Page 25

Delilah climbed quickly into the wagon and gathered Lily into her arms as she spun away and crouched down protectively, putting her back between the man she once loved and her child in a desperate attempt to shield her.

She looked over her shoulder as the sky brightened and air almost seemed to turn gold from the flames of the Atlavans in their attack.

Never had she felt more helpless than she did at that moment.

She had no fighting skills or even the crudest makeshift weapon at her disposal.

She had nothing with which to help her mates as she watched Zack just barely evade their strikes to counterstrike viciously, but not without receiving injury as their talons tore through him and flames singed his hair and skin.

They glided around each other, lunging with every strike like a flaming, choreographed dance.

The Atlavans countered every blow with blocks from their fiery wings, sending fire racing through the weapon.

Delilah could see where the metal of Zack’s sword was blackening from the repeated blows but still, he swung, slicing the air with it only to have it knocked away again as the frighteningly long talons lashed out, tearing flesh when Zack attempted to evade the fiery wings striking at him.

With a wild, desperate swing of his sword that sent Agrel and Gehj parting out of its way, Zack threw his weight forward, rushing the wagon like a battering ram.

Gehj sprung back into the air with a shriek, his leap clearly calculated as it brought him down onto Zack’s exposed shoulders and back, dropping him heavily to the ground.

The sound of impact was brutal, but she knew that it wouldn’t keep him down.

Delilah slowly straightened as she watched Zack rise to knees with a roar, cutting the air with both sword and dagger, fighting desperately just to maintain that position without managing to climb to his feet as her mates circled around him, their wings and tails fanned wide with hostility and trading strikes over and over.

They were toying with him. She recognized it.

They were slowly bleeding him out with every cut they delivered and smiled with every shout of Zack’s pain, only to move lithely out of the way with a flap of their wings when he doubled down on his attack.

He fought viciously, his teeth bared in a snarl and hatred burning in his eyes that turned slowly to madness as his every attempt to destroy the Atlavans was frustrated, and he was delivered with even more blows from their talons and wings.

Wings that could have set him on fire instead of just painfully singing him.

They were intentionally making him suffer, killing him slowly.

“Mommy?” Lily whispered in a frightened voice. “Are they going to get rid of the bad man?”

“Yes, now don’t look, baby,” Delilah whispered as she drew her tighter against her chest and wrapped an arm around her daughter’s head in an attempt to smother out any sound as a shout of agony rose from him.

It wasn’t easy to listen to, and the last thing she wanted was for Lily to be subjected to hearing him die, but it was a relief to know that her mates were delivering justice on her behalf.

Not only for every terrible thing that he had done that she hadn’t known about, but also for the fact that if they’d arrived even a handful of minutes later, they would have arrived to find her dead and Lily gone.

And Zack clearly would have had no remorse over killing her in front of her daughter.

It was for that reason alone that she continued to watch every spray of blood and the way the fire ate his flesh, blackening his skin and burning away his hair bit by bit until finally they ended his wretched life.

Their talons drove into his abdomen simultaneously, ripping through his internal organs before dragging them from his body in a sloshing mess.

She swallowed thickly as she stared at the mess, willing herself not to be sick while at the same time feeling an enormous sense of relief that Zack couldn’t harm her or their daughter.

She watched as Gehj straightened and headed toward her.

She glanced at him, but her gaze followed Agrel as he bent and grabbed a handful of the huntsman cloak that Zack had always been so proud of.

His face set in fierce scowl, he dragged Zack’s body to the edge of the mountain’s side and threw him over.

She exhaled shakily and turned toward Gehj as she slowly loosened her death hold on Lily. It was finally over.

Gehj looked down at Lily anxiously for a moment before his eyes lifted to meet her gaze apprehensively. “Are you both well?”

Delilah nodded. “Yes,” she whispered and collapsed toward him, dragging Lily with her as she wrapped her free arm around her mate, holding onto him desperately. “Thank you.”

“No need to thank us. We will always protect you,” he rasped, as he enfolded the both of them in his arms and wings.

She felt Gehj’s cheek press against hers, his face burrowing into her hair as he breathed her in. It was only then that she noticed the faint trembling of his body that betrayed just how frightened he had been.

“I was so terrified of losing you,” he admitted and smiled, her fingers burying into his soft feathers that moments earlier had been burning unholily.

Gradually, she was able to release him and draw back enough to give him an embarrassed smile. “Did you find it? The place to make your new home?”

Gehj smiled and nodded his head eagerly. “We did. It is some distance into the mountains, but I cannot wait for you to see it.”

She had to admit that she was excited, too. Now that she had made her decision, she wanted to see the place that would be her new home, and help raise it from the stony mountainsides.

“Found more than that,” Agrel interrupted, and Delilah looked over to see her mate pushing a scrawny teenage boy wearing a wide-brimmed hat an oversized coat out ahead of him.

