven, cracked stone walls. Needing leverage, I slipped my fingers into one of those cracks. As I stood, I gasped, realization dawning. This wasn’t a stone wall but a barrier made of stacked human skulls. My thumb had passed through a hollow eye socket.
I’d fallen into some kind of catacombs. I swallowed a second wave of nausea and snapped my hand back to my side .
The scent of decay thickened cold, damp air. Water trickled from a fissure in the far wall in a persistent drip, drip, drip . I grabbed the lantern by the handle, ready to find a way out of this death chamber. A glance up proved the trapdoor had already closed, ensuring no one could follow me down. Torchlight caught a crimson smear on the far wall, and my eyes narrowed. No, not a smear, but letters. Deco had painted a message for me.
Told you I thought of everything.
I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth. There must be an escape this place. I had only to find it.
Pace brisk, I headed down a narrow passage. Turning this way and that, I ended up back at the start. So I tried again. And again. The maze always began and ended at the same point. But no matter where else I ventured, the lantern light illuminated additional messages that peppered the walls.
There’s no way out.
I’ll join you shortly.
Are you having fun yet?
The things I’m going to do to you…
I was well and truly trapped, enshrined in a tomb, the only life besides mine scurrying into the shadows as I passed.
A series of noises reached my ears, and I frowned. Clinking chains. Moans of pain and snarls of rage.
I tracked the sounds, which led me to a path I’d not stumbled upon before. Racing through the skull lined corridors, I took another turn. It brought me into a massive cavern with a ceiling seemingly miles high. The air felt cooler, and it was easier to breathe. Decay didn’t scent this space, but a hint of rust.
Goose bumps formed on my skin. Something told me not to enter, but I heard another moan of pain and surged forward. Maybe it was Juniper, because she’d been dropped down here, too. Gravel crunched beneath my feet. At least I hoped it was gravel. I lifted the lantern to fill the cavern with light, my lips parting in both wonder and horror.
Chained throughout were nine colossal beasts I’d only seen in nightmares and movies. A dragon. Something that resembled a wolf, but a thousand times worse. Same for a bear and a lynx. An eagle lion hybrid. Some kind of giant sea monster, imprisoned underneath a leak in the rocky walls. A winged amalgamation of a panther and a scorpion with the quills of a porcupine. Another winged creature, but with a horn and skin of stone. And a huge, coiled adder with humanoid features and fangs the size of my pinkies. Each animal possessed glowing eyes of a different color.
The bottom dropped out of my stomach, like recognizing like. “The primordials,” I rasped, pressing a hand to my chest. The original kings were exactly as my mom described them in her bedtime stories, only now they were frozen in their animal forms.
“Magnificent, aren’t they?”
The unfamiliar voice startled me, and I jolted. A woman strode from behind the dragon. A creature she stroked and kissed, as if it were a beloved child. The dragon jerked from her touch, steam rising from its nostrils.
Her identity wrenched a gasp from my deepest depths. Valkara, freed from her bounds and without wounds. “How did you get free? Is the fight over?”
She motioned to the prisoners, ignoring my question. “This is what happens when an original slays a firebrand. The beast embraces hatred and takes over.”
Forget them–for now. “Where’s Juniper? ”
“She remains with Deco. Lucky girl, she gets to enjoy the show. I decided to speak with you alone.”
Suspicions sharpened to razor points, becoming certainties. “You’re working with the shifter king,” I stated in a flat tone. Knew it! She’d never been in danger. Had lured Viktor here under false pretenses.
“I am. But only until I acquire Viktor. He’s proved most stubborn. But in the end he’ll do it. He’ll slay you and turn.”
The casual statement knocked the air from my lungs. “The prophesy…you didn’t foresee me killing him at all. You wanted him to kill me so that he would finally shift.”
“Yes, and I thought I’d covered all my bases. If you betrayed him, boom. He would’ve welcomed evil into his heart and killed you. That’s the first thing every shifter with a firebrand does, after all. If you didn’t turn him, but fell in love with him, you would sacrifice yourself when I convince you it’s the only way to save him.”
