Dangerous because I wanted to fall to my knees before him, to press my lips to his foot. Too bad I was busy bleeding out in the mud, just like Gravelock had warned.
A shit way to go, honestly.
“Let her go.” Rooke’s booming voice echoed through me while my blood poured out over the stones, Kaden’s wrathful gaze catching mine, every second between us stuffed full of panic before settling back on Gravelock withan anger deep enough to shake the foundations of the world.
Ryland was unconscious now, body spasming on the muddy ground, his face so pale…so godsdamned pale…
“Let them both go, Venmir. This fight is between you and me, and this ends now.”
Rooke’s unyielding order had the terrible Bloodsinger magic slipping from my veins like oil. Cuts stopped opening up on my skin, that blinding pain ebbed away, enough for me to pull in a rasping lungful of frozen air. Somewhere overhead, a pair of crows called out and I was able to focus on the pink-hued clouds through the haze of red.
Okay. Maybe…I wasn’t dying after all?
For the first time since I’d laid eyes on him, Gravelock faltered; those devouring shadows balking as the full force of Rooke’s power bore down on him in an angry, thundering wave, more terrifying than the storm that had just passed.
I couldn’t look away.
Rooke was razor-edged fury brought to life, a shifting storm of shadow and gilded light, too handsome for this world, too powerful to look at for too long, the closest thing to a true king I’d ever seen.
“I said…let them go.” Rooke’s indigo-blue eyes creased at the corners, his mouth pinched into a tight, angry line. There was an edge of desperate fear to him now, something raw and unhinged reflected in his eyes that struck me deep in the heart.
“Now, Venmir.” He lifted his hand and power boomed over me like a shockwave, and finally, blessedly, everything stopped. That sharp edge of pain ebbed away, enough for me to reach up and wipe the blood off my face, stifle my groan, pick up my sword, use it to brace myself as I climbed to my feet.
Beside me, Ryland did the same, and I wondered if his legs were as unsteady as mine.
How many times had Rooke endured this torture—not a mere taste of Gravelock’s Bloodsinger power, but the full impact?
And not for a minute, but forhours?
I shivered, not from the cold.
For what this bastard had done to Ariel, I deserved my revenge, but Kaden had suffered far longer and endured the loss of his family and his freedom, of his very self.
If anyone deserved to spill the Butcher’s blood today, it was him.
Kaden raised his hand and ruthless, brutal magic warped the world around us, turned the air unbreathable, left my bones groaning for mercy.
Gravelock shouted, his shadows cresting over us, a black tide of pure death, ready to crash down and erase us all. For one fraught moment, the world around me was nothing but a clash of darkness and electricity and the roaring of one pissed-off dragon.
Then the two remaining soldiers fell to the ground, smoking, rotting corpses.
Leaving the Butcher standing alone.
With the last of his army crumpled at his feet on the blood-splattered shore, Lord Gravelock became just another preening aristocrat with diamond-pointed ears and a snappish mouth, playing at being tyrant, his fancy boots and the bottom of his cape caked in mud.
While Rooke, with those steely eyes and the bearing of a conqueror…he was the real ruler.
The Dark Prince of the Shadowlands.
A name I’d once mocked, but now believed with every cell of my being.
“Enough.” Rooke’s brusque command cut through the chaos like a scythe.
“You might very well be the oldest Fae walking this realm,” Rooke said quietly. “But your days of drawing air are over. For my mother’s suffering. For my father’s life. For everything you’ve taken from me, today, Venmir Gravelock, you will die.”
“You can’t…” Gravelock stumbled backward, glancing frantically at the bodies of his dead soldiers, searching for anyone to throw between him and his approaching fate. His dark shield whirled around him, his last remaining protection. “You cannot destroy me. I have powers you can only dream about; I possess the power of the Shadowlands itself.”
“Where, exactly, do you think Rooke magic comes from?” Rooke purred, not an ounce of mercy in his face, cold power turning him merciless as he bore down on the Butcher, hunting him with a feral intensity that sent our enemy reeling back, boots sliding over rocks, tripping over bodies.
