Softly I said to Koun, “What now?”
Koun took a breath that he needed only to speak. He raised his head to the sky and called out, “Do the arcenciels seek an audience with the Dark Queen?”
“We are sent by She Who Guards the Rift to request a boon of the Dark Queen.”
“The Dark Queen and her Enforcer and Executioner recognize the arcenciels Pearl and Opal,” Koun said. “Speak.”
I noticed he left out his title of chief strategist of Clan Yellowrock. I guessed that was a lesser title than being the queen’s killer.
“She Who Guards the Rift claimsle breloque,” Opal said. “She lays claim to the heart you carry and to the vampire who seeks it. It is her destiny to wear the corona. It is her destiny to devour the heart. It is her destiny to watch the vampire burn in the noonday sun.”
She Who Guards the Rift was Soul, the most powerful arcenciel I had ever met. She was also one of the head honchos of the Psychometric Law Enforcement Division of Homeland Security, and my bio brother’s direct upline boss. Her natural form was a dragon made of light, but she could shapeshift into a four-hundred-pound tiger and a small, very curvy human. She was scary and she hid her monster tendencies well, which made her even more scary.
To rainbow dragons, the wordsclaimanddestinymeant very different things from what the words meant to humans. Arcenciels could see into the future, timewalk, bubble time, and skip forward and back through time in ways I had never been able to, even back when I was risking death doing that. When arcenciels laid claim to something, it meant that along some specific timeline, they had seen that those items belonged to them. When they used the worddestiny, it meant many timelines foretold this event. So at some point in the future, Soul could probably be the Dark Queen, eat the heart of the Son of Darkness, kill Mainet Pellissier by letting him burn in the daylight. Unless I got in her way. So... maybe? No. Not. That felt wrong, felt like a ploy to avoid some problem that stood between now and some future they wanted.
Unlike my usual flying by the seat of my pants, I hesitated before I responded, because what I was about to say might get me killed if the two young rainbow dragons interpreted my words wrongly. Before I could open my mouth and probably insert my big paws, Bruiser called out, “Le breloquecannot be given away, nor claimed by another being.”
He walked down the middle of the dark street, his matte back armor throwing off all reflections, making him part of the Mithran darkness in which he had walked all his human life. “The corona chooses to whom it will be bound, and it has chosen Jane Yellowrock. It alone has made her the Dark Queen. Until it releases her, no one else may take her throne and her power.”
Bruiser stepped in front of the cop cars’ headlights. Behind him, I caught glimpses of the reinforcements he had brought. According to Koun, my Consort and he had been in their own battle, proven by the wide spatters of drying blood across Bruiser’s chest and one leg. The blood on his armor suggested that someone had died badly. Because of Alex and Bruiser, the second wave hadn’t made it to the house.
My breath caught as Bruiser angled through the cops and cars, his body gliding like a vamp, balanced and purposeful. Bruiser looked mighty dang excellent in his armor, in a tux, in jeans, and naked, can’t forget naked. In bloody armor, he looked regal, stepping across the sidewalk and toward us. Yeah. Sex on a stick.
As if he heard my thoughts, Bruiser found me in the shadows and smiled. It was a claiming sweetness, as if his soul thought,There she is. There’s my love. And I heard his soul inside my own. My heart melted into goo.
Bruiser glanced to the porch of the null prison and abruptly changed course, stopping, bending, and... He lifted one arm. In his hand wasle breloque, the corona, the crown of office the arcenciels wanted, and which I had not brought with me.
Into my earbuds, Alex cursed and a moment later added, “Just saw some fresh doorbell feed. The crown appeared on the front porch when you first went inside and the null energies hid you.”
Great. Now it was chasing me down.
“Behold,le breloque, which seeks its chosen queen!” Bruiser shouted, all dramatic, holding the crown high, letting the cop car lights reflect off the gold, letting all the civilian cameras and the reporters’ cameras get a good look, because there were at least ten reporters and paparazzi on the other side of the police tape.
Gently, Bruiser pressed Koun’s sword to the side and stepped behind me. His shadow cast fractals across the ground as he raised the circlet of gold laurel leaves and the gold band it was wedded to over my head. “Behold,” he shouted again, lowering the crown on my head.
Le breloque, which was too big for my head, contracted and snapped into place on me. It made an unexpected cracking-grinding sound of hard plastic and rubber breaking. “Ow!” I said, flinching. Bruiser had forgotten to remove my headset and it squealed into my earbuds as the connection was lost. I yanked out the earbuds, a reflex I couldn’t stop, despite the fact that I knew it wouldn’t happen again. That squeal wasloud.
The arcenciels dove at me. Their bodies flashed into light and back into solid, mass to energy to mass. Koun’s sword slashed through the light. Pearl smacked Koun with her tail. He went flying, leaving behind his sword. Claws raked my head. Scoring deep across my skull. I bellowed.
Opal’s claws caught in my hair, tangled in my braid, hooked under the gold rim. Which tightened against her as she back-winged. Lifting me off my feet. Pain pierced through my brain. Radiated through my skull. Zinged like lightning down my spine.
My crown didn’t release. And she had her claws under it.
Opal shook me like a cat shakes a rat. My teeth clacked and clattered. My bones rattled and popped. The Benelli fell. Faster than sight, Bruiser grabbed the shotgun out of the air and fired point-blank into the dragon, beneath her wings. The shotgun boomed the world into silence.
Silver flechettes,I thought.Not iron. Good. No inter-species international incidents.
Stupid thoughts as the arcenciel snapped me back and forth. Agony shattered through me. My limbs waggledlike a rag doll’s, boneless. Then bones snapping. Dislocating. The scent of my blood filled the air.
I was hurt. Bad.
In a single glimpse I saw Bruiser firing. Another shake and I saw his arm back, throwing a blade at the dragon. There was blood in my mouth.
I caught a flash-vision of Koun. A second image of him as he leaped upward and landed on the serpentine back, like a bull rider but twenty feet in the air. He stabbed down, his mouth open in a shout.
The silvery, glistening arcenciel blood spilled and splattered over me. Into my eyes. Into my mouth. I tried to spit but just bit my tongue again. Dizziness spun though me.
I had a single rational thought that Opal had dropped me.
