My heart aches.
Let the realms hate me, but why must my only friend?
Yet I prostrated myself before Aurelius in a way that I would never before anyone else. Does he still hate me enough to trick and kill me?
Enough to risk the life of his own Omega?
Doesn’t he know what the Blood Court may do to both wolf and fae now that he has broken the treaty?
“Get back,” I yell again. “Let the Shadow Devils burn your souls for eternity if you don’t die to protect my Omega.”
My soldiers obediently fall back, swarming to surround Shadow like giant scarab beetles.
My mates are pale, staring up in shock at the sky.
The charioteer drags the panicking horses around, whose eyes are large and white with fear, until they also stand in front of Shadow. The archer, the most accurate out of all the Eternals, raises his long bow with the shaft in his left hand and the string in his right.
He is known as the Dragon Smiter.
His arrows are tipped with the bones of dragons that he has slain. It is one of the few things that can breach the tough hides of a dragon.
I let out a breath of relief that my mates appear as dazed and shocked as I am.
They didn’t know, bless the Void.
They weren’t in on this ambush.
How could I interrogate or punish them, even if they were?
Yet the Blood Court would, the Scarlet Temple, Crocodile House, or the Void Cult.
It would turn my heart to ash for Freya or Dove to betray me, when they are the first people to have talked to me like I am not monstrous.
To talk to me like Aurelius used to.
Like my twin did.
If that was all a lie, then…?
I shake my head, licking my tongue over my fangs. I stare up at the dragons.
What in hell are they waiting for?
Then I realize and I become ashen.
The ruby dragons are circling White Lotus, fanning out to each of the corners, until the village is surrounded.
Atticus hovers directly above White Lotus, blotting out the moon.
I’ve seen this formation before. Atticus uses it on raids, when he intends to annihilate an entire village.
He’s not a governor or a ruler.
He’s a butcher.
Please let him have planned this ambush alone. He has been challenging Aurelius for years, building a rival powerbase in the Borderlands.
Who is behind this trick that has sent us home only to die?
