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What if I was merging into this being, becoming a monster? And when it was done with me, it would spit me back out and leave me barren, Darcy Vega just a memory cast to the wind.
This was worse than anything else Lavinia could have done to me; she was taking my soul, cleaving it from my chest and burning it to ash. The Shadow Beast was fuelled by her desires, and she wanted me ruined.
Geraldine. Countless had fallen to the teeth and claws of this Shadow Beast. This monster. Me. Including one of the best friends I’d ever had the fortune to know. As my emotions poured through me, the shift rippled down my spine, the black fur of the Shadow Beast receding into my skin, and I suddenly hit the ground on my knees in my Fae form.
They were obsidian, no hint of green, and more terrible than that, no silver rings, the mark of my Elysian mating to Orion erased.
“Hello, darling,” she said softly, and I froze, sure this was impossible. “Can you see me?” I breathed in disbelief, wanting to shrink into the shadows so she couldn’t see the truth of me. “Yes, we both can.” She ushered someone closer, and my father stepped into view a little hesitantly, making my heartbeat stutter.
Hail Vega was an imposing figure, his strong features cast in shadow as he leaned forward, a hand on my mom’s shoulder like he was half tempted to draw her back, protective, yet supportive at once. It wasn’t hard to see why he had so easily been called savage when taking in his huge frame and the power which practically emanated from him, but there was so much more in his expression too. A softness around his eyes, though his stubbled jaw was locked in a stubborn position which reminded me so much of Tory that I almost broke into a sob as I took it in.
“I’m seeing you in the future and casting a vision of that future here within the mirror for us to look at. This is a memory of us for you, but for us, it is real. It is the now,” she explained, though that only made my mind twist up in knots. “Merissa,” my father whispered, his gaze fixed on my face in terror and hope. “Can I truly speak with her?” “Yes, but remember what I told you,” my mother said, her features turning grave. “What did you tell him?” I asked and she looked back at me with pain in her eyes. “That we are speaking to you at a time of great need. I cannot see all of what ails
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“Gwendalina,” my father said, taking me in with purest love, the kind I had only ever felt from Hamish Grus, and I suddenly realised how deeply Geraldine’s father cared for me and Tory. Because this was a father’s love I was seeing, I’d just never recognised it before. It left me shaken and yearning, wanting to dive into its warmth.
“She lives,” she confirmed, and relief crashed through me in a torrent so fierce, it made me sag forward. “And Lance?” I asked, my voice cracking with fear. Losing my mate would break me, I almost couldn’t take the seconds that passed as my mother’s eyes glazed, her gifts seeking him out. Please, please. “Yes, he is alive. For now,” she revealed
“It is the greatest gift to meet you,” Hail said quietly. “I see your mother in your features, but I’m there too…” He reached for me, his fingers pressing to the glass of the mirror he could see me through, and I touched my fingers to his, feeling nothing but cold water, but sensing him through the connection of my mother’s Sight somehow.
ferocity of a king falling over him. “Gwendalina, I wish I could walk through this glass and be there for you in this moment. But know this, you are a Vega. Your blood is royal and more powerful than anything you can imagine. You can move the sky if you want it enough, but you must banish all doubt from your heart, because it will steal that power from you. Do you understand me?”
know what it is like to fear such a thing,” he said quietly, like the admission left him raw. “But you are stronger than me, than your mother. You, your sister and your brother are remarkable, you truly have no idea. I swear you can defeat whatever it is that plagues you.” “Dad,” I croaked, opening my mouth to tell him everything I knew of how Lionel had twisted my father’s mind against himself,
“We love you, Roxanya and Gabriel to the depths of our hearts,” he said fiercely, the words resounding through the fabric of my being, stitching together some long broken thing. “Always and forever,” my mom confirmed, and tears welled in my eyes. “I love you too. Please stay,” I pleaded, but the vision was already fading.
