I step toward him, when suddenly pain flashes down my back. A stinging sensation starts in my shoulder and angles in toward my spine. I hiss and spin, my sword ready to deal with the claw-happy motherfucker behind me, but I’m instantly confused by what I find. Lachlan has his back to me. He’s facing off with the guard that I slashed behind the knees, and he has the tip of the guard’s blade sticking out of the middle of his back. Lachlan looks like he’s holding onto the sword as the guard tries to pull the blade free. I quickly pivot around Lachlan, and with one strike, the guard’s head tumbles off and his body collapses to the ground where it breaks down into a gray cloud.
I stare at Lachlan for a moment and try to make sense of what just happened. He looks down at the twelve inches of blade and handle that are sticking out of his chest, and then his emerald-green eyes meet mine. A look of relief washes over his face, and I struggle to catch him as he falls forward and his legs give out on him.
“I tried to stop him,” Lachlan tells me as we both fall to our knees. “My magic…it’s…weak, but I had to stop him.” His words float around my head as we kneel knee to knee in front of each other. Lachlan’s bleeding badly, and I’m not sure where to touch him that won’t hurt. I trace the source of the blood, and shock fills me when I realize that he wasn’t stabbed through the chest like I was thinking. He has a wound that starts at the top of his shoulder and slices down to where the sword is sticking out from now.
Holy fuck, did Lachlan just save my life?
Lachlan reaches up and pulls on the handle of the sword. It makes a weird sucking noise, and it snaps me out of my surprised stupor and into action. I drop my katana and rip at the bottom of my tattered sweater. I ball up as much of it as I can and press it into Lachlan’s shoulder. He tries to pull more of the sword out of him, and I slap his hand away.
“Stop doing that; don’t pull it out until I can get someone here who can heal it.” Flashes of me trying to heal Keegan hammer through my thoughts, and I scream out for Ryker. He was near me before, but I have no idea where he is now. Blood soaks through my sweater, and Lachlan’s breathing starts to change.Shit, shit, shit, shit!I scream for Ryker again, and Lachlan sags harder against me. He pulls at the sword handle, and I panic even more.
“Stop fucking doing that!” I yell at him, fear making my voice shaky and my heart race. “I can’t fucking heal you with this shit on.” I pull at the collar on my neck and scream out my frustration. Ryker isn’t anywhere to be seen. I start to call for Nash, but my hair-raising cry for help is swallowed up by the noisy fighting that’s going on all around us, so I try to get Lachlan as secure against me as I can.
Lachlan whimpers as I pull him closer, and frustration burns my throat and my eyes. “Fuck, I’m sorry. Just hang on, okay?” I reassure him and then look around frantically. I scream for Nash again, but I can’t see shit, kneeling on the ground with wolves and lamia doing their best to kill each other all around me. I’ve been saving my energy as much as possible and not tapping into my magic so that I can go head-to-head with Adriel, but Lachlan is bleeding out in my arms, and help is not fucking coming.
I close my eyes and tap into my Healing magic, and pain flashes through me. A cold wet hand touches my face, and I open my eyes, shocked by the sensation. Lachlan’s hand cups my cheek, and his gaze is determined and focused.
“No,” he grunts out, and a hint of blood stains the inside of his lips. “Let me go. I want to go.” My eyes flit back and forth between his, and I’m not sure what the fuck to do. He must see the debate in my stare, and he offers me a blood-tinged, reassuring smile. “Let me go,” he says, nodding as slow tears spill out onto his cheeks.
My breaths start to stutter. Lachlan drops his hand from where it’s cupping my cheek, and it falls limply at his side. I stare at him for a moment, his eyes pleading, my eyes uncertain and sad. Slowly, I reach down and pull the sword from his chest. He gasps as the blade leaves his body, but it’s not pained, it sounds almost hopeful. I lay him on his back and push his dark hair out of his face.
“Okay,” I tell him, and he gives me a look of pure serenity. “Say hi to Keegan for me,” I whisper, and his lips tilt up in the smallest of smiles.
“I will,” he murmurs up to me, and then just like that, he’s gone.
Lachlan’s body relaxes aswho he isfades from his eyes. I stare at his peaceful face for a moment and take a second to absorb what just happened. I’m not sure how to feel about him or what happened between us. I don’t know if I’ll ever understand the kind of broken he claimed to be, but as I close his eyes, I hope he finds peace wherever he is now. I grab the katana on the floor next to my knees, and in the other hand, I arm myself with the sword I pulled from Lachlan’s chest. The blade is still stamped with Lachlan’s blood, and I stare at it numbly.
I take a deep breath and stand up and once again push my way through to the last place I saw Adriel. Lamia all around me are either surrendering or turning into ash. The chaos in the room feels like it’s starting to settle, and I can almost touch the end of the battle with my fingertips. It’s clear our plan has worked, and we’re on the winning side of the carnage and ash that’s coating everything in this shiny, black room. I spot Torrez’s wolf as he and Sabin work together to finish off a handful of lamia. I pass them and notice Enoch, his coven, the twins, and Knox, fighting the last of Adriel’s guards.
