“Well, well, well,” he says, as the bees darken and become a masked figure wearing a cloak. Their drone cuts off obliquely ashe bows to us. “What luck. You’ve defeated my maze, destroyed your enemies and burned down half my Labyrinth.”
“It wasonebuilding,” Zyla growls, shoving her way to my side.
“And now you’ve come to claim your final reward,” Kasaros laughs, gaze locking on me. “But the problem is… only two may receive passage through each door. A bride. And a hunter. You must make a choice,dreiprince. Your beloved huntress. Or your brother’s future mate.”
Zyla
Bael freezes and as he turns to me I see the pain in his expression, the dilemma in his heart. It’s not his love for me that I doubt. It’s his belief that he comes first. That he should also be rewarded in this life, rather than being merely his brothers’ guardian.
This was never a choice between me and Kari.
It’s a choice between his brothers and himself.
And there is no answer that will not break him.
I take the decision away from him, stepping closer and capturing the collar of his shirt. “Look at me.”
“Zyla—”
My lips capture his words as I kiss him hard. The past few days has changed my life in so many ways, but when I made this choice—to take him as mine—I also made a quiet little promise to myself. The way he feels about his family is exactly the way I feel about Aylin. I would die for her. I would kill for her. I would burn a fucking kingdom to the ground for her.
As would he for his brothers.
And maybe this is the reason it feels so right between us. This soul deep understanding between us, this kinship, can only be explained by the fact that some part of my soul recognizes his.
But there is one thing he forgets.
He’s my family now too. My mate. And I will not allow anything to come between us—anything to hurt him—even if that something is a God.
I break the kiss, pressing my forehead against his chin for one quivering moment as he strokes my upper arms with desperate hands, before I look up. “Do you trust me?”
Bael glances at me from beneath those tawny lashes as if he knows exactly what I’m trying to tell him. “Of course. But?—”
“Are you not Bael the Black? The Beast of Kerawan? The monster everyone fears?”
A flare of gold lights his irises. There it is. The Beast inside him. Thedrei.
“Trust me,” I whisper, turning back to Kasaros.
“We’ll abide by your rules,” I tell the God, stepping closer to Kari and taking her hand. “One bride. One hunter… or in this case, huntress.”
Kasaros’s eyes burn an eerie blue through the mask. “Now, now, little huntress. Those are not the rules?—”
“You said two may enter the portal. This is not merely his choice. It is mine. I claim Kari. And if not”—I unsheathe Bael’s dagger and point it at him—“then we’ll see how much a God likes the taste of pure steel.”
Somehow the light catches on the flat of the blade, highlighting the rose etched there. The handle throbs in my palm as if in warning.
“Where did you get that knife?” Kasaros hisses.
It’s not exactly the reaction I was expecting.
He lunges at me, disappearing into thin air and then reappearing right at my side as if he means to grab me.
But something changes.
The throbbing intensifies, my ears aching as if there’s some sort of noise I cannot quite hear. The rose etched into the blade gleams an unearthly blue, and a pulse of force shoots out from it in a circular dome around me. Power vibrates through me, reminding me of summer storms and the scream of dying stars.
Kasaros is thrown back, his expression shocked as he slams to the ground.
