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“And I swear the people of Stormfell will not harm yours in return. For this one battle, we shall be united in our advance,”
“One we’ve had under our noses all these years, and the little wretch never thought to mention it to us.” “Who?” I demanded. “Your sister, Ransom. My not-so-worthless daughter.”
A threat hung in the air and panic flitted through me at the thought of the Vampires allying with Pyros. They would decimate the warriors of the other lands. Their speed was outmatched in battle, and I’d heard their minds could even connect with those of their Coven mates. They would become one, cutting down their enemies with brutal efficiency.
“Come here, silka la vin.”
Kaiser took me in with a bland disinterest, but when I halted in front of him, I noticed the bulge in his trousers, the thick outline of his cock that was big enough to be classed as a weapon. My breathing increased as heat shivered its way across my skin, crawling through me until I felt agonisingly hot. My gaze snapped up to his and I forcibly ignored the rising burn that was setting my cheeks aflame.
His gaze fell to my naked body, those dark eyes glinting red as they scored lines across my tits. My nipples hardened and shame washed through me, my cheeks flushing hotter as his attention slid over my stomach, lower and lower until my clit began to throb under his scrutiny. He studied me without embarrassment, openly staring, his eyes only rising when he’d had his fill of me.
He thrust his shirt at me, knocking my hands free of his chest in the same motion. “Put this on if you prefer.” I quickly did so, the scent of him falling over me in an instant.
It was a smell that was uniquely him. Oak and cinders. And it made my heart beat even faster.
My mouth found Harlon’s in the dark and his fingers tangled in my hair, his kiss hard and full of a feral brand of desire that I’d never tasted on his lips before. His tongue pressed against mine, and his palm firmed against my lower back, pulling me tight into his lap and making my bare pussy grind over the hard length of his cock. I moaned into his mouth, biting on his lower lip and he bit me back in return, showing me a savagery I had long wished to see from him. My eyes cracked open to seek the heat in his amber eyes, but two blood-red irises stared back at me instead. No.
“Yes, he will abandon you. And if he does not, the next time I see his face, I will drive my sword into his worthless chest,” Kaiser snarled.
The Void was humming in my chest, latching onto him too and I could see the effect it was having. He was in torment, his eyes searching mine for answers I couldn’t give as rage clung to his face.
“Who is he?!” Kaiser bellowed, his eyes lighting as I fed his Order and terror blossomed in my chest.
The Void had left Kaiser wide awake, rage pouring from him in bloody waves. I could sense the way it was burning, screaming, and wailing inside him, yet he seemed to have no idea what to do with it.
“Your father?” he snarled. “Then you’re the spawn of the warrior who brutally killed my family.”
“Yes, Raincarver,” he sneered. “And his blood runs in your veins. You’re his filthy little prodigy, and the stars dared to gift you the power of the Void, the one thing that could possibly stay my hand in killing you.”
“Perhaps destroying the Void is as good as wielding it,” Kaiser said darkly, his head cocking down, his face shadowed with the wings of death. “Then none can have it and you will lay dead in payment for your father’s bloodshed.”
If there was one true thing to fear in this world, it wasn’t memories that lived in the past, not really able to touch me, it was this man when his soul was split open. When his inner demons were awakened.
My father hates me.” Despite the terror of the situation, it still stung to admit those words. “I’m a runt. My death won’t be revenge because I’m nothing to him!”
“Fuck the prophecy, I will rid the world of you instead and there will be no victor in the four lands,”
See what resistance you can put up against the Nightfire. Place one scratch on me, silka la vin, and I will let you live, but if not, I will hurl you to your death and be done with you.”
“A Fury’s Banes will always take the form of their deepest torment,”
“Mine take the form of those wretched dogs that your father cast from ice and commanded to tear the ones I loved to pieces.”
The stars have brought us together, silka la vin. They gifted me your mother’s death in penance, and all along they have been offering me yours too.”
