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This book is dedicated to all those who wait for the living to join them beyond The Veil, watching ever on, and to all those they left behind. May you be brave enough to follow the longings of your heart to far-flung places, adventure into the unknown, take leaps of faith and dare to dream bigger than the moon. Be brave, be hopeful, be you. And give them the show of a lifetime.
“You are the stars!” I boomed. “If it does not lie with you, then what are you worth? Are you nothing but false gold? Gleaming prettily with no true value at your core?”
“When one falls to the dark, the other shall be their guiding light,” Merissa murmured with a frown, those words familiar to me.
“See?” I said. “I’m forever drawn to the dark.” “Some would say that makes it more impressive when you continue to find the light.”
“My son is chasing it,” he said. “He is on the path of reforming the Zodiac Guild once and for all, to restore balance in the Fae realm.” “Lance Orion,” she said with a light laugh. “My descendant Leon likes him. He licked him once, you know?”
“That’s mine,” Darius hissed as he looked at the priceless stone, smoke spilling between his lips. “The dead don’t get to keep possession of any treasures, fool,” Hail muttered, and Darius growled like a feral beast.
There wasn’t a Fae in any realm, in any time, that I would have chosen for Lance over Darcy Vega.
I gasped as I took in the crown of silver and blue which she’d taken from my treasure hoard and placed upon her head, the obnoxious smirk on her sinful lips which had never once failed to get a rise out of me. She knew.
She knew I was watching and even now she taunted me, played with me, riled the beast within. In that smile I found the strength which had been fading. “Mine,” I growled, moving closer to her. But the word was no claim on the trinket she’d stolen to place upon her brow. My claim was for her. The true treasure in that room. The only thing I ever needed to claim anymore.
“Mine,” she growled, sounding just like a Dragon as she claimed me, and I smirked like a lucky motherfucker.
“Not for a moment, nor a breath, nor a fraction between seconds have I ever doubted my path. And you are not my bane, Hail Vega, you are my fate. I would not forgo you nor my children even if I were offered another entire lifetime in the sun in exchange for you all.”
“Nice morals by the way, Purssy,” I said with an arched brow. “Is the Savage King judging me?” he laughed. “My life was dull until this one walked into it. I gave up the law for love.” “Eventually,” Felisia said with a laugh. “I think I recall you trying to arrest my ass a bunch of times.”
am currently in an open relationship with a gentle sycamore and a titillating oak. They have such rough bark…”
“You will never get away with it, you crumpus crumpet!” Wilbur cried,
So yes, I stayed for you, for a while longer, because I’m weak. And walking away from you will destroy me more certainly than the moon falling from the sky and crashing into the earth. I will miss you in every breath I take when I go. But I will go, Fee. Just not…yet.”
The power of the stones themselves would allow only Fae whose hearts and souls were uncorruptible to enter here, those they chose to guard them.
“This here hollow is ours to protect. A fortress built of courage and gallantry.” He raised his hands, wielding the wood in the wall opposite and marking down four letters. “K for Kipling, I for Imai, N for Night, and G for Grus.” Wilbur jutted up his chin. “King’s Hollow this shall be, now and forevermore.”
“Some long dead Fae who didn’t want anyone stealing his treasure,” Lance guessed with a shrug, then The Veil pulled us back and we didn’t resist, our fingers intertwining while I smiled at Lance’s assessment. Yes, something like that. But not a man. A legendary Lioness.
The power snapped shut around him, securing his fate once and for all. And as I turned from him with my wife’s father at my side, the two of us grinned like savages.
And with that we left him there, a single knight guarding his queen as we fell into darkness and raced towards another soul in need of our help to survive this cursed night.
“Oh, right.” I shrugged, figuring I’d been close enough
She wasn’t the savage princess who stood before them, bloodstained and ready for war, she was a broken girl in desperate need and if Gwen turned her back on her now then I knew there would be no undoing the damage it caused.
“Get fucked, Lame Lionel!” Radcliff cried.
The moon wasn’t a star. It was a force of its own, governed by its own set of rules. It didn’t bow to their power and its magic belonged to no other, born of the nature of the world itself. Did that mean it was charged with ether then? That the magic of the moon was its own potent cocktail of raw power?
My eyes bounced between the two of them as Caleb broke their kiss, a look passing between them which was so heated that I was surprised he hadn’t set fire to the damn bed. My wife’s damn bed.
“I’m angry too,” Caleb replied. “Angry at the whole fucking world. For Lionel, our fate, for our terrible fucking luck. For Darius-” “Don’t bring me into this shit,” I snapped because they had already done that, hadn’t they?
There were a lot of things I’d enjoyed discovering from the afterlife but snooping on my friends’ sex lives was not one of them.
I shoved against The Veil, snarling furiously as it refused to welcome me back into its embrace. “Help!” I yelled,
“Did you just summon your mother-in-law to watch your friends fucking?” Hail asked
I was gifted one last glimpse of two of my best friends in the world fucking each other like it wasn’t the biggest secret either of them had kept and I scowled at them. When I got back to life, I was going to make them pay for keeping this from me and for doing it on Roxy’s bed too. Oh yes, I was going to have a lot of fun with my best friends when I saw them again, and they would rue the day they used unlicensed sex toys with my face on them.
“You’d better be watching, sir. Because this fight is for the Vegas,” Lance said, making my heart lurch, those words meant for me. He knew I was here, or at least suspected it and I moved to stand at his back, placing my hand on his shoulder to lend him what power I could.
“Don’t remind me,” I muttered. “Or I will think twice on letting that go. I would like to think that Lance would at least make an effort. Hold a séance perhaps.” “You’re ridiculous,” Merissa said.
I’d broken over her grief for me. I’d shattered watching her fall apart. Yet here she was, striding through the barriers of death itself to come for me. Her. Only ever her.
Merissa placed her hand on my knee and squeezed. “This is not the end.” “No, but it is the beginning of some fresh new hell,” I sighed, kicking the seat in front of mine.
