He shrugged, looking contrite. “Jealousy, I suppose. Protectiveness over you. I didn’t want to believe he was a good man. Finding that box in the east tower only seemed to confirm my misgivings about him. I’m only sorry you were hurt in the process.”
She couldn’t fault Sebathiel for alerting her to his discovery. He had only done it out of duty to her, and to the realm.
Just as Darion had taken the box out of his own duty to the Order.
Selene stared out at the calm sea and the muted colors of the coming dawn. She had let her pride and paranoia rule her when she had told Darion to go. Her fear of being hurt had made her too weak to fight for what she felt for him. She had let him believe she despised him when that was the furthest thing from the truth.
She loved him, and now he was gone.
The jolting blast of a battle horn sounded from atop one of the tall towers--a warning from one of the legion’s lookouts.
She and Sebathiel went to the edge of the garden promontory and scanned the waters that surrounded the island.
“There,” Seb said, pointing.
A cold knot formed in Selene’s stomach when she saw it. Beyond the veil, a mass of dark storm clouds churned near the horizon, filling the sky.
No, not storm clouds at all.
A swirling, intensifying wall of darkness.
It roiled and expanded, moving swiftly, devouring all the light in its path.
The tranquil, turquoise waters turned from gently lapping waves to surging whitecaps on the other side of the veil. The protective perimeter surrounding the Atlantean island began to glimmer . . . to tremble.
Her worst fears were materializing before her eyes.
“Faith,” Selene whispered, agape with dread and a terrible awe. She pulled out the crystal, saw its light pulsing and struggling in her hand. “Seb, the veil . . . it’s not going to hold.”
As soon as she said it, a huge shadow began to emerge from within the thickening darkness.
A large boat.
It cut through the high waves, heading for the veil. The prow rammed through, and the barrier shattered and fell away like particles of stardust swallowed up by the unnatural night.
Then she saw him.
Standing on the bow of that enormous boat, the Ancient held an open-lidded box before him--the source of all that roiling, expanding darkness. Dark power erupted in cold waves from the heart of what that box contained.
“He has the three crystals,” Selene said, looking to find Sebathiel staring at the enemy’s approach with equal horror.
Because as bad as it was, the savage otherworlder wasn’t alone.
Countless other large figures stood on the deck of the boat with him. Breed males. Rogues. Their eyes glowed like fireballs, fangs glinting white, in their seething faces.
The boat powered for the island’s shore.
The wall of darkness swept across the water and onto the land, then over the palace.
A signal went up from the Ancient and the army of vampires surged airborne on a bone-shaking roar. They vaulted as one in a great leap that carried them onto the beach where the legion’s first line of defense stood to meet them.
“Fuck,” Seb hissed beside her, drawing the sword he wore sheathed at his side.
Selene tried to raise her light to fry the charging horde, but the power of the Ancient’s three crystals was too strong. His darkness blocked her light, consuming it even before it could take hold.
She tried repeatedly to raise it, but it was no use. The darkness only deepened, lengthened . . . engulfing the whole of the island.
The beach was a chaos of violence and bloodshed and death. The Rogues swarmed. Atlantean soldiers fought . . . and fell.