Find, destroy, happy .
The words Viktor had repeated like a broken record since our meeting filled my head. I’d known their sinister meaning already, but this proved they’d been Plan A, B and C from the beginning.
Find me.
Destroy me.
And finally be happy.
She’d played chess while the rest of us played checkers.
All grace and gloating, she strolled closer. When she stopped outside of the strike zone, she smiled. “Do you know why King Malachi asked such a terrible thing of you? Why he promised you an introduction to your parents?”
“Let me guess. You convinced him it needed to be done for the greater good.” Just as she’d tricked Viktor.
“Actually, he did it for access to his firebrand.”
“So you manipulated us all.”
“And yet I must still go the backup route.”
“Let me guess. I’m supposed to convince Viktor to kill me.”
“You will,” she said. “You made him fall in love with you. It’s time.”
Apprehension crept down my spine, new suspicions dancing across my mind in a sinister ballet. She was going to make me choose: Viktor or Juniper.
“You can’t know I made him fall in love. He’s never professed his feelings.” But I was pretty sure I’d fallen totally, completely, and utterly in love with him. “Why don’t you kill me and ignite his turning yourself?”
“I’ve learned from trial and error. The only way to ensure the transformation from sentinel to primordial sticks is for the king to do the slaying.” Another smile flashed. “Since you won his affections, I’ll give you a reward. At least in part. Allow me to introduce you to your mother.” Spreading her arms, she announced, “Me.”
“No you are not,” I grated. I hadn’t wished to meet this woman for my entire life. Not her, the one who’d planned my death centuries before I was even born. But, as I studied her with a more critical eye, I began to notice our similarities. The gray in our eyes. The shape of our chins. The single dimple in one of our cheeks.
“I promise you, I am.” With languid, unhurried steps, she stalked a circle around me. I moved with her, not letting her stand at my back. “Did Viktor not tell you? I’m a dreamseer, able to peer into the future through my dreams. I can even reveal snippets to others in their dreams. Once upon a time, I foresaw your importance to him. Well, yours or Juniper’s. I only see in pictures. From the beginning, I knew only three facts. Who I must seduce to produce you, one of you would be Viktor’s firebrand, and the other must be used as bait. Too bad I chose wrong. Had Juniper ended up with him, he would have killed her, you would have attacked him, and he would have killed you too. Alas.”
Such cold, callous words from the woman who might have birthed me. It was an invisible dagger to the gut. But now I had confirmation. She had indeed shaped my dream. “Who is our father? Why separate twins?” No doubt Juniper would’ve been even stronger bait if we’d stayed together.
“Your father is irrelevant. A griffin of no importance. He was of zero use to me once you were born, and I couldn’t allow him to try and save you from your own mother, now, could I?”
The response hit its target: my heart. She’d killed him. All these years, what had I imagined? A mother and father unable to take care of me, who still loved the child they’d created. Now I knew my father wasn’t given a chance to get to know his twins, and our mother hadn’t cared about us. I pressed my fingers to the fluttering pulse in my throat. Anguish spread through me. I didn’t bottle it, but I looked past it, because I must. I hadn’t missed her avoidance of my other question. Why separate twins, weakening a bond she planned to utilize? Only one answer made sense. We were stronger together.
Stronger.
Stronger. The word echoed inside my head until a light bulb exploded. My spine straightened with a snap. “You fear us.”
Her eyes narrowed the slightest bit, confirming my suspicions. “I fear nothing .”
Lie! But I set the truth aside for a moment, letting it simmer in favor of digging up more information. “Why are you collecting the primordials? ”
She spread her arms to indicate the entire group. “Because they are mine, my pets, and humans taint everything they touch. But soon, my darling turul will return to me, and I will reclaim all that belongs to me.”
I was about to reply, “Over my dead body,” but that’s precisely what she wanted, wasn’t it?