An injured lamia charges me, but I stop him with one blade and remove his head with the other, not even breaking my stride. I’m in the zone, numb, bloodthirsty, and ready for this shit to be over. I sidestep the last of the small skirmishes surrounding Adriel and find him standing in the corner, waiting. He’s leaning against his sword, like he hasn’t a care in the world, watching the last of his guards die, with no hint of emotion or concern. He perks up as I step into view, and the smug smile he’s always armed with stretches even wider across his face.
I stare at him, the feel of this moment surprisingly anticlimactic. Adriel, the big bad lamia, the reason I exist, the shadow that’s been hunting me my whole life, the murderer. I run my gaze all over him and decide he doesn’t quite live up to his reputation. He’s a petty, jealous psycho who amassed too much power, and now he’s going to die. I watch him carefully, not trusting his casual demeanor. I ready my weapons and move my weight to the balls of my feet. I bend my knees slightly and then I wait.
“If you kill me, you’ll never get that collar off,” Adriel taunts. He takes a step toward me and twirls his katana like it’s an umbrella and he’s about to pull a Tom Holland and bust out some Rihanna. He’s going for cool, calm, and collected, but his movements just announced that he’s skilled with the sword, and he’s struggling to move is left hand. It looks like he’s not recovered from my attempt to cut off his arm, or maybe he just wants me to think that so I underestimate him. Looks like I’m about to find out.
“You know, it didn’t have to be this way, Vinna. We could have done great things together,” he tells me, like he’s truly sad things have come to this.
Adriel brings the blade of his katana up slowly and taps lightly against one of my swords. I recognize the move well; Talon used to do it to me in the ring. Touch his pads to mine to test my resolve or see how tightly I was wound. I wonder offhandedly if Adriel taught the move to Talon or if Talon taught Adriel. I shake off the question and hold firm, not taking Adriel’s bait.
“Nothing to say, pet?” he presses, and I watch him shift his weight ever so slightly.
I say nothing. He’ll get no monologues from me. No final declarations about how he has this coming and only has himself to blame. He knows what the fuck I’m here to do. I can see it in his eyes, and he can see in mine that I’m not going to be fucking played with. Adriel spins tornado fast, and I get both my blades up in time to absorb the brutal blow. The power that he hits with vibrates from the swords into my hands and up my arms. I clench my teeth against the jarring sensation, and a shriek of metal on metal fills my ears as we both take a swipe at each other and meet the other’s blocks.
He mistakes my silence for capitulation. He thinks I’m going to let him lead this dance to death, but I’m not that bitch. So when he skips away from me, thinking he can regroup and come at me from another angle, I charge him. I hammer the fucker with my own raw power and show him, collar or not, he doesn’t have shit on me.
“Stop!” rings out around me, but it’s not merely a word. It’s a command. One that slithers out of Adriel’s mouth and wraps around my limbs, my mind, my will, and seizes control. I freeze mid-strike, and Adriel’s smirk becomes a self-satisfied grin. “Lower your weapons, pet,” Adriel commands, and that same force flows out of his lips and cloaks itself around me, pushing my swords to the ground.
My mind screams with impotent rage, and my heart is pumping with adrenaline and trying to beat out of my chest. I know that this is wrong and that somehow he’s taken control of my body, but I have no fucking clue how he’s doing it. Is it this fucking collar? Does it make my magic painfulandforce me to comply? Horror spreads through me like a wild fire, and I’m suddenly certain why Adriel wears a perpetual fucking smirk. Because he always knew he could stop me with just a word.
“Look at me!” Adriel demands, and the siren song he’s somehow released in his tone forces my terrified eyes to his. The sounds of the battle around me shut off somehow, and all I can do is focus on Adriel and anything coming out of his mouth. He steps into me and runs the tip of his blade lightly against my cheek. I scream in my mind, but my lips are no longer mine, and until I’m commanded otherwise, they stay shut and I stay silent.
“That’s a good pet,” Adriel coos at me, and he presses into me to run the tip of his nose up the side of my face. I can’t even shudder away from the feel of him. “You didn’t think I’d actually let you win, did you, pet?” he asks me, the blade of his katana trailing down my chest. “I heard your friends coming before they killed the first of the guards outside,” he whispers into my ear. And now I’m going to make you kill them one by one.”
26
Panic surges through me, and I know this is about as bad as it fucking gets. I don’t know if he can use this ability on more than one person, but I suspect he can. I initially thought this was because of the collar, but if I really think back to everything that I’ve been told about Adriel, I should have seen this coming. The way Siah, Sorik and Talon said they would feel after listening to Adriel talk, like they were gods and could do anything andwoulddo anything he told them to. When my mother escaped, it was because another nest attacked Adriel. Talon told me that the invading nest was winning the battle, but somehow Adriel defeated them in the end.Thismust have been how.
The night that I met him, I had a similar cloying sensation that crawled all over my skin, but I didn’t think much of it at the time. But now, as this infinitely more powerful compulsion crawls through my veins, I realize that I’ve missed all the fucking clues. I want to cry as all my darkest fears are volleying images at me of what Adriel could force me to do, but I push back against the dread and try to think through the fog of his compulsion.
