“Em?” Luce’s voice carried over the quiet huffs and low barks from the lycans in their wolf forms. She turned to find the beautiful woman standing naked in the snow before blinking, and clothes appeared on her body from that strange pocket realm. “What are you doing out here? I thought you were in the medic tent.”
Emillie wove through the wolves. “Phulan gave me a potion to make sure you all sip from.”
Suspicion crept into those gold eyes, and Luce held out her hand. Emillie lifted the basket, allowing the lycan to take the pitcher and sip its contents. A beat later, her nose wrinkled. “Have you drunk this?”
“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “Phulan said it is not for vampires.”
Luce hummed, licking her lips as though to gather more of the taste before taking Emillie’s gloved hands, one by one, to inspect the fabric, then the skin hidden beneath. “Do not let it drip on you.”
That uncomfortable knot twisted a little more. “What is it?”
“I can’t be sure,” Luce said slowly. “Just be careful with it. There is likely a reason that vampires are not meant to try it.”
“Well, now that you have had some,” Emillie said, stepping closer and eyeing her partner’s glistening lips, “am I not allowed to kiss you?”
Another contemplative hum, and Luce swiped her bare hand through the snow atop a nearby bush. She plopped the handfulin her mouth, swished the melted ice around, then spat it on the ground. “I can’t taste it anymore, so I believe you are safe.”
“That does not sound very reassuring,” Emillie said, but closed the distance between them nonetheless and pressed her lips to Luce’s.
Burying her fingers beneath Emillie’s braided and twisted bun, Luce deepened the kiss, pressing her body tight against hers. “You have become quite the risk-taker.”
Emillie grinned against her mouth. “Hard not to be when the woman you love is a dangerous Lycan Queen.”
Luce chuckled, kissing her again, this time more possessively. “This battle will be quick, I think.”
Heart lurching, Emillie pulled back a bit. “When we are done here, I would like to go to L’Oden with you and…perform Silve’s ritual.”
Perhaps it was the wrong thing to say, for Luce pulled back and frowned at her. “Why would you say something like that right now?”
At first, Emillie gaped. She bit her lip and flipped through her memories before saying, “I did not mean to upset you. After watching the dhemons and everything with Ariadne and Revelie, I thought that, perhaps, you would want the same with me.”
The growl that escaped Luce’s throat was pure wolf. She pulled Emillie back to her again and, lips a breath from hers as they locked eyes, said, “You can’t say shit like that right before I go off to battle.”
“Why not?” An honest question as Emillie tried with all her might to piece together Luce’s sudden distress.
“People always die in stories after making such grand proclamations,” Luce murmured. “And I refuse to accept that either one of us will die tonight.”
It was Emillie’s turn to laugh. She wrapped her free arm around the lycan’s waist and brushed their lips together. “It isa good thing, then, that I do not put much stock in such silly stories. I live in reality where I know you will come back to me.”
Another deep kiss, their tongues and lips moving languidly as they soaked up every second together. Whether others watched or not, Emillie did not care. Let them see how much she loved their Queen. Let them witness her passion for all they fought to accomplish: equality and the end of everything for which Caersans of Valenul stood.
When Luce pulled away, her clothes had already vanished back into the void controlled by her fae magic. Before either of them could exchange another word, she shifted back into her wolf form and turned to make her way up to the front of the lycans, where she would wait for the signal to rush into battle.
Fear strangled Emillie as she watched the massive brown wolf weave between her people, snapping at those who were not paying attention. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to remember that Luce had made it out of Monsumbra with nary a scratch. This final battle would end in only one of two ways: their victory…or the annihilation of them all.
Either way, she and Luce would find their ending together.
Madan lifted his arms to adjust the armor on his shoulders and chest. Since losing his arm, the plates and small buckler now covering what remained of his left arm did not quite fit as well as they could. The muscles had grown weaker without his constant use of them, shrinking over time and causing the straps that held his armor in place to loosen. It didn’t bode well for them to stay put in the midst of a battle of this scale.
A battle the size of which he had never before been in.
The last Madan fought quite so much had been on the grounds of the Caldwell Estate in Monsumbra. Everything had ended when Brutis set it all aflame, and they hadn’t endured without their own casualties. Too many dhemons had fallen that night, and he had the aching suspicion that that would be about how this ended as well.
The dragons were not set to enter the fray until called upon. Bringing them in too soon could risk many of their own numbers becoming victims of the flying cavalry’s less-than-precise attacks. Dragonfire would consume anything it touched, halting only at the behest of the trained fae or mages. Claws and tails and teeth often crushed, impaled, and broke everyone in its path, be it friend or foe. It had been simple enough for Brutis back on the Caldwell grounds when most of those on foot were their adversaries.
Now it would be too much of a risk.
Not only could the dragons harm their own numbers, but massive ballistae stood on the walls of the Hub in the distance, ready to shoot down their bondhearts. Loren had prepared, as Madan knew he would. Their only way to utilize the dragons at this rate would be to draw the vampires out as far as possible, break their own lines, and cut around the sides to leave their enemies exposed, and hope for the least possible friendly fire.