“I am Everest Arcadia,” I panted, the exertion it took to move exhausting me. “I am vengeance.” I dragged myself another few inches. “I am retribution.” A few inches more. “And-” I took a heavy breath, glancing up at him where he crouched, his hounds growling at me as I lay a trembling hand on his arm and drove my nails into it, marking him with a bloody scratch. “-I choose my own death.”
My fist came up, swinging for the face before me, but I stopped it dead as I came eye to eye with the most beautiful woman I had ever met. A woman who should have been dead.
“Okay, so maybe they do have nicer prisons here. But that’s hardly a boast when their people are all self-serving, annoyingly tall, disgustingly muscular assholes with weirdly strong jawlines and the personality of a tree and the stubbornness of a stupid old ball of moss clinging to a rooftop in a storm.”
“I hated that you were dead,”
But we got to know each other in that time, at least a little, and I’d like to think we came to respect one another.”
“I felt like you deserved a better death than that, you know? You were the fucking Sky Witch. You deserved to go out in battle and glory, standing alone on a field against a thousand warriors and killing half of them before you were overwhelmed, causing a victory for Stormfell by sacrificing yourself, that kind of thing.”
“I just think you deserved that much. You’re a legend.
“I hope that day never comes, kitty cat. I think I’d rather regret robbing the world of you.”
“Your new boyfriend is a delight,”
“What? I fucking hate that man. He’s not my anything,” Everest spluttered, and I shrugged innocently. “Must have been someone else’s lust I felt tainting the air when he came charging in here flexing his muscles and barking orders then.”
But ether isn’t bad or good. It’s simply power of a different kind, one not governed by the stars but made up of all the energy of the world itself. It’s the lifeforce which sustains us, it’s ancient and endless, not interested in the fates of simple creatures like us. The stars interfere with our destinies because they can only touch the world through us but ether is the world itself. We are no more important to it than a flea or the droppings of a dormouse.”
But the ether has been whispering my name in the dark. It called me to a place below the ground where the ley lines run like rivers of pure energy through the heart of the stone itself. I found something there which shouldn’t have been.”
“Then you have that little Fearsire issue to deal with. From what I read, the only way to sever that bond is death.”
“The Seers have seen a terrible battle breaking out in Pyros. News has travelled from ear to ear across The Waning Lands. News of the Void’s emergence, the one spoken of in the Elysium Prophecy. Pyros has laid claim to this almighty weapon and will wield it upon the coming of the full moon.”
“You are no longer a civilian of the Cascadian land. Your loyalty must lie with me. With the stars.”
“No, it appears not. The stars do not lie. The Seers have confirmed it. The Void is no weapon, it is a Fae. A woman.”
“Everest Arcadia.”
“The Seers have seen her face. And they have seen what she is capable of.” “Which is what
“She can counter all magic. She can suppress it, halt it entirely, it seems. If Pyros wields her against the other lands, she will nullify their powers and they will slaughter them in droves.”
“But she is the closest thing I have ever had to family. I love her. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to protect her.”
“You must go to her, Harlon. You are the only one she will trust. You must find a way to free her from the Flamebringers and bring her here to me where she will be guarded from harm.
“Hurry,” he urged at my back. “The fate of The Waning Lands depends on you.”
She was the only Fae in the entire Waning Lands who I could actually claim to know anymore.
Was this really what had become of me? The last Dragon, born for greatness but doomed to wander backstreets in search of a woman who had told me plainly she desired nothing more than to return me to captivity once we were back in her homeland.
It wasn’t the beauty she claimed, though clearly I’d taken note of that, but it was more the deception in her. She was a walking contradiction, breathtaking to look upon while writhing with darkness within. She claimed so wholly to be nothing more than the vengeance she sought but I had learned to see the cracks in that visage.
A soft thud made me look to the table in front of me and I arched a brow as I took in the pale blue Sayer Dragon which had taken a seat before me, a small chirrup escaping it as it inspected my near empty bowl.
Sayer Dragons were fiercely loyal to the Fae they chose to bond with and they never mixed with our kind unless they were imprinted on one of us. For all I knew, someone was watching me through its eyes at this very moment.