“Remember to own your actions. When wielding a weapon greater than any should call their own, only the strength of your heart can guide it, only the power of your will can contain it. Know yourself and own every piece of who you are. I am sure you won’t ever fail the way I have,” my father called to me.
One thing which stayed my hand when I thought to take that blade and drive it through my own heart, so that I could make the pain inside it stop and follow my one great love into the beyond. Darcy was out there somewhere. My other half. My soul. My twin.
“Your soul is bound to mine,” I breathed against his mouth, even though I knew he was no longer there to hear my words, but a dark and unknown energy seemed to stir the air itself at that vow. “And I won’t rest until I make every star in the heavens fall for trying to cleave us apart.”
There is only him. Endlessly. Always.
I’d become the warrior Queen Avalon had trained me to be, I’d raced into war with my sister at my side and the power of all that was good and right behind us, but it had been for nothing. All it had gained us was death and destruction, our army decimated beneath the power of evil.
I was cold. Perpetually cold in a way I knew would never leave me, the fire which had been my love for Darius Acrux no longer heating my veins.
When all hope is lost, and the darkest night descends, remember the promises that bind. When the dove bleeds for love, the shadow will meet the warrior.
A hound will bay for vengeance where the rift drinks deep. One chance awaits. The king may fall on the day the Hydra bellows in a spiteful palace.
She needed me. This pain, this heartache, this grief, I could bear it for her.
Lionel Acrux would die by my hand. Whatever cost it took.
I took a step towards it and reached for the sword, my fingers closing around the hilt of the cold and lifeless blade as I recognised the weapon my sister had created for the man she loved.
My throat thickened as I recognised the expensive lace of the dress I’d worn to marry the man who now lay dead out on that battlefield. The man who I had stolen back from the stars only to have them spit in my face as they tore him away again so much more permanently than before. Married and widowed in the same day.
I dropped to my knees beside the body of the woman who had become so important to me. She had been the closest thing to a parent I had ever really known, and I hadn’t ever told her that.
I wouldn’t leave them after they had given their lives for those courageous Fae and their belief in two untested queens. Let alone leaving the mother of the man I loved or the father of my truest friend.
As my thoughts found Blue again, I held onto the single thing that remained to me; paying this debt to Lavinia to break my mate’s curse.
I had to make it through this for her. My final light. The girl who was worth a thousand years in hell.
It was hard to believe this was the same palace I’d visited when Darcy and Tory had stayed here, a sanctuary where I’d known joy for a time, though those days seemed so fleeting now.
Solaria was my home,
The words of the Death bond rang inside my head like the toll of fate itself. “Your body will be willingly mine for three moon cycles, and when that time is up, I shall release Darcy Vega from her curse."
Lionel’s lips slid into a mocking slant. “Yes. My worthless, traitor son is dead. And now we know who the greatest Dragon who ever lived is. Though there was hardly any doubt bef-” I was on him in the next heartbeat, my fists slamming into his ribs and my fangs tearing into the skin of his shoulder as I sought out the magic I needed to kill him, but before I could taste a drop of blood, Lavinia yanked my leash tight, forcing me back behind her where I crashed to the floor on my knees.
“Darius Vega is the greatest Dragon who ever lived,” I spoke loud and clear, making Lionel fall deathly still.
“He married Tory. She is more powerful than him, so that made him a Vega,” I said, relishing this final blow I could land to him, feeling Darius’s defiance humming through the air and knowing Lionel could feel it too.
The Hydra throne took centre stage at the heart of it, the tall back of the seat splitting into a monstrous bouquet of Hydra heads, their scaly necks twisting together like serpents. It was a towering reminder of the king who had once been housed within these walls. And as I thought of all the bad feeling I’d once held towards him, regret weighed heavily on my soul.
For the first time since I’d offered myself to Darcy Vega under the stars, I feared that I really could be taken from her, that I could be twisted and carved up, altered irreversibly by this torment. Because it wasn’t just my flesh it damaged, the dark power imbued in Lavinia’s weapon was severing the chords that tied me to my soul. The part of me that made me who I was.
