“Wife?” The villager’s eyes widened as he took in Reyla’s form. “You’re a lucky man.”
“I will belong to this woman even after the last cinder of my soul has blown away.”
Reyla stood half over me, scanning the area with sharp eyes before she straightened and extended a blood-streaked hand my way.
“Lounging around on that delectable ass again, are you, my king?” she drawled.
“My assisdelectable. I’m glad you’re confirming that fact.” I took her hand, and she tugged me up. She snaked forward to grab my sword from the cobblestones, handing it tome hilt first, her gaze sweeping the open marketplace again. “You might want to stop tossing this pretty weapon around.”
No borgons nearby—for now. I could hear the scrape of their claws, however. Like all the others I’d battled, they’d join us soon. Otherwise, we’d hunt them down and destroy them. For some reason, they were drawn to this area. They’d kept swarming up the alleys, toppling small buildings to reach the market.
I slid my hand beneath her hair, encircling her nape, and dragged her hard against me. My mouth fell on hers, and I kissed her with all the feral need scorching through my veins.
If only I could keep kissing her forever.
A shriek rang out, and I stepped away, grinning at the stunned way she looked at me, as if nothing and no one else existed but me.
My mate was here, and she would battle beside me.
Her kiss still burned on my lips as I tightened my grip on my sword, her bloodied handprint smeared across my wrist guard like a brand. Another shriek ripped up the street leading in this direction, jolting me back to the fight.
“Left,” Reyla snapped, spinning past me to drive her sword between a borgon’s ribs. The creature howled, jerking as she twisted her weapon free with a feral grin that seared my chest with pride. While she eliminated the threat, I surged the other way, putting my back to hers, intercepting a borgon roaring toward us.
My blade cleaved through its forearm, the fire I willed into the steel cracking like dried wood meeting flames, severing the limb. I twisted the hilt and leaped, driving the blade up through its neck, heat blasting through fur and sinew until the head swung to the ground with a sickening thump. Its blood sprayed onto the cobblestones as its body toppled.
Reyla pivoted toward me.
A borgon lunged for my blind side, its claws already slicing through the air. Before I could react, she was there, her sword flashing faster than I could follow. She leaped, opening the creature’s throat with one clean sweep. The beast dropped to the cobblestones, convulsing as blood spilled from the wound in grotesque bursts.
“You’re welcome,” she said, her breathing heavy and her grin as sharp as the blade she wielded like a master.
My chest tightened. I wanted to say something—wanted her to know I trusted no one else to guard my back.
I wanted to shout that I loved her, something I was not allowed to do.
Not yet. Maybe never.
The marketplace had been transformed into an open graveyard, the stone slick with blood and littered with fallen bodies, both fae and borgon. I focused on the flashes of movement still darting through the smoke-choked air.
I sent power into every strike, but my body was tiring. At my command, the cobblestone street buckled, and roots surged up from the earth. Thick, gnarled vines wove around a borgon to my right, binding its limbs before jerking hard enough to sever them from its body. Its screech was drowned by the snarl of a blade as a villager darted in to slit its throat with a farming sickle.
To my right, a woman flung a hammer toward a looming borgon. I stepped into the fight before the beast could crush her, leaping to slam my foot into the creature’s chest, curling air around me to add magical force to the kick. The borgon skidded back, its claws scraping the street before I drove the hilt of my blade into its body, sending spikes of ice through its ribs.
As I landed on the cobblestones again, Reyla whipped to my side, the blades I'd given her spinning in a whirl as she sprang up and cut down two borgons trying to flank me.
“They’re thinning,” she called, her voice hoarse.
It could be true, though I didn’t trust it. Too many still moved beyond the flames, their forms twisting as they prowled this way.
“Where’s your sword?”
“Stuck in a borgon. Couldn’t get it out.” She held up her blades. “These’ll do.”
They’d breached the wall earlier and invaded, rampaging through the streets and setting buildings ablaze with their fire. So many had died already, and the city was crumbling around us.
I’d fought to defeat them, but they kept coming, swarming toward the marketplace.
Now the sun barely hovered above the horizon. It would slip away soon, taking me with it, and Lorant would step into my place. He’d watch out for my wildfire. Keep her safe. And finish this if he could.