The boy wilted and stared at them fearfully as his eyes fastened on Delilah.

“Please, miss, I have nothing to do with all of this. I want nothing to do with it. The huntsman hired me from the citadel. I thought he would be doing noble things like clearing out some of the tangleweed or the red Andoro Venom-flower that grows in these southern parts. Not killing.”

His eyes fell to the Ragoru. “Is he going to be okay?”

Delilah nodded, her gaze dropping to Zemb. “I think so. It looks like he just hit him with a dart to incapacitate him. I don’t know why he would still want him alive. But I’m thinking that I don’t want to know.”

The teenager nodded and swallowed nervously. “Can… can I go home… please,” he whispered, tears brightening his eyes.

Delilah sighed and nodded. Although part of her believed it was foolish to just let him go when he could tell the Order exactly where they were, he was just a kid.

Thankfully, neither of her mates objected.

Instead, Agrel inhaled deeply, his wings expanding slightly from his side as he peered at the male.

“The citadel… you know where it is from here?” he asked as he began to break his talons of one by one. Gehj followed suit, and she was surprised to see that they broke away evenly, leaving a tapered claw tip in their place.

The teenager nodded. “Just a few days’ journey to the west. Why? Do you wish to go there?”

Agrel looked over at her. “Delilah…”

She shook her head in answer. “No. I’m not going to the citadel or anywhere else. I’m staying with you.”

Her mate hesitated and glanced over at Gehj.

“We have talked about it. It is natural that may wish to be near your own people. You can go and then we could leave here once we get the rookeries established to join you. We know that the humans will not welcome us there, but we could remain hidden and watch over you?—”

“No,” she interrupted again, and she smiled.

It was sweet that they were willing to keep hidden just so that they could be with her and give her everything she wanted.

But she couldn’t be that selfish and she wanted to be somewhere where she could live and love freely.

They would never have that around other humans.

“I want to stay here… with you. We want to make our home here with you in these mountains.”

Gehj’s eyes widened. “You… do?”

She laughed, dashing sentimental tears from her eyes that seemed to well up from nowhere. “We are mates, aren’t we? I love you—we love you—so this is exactly where we belong. Right here in these mountains.”

Agrel hooted loudly and threw his hands in the air so violently that the boy skittered away from him, but he gave an uncertain smile as her mate’s wings pumped the air.

Delilah laughed at his excessiveness and was still laughing when he suddenly lunged toward her and pulled her into his arms. She spilled out of the wagon with a shriek that quickly turned to laughter once again as he swung her around in the air jubilantly.

Delilah clung to him breathlessly, joy overflowing through her. There the world spun around her with Agrel’s face and the love bright in his eyes at its epicenter. In that whirling madness, she grinned down at her daughter as Lily danced around them, her arms raised in the air.

“Me next, daddy!” she crowed.

“You are next, nestling!” he agreed, and, with another whirl, he passed Delilah over to Gehj so that she landed in the warmth of his arms and wings that were waiting for her.

Wrapped in her other mate’s embrace, Delilah watched them, her heart filled with love and joy as Gehj’s wings closed around her lovingly.

They were together—a family. Even Zemb was showing some signs of life, as if roused by their celebration.

He twitched and rolled to a sitting position.

Throwing himself back against the wagon for support, he shook his head to clear the fog from it.

Lily quickly patted Agrel’s arms in a silent demand to be put down and sprinted over to the Ragoru, practically dancing with her excitement. “Zemb! Zemb, we are going to be a family! We will be staying here, too,” she shouted as she threw herself at the lanky male, toppling him over.

Delilah winced in sympathy. “Oh, Lily, gentle.”

Agrel came up behind her, his arms wrapping around her waist as his wings folded over Gehj’s wings in a loving lock. “He is fine, swiya.”

She nodded, not entirely convinced. She was about to suggest to Lily to sit nicely next to him, but she became distracted by a movement in the corner of her vision.

She glanced over at the teenager as he adjusted his hold on Zack’s horse and gathered the reins more firmly.

Meeting her eyes, the teenager tipped his hat to her with a small, grateful smile, his lips moving in silent thanks before turning around and leading the horse back in the direction from which he came.

She stared after him for a long moment until Agrel cheerfully snatched her up into his arms and Gehj bent to pick up Lily, who stood waiting impatiently with Nimh clutched to her chest.

“Now we go home,” he cooed. Glancing over at the Ragoru, he grinned. “Do not go anywhere. I will be right back for you.”

Zemb waved him off with a snort. “Go away and give me the time to hurl in peace as I prepare to be unnaturally hauled through the air.”

Agrel’s laughter filled the air as he launched them upward with Gehj following close behind, their wings carrying them higher and higher until all the mountains unfolded before them.

Delilah’s heart found its wings in that moment, her wonder and love carrying her as they flew over the expanse of rising peaks to a verdant, flowering valley that she would live in happily with her mate and evermore call her home.