Chapter One
NIKO
His home was burning. Smoke curled into the air, a call for help and a warning, thick and white beneath the eye of the false Bone Moon. He tilted his head back and howled, choking as the reek of scorched timber—and worse—stained his lungs. His pack didn’t reply, but that was the least of his concerns. The people he’d sworn to protect were dying, and he was going to be too late to save them.
Guilt fueled his stride as his paws pounded the forest floor, mashing the rowan trees’ fallen berries to raw, bloody pulp. And beside him, where she belonged, his Dimi ran, her red hair streaming behind her in the fractured light, her cheeks stained with the tears they’d cried together, her magic gathering beneath her skin.
She was wild. Beautiful.
And his.
But was she real? That was the question that plagued him.
Elena had tortured him with illusions when he wouldn’t bend to her will, making him watch Katerina die in a thousand terrible ways. When that hadn’t moved him, she’d become more…imaginative. From his place in the corner of that damnable cottage, she’d forced him to watch Maksim and Konstantin sink into his Dimi’s body, her head thrown back in ecstasy and her hair freed from its braid, the better for them to grip it in their fists as they rode her like mindless animals. She’d conjured Katerina in the clothes his Dimi had worn when he’d last seen her, still wet with his blood, and made the woman he loved whisper a thousand untruths: she’d never loved him, she’d only sought to use him, she’d forgotten him, she was already bonded to another. On one particularly depraved occasion, Elena had invaded what passed for his sleep and made him dream of Katerina, and when he’d woken aching, desperate, craving, he’d found?—
No. He wouldn’t think of that. He’d sworn never to think of it again, though his dreams were a different story. But what if this, here and now, was no more than another illusion? What if Katerina had never come for him, had never beaten Elena with no more than the force of her determination? What if he’d never clawed his way to the surface in her wake, or felt her magic surge through him as their bond healed, or held her in his arms and heard her say all the words he was so desperate to hear: she still wanted him, he hadn’t lost his place fighting by her side, he was still worthy of the Light?
He was broken. He knew that, no matter what Katerina told him, illusion or otherwise. But this…to kiss her beneath the moon just like that first night in the forest, her body warm and real beneath his hands as his Mark came alive, to be free at last of Elena’s insidious rage and curdled desire, to feel almost whole, and then to smell Kalach burning at the hands of a demon…
It was torture of the highest order, exactly the kind the Dark-corrupted Elena Lisova would conjure: to dangle what he wanted most, and then rip it away, to replace it with his greatest fear. He would probably arrive at the village’s borders to find a thousand versions of Katerina burning to death, each of them mocking and belittling him as she took a man deep into every orifice of her body. But on the off-chance that this was real, that the woman running beside him was truly the other half of his soul and not a Dark-induced hallucination, that Kalach was really burning and he had a chance to save it—well, what choice did he have?
The answer was: none at all. Because for the chance to redeem himself, to reclaim his honor and his Dimi, he would do anything. And so he ran, the fire searing his lungs, his pack’s howls echoing in his ears at last, not knowing what prayer to wing toward the Saints. Because if this was real, his village was most likely doomed, and with it, everyone he had sworn an oath to keep safe. But if it wasn’t, then Katerina had never braved the Underworld to save him, and this was the cruelest of jokes, at the hands of a woman who twisted hate and called it love.
Niko Alekhin ran ever onward, closing the distance between himself and the flames, knowing that no matter the truth, he was damned.
Chapter Two
KATERINA
Fear snaked through Katerina’s veins, warring with joy in equal measure, as she and Niko crossed the border that separated the forest from Kalach. The rowan-fires still burned, their smoke indistinguishable from the clouds that hovered over the village. The gate hung open, unguarded by the Shadows meant to flank it, and beside her, Niko growled in admonition. A shiver ran through Katerina—it was no small thing for Shadows to abandon their posts. It meant only one thing: that the threat within Kalach exceeded the one that lay without.
Of course it did. The threat within Kalach’s borders was Gadreel himself, the Fallen Angel of War, who had unleashed the Darkness on them all. Gadreel, who was wreaking havoc on her village as an act of revenge, because he’d come seeking Katerina and failed to find her.
She’d known he wanted to own her, to use her. But until Niko had told her what Gadreel had confided—that the demon had penetrated Rivki’s defenses and was possessing the Kniaz, controlling the nobleman’s every move—she hadn’t understood the extent of his plans.
While she was in the Underworld, fighting to save her Shadow, Gadreel had traveled to Kalach, under cover of the Kniaz’s arrival and Katerina’s planned bonding ceremony to a new Shadow. With the wards weakened, perhaps the village’s Shadows had not been able to sense his presence, just as they’d failed to detect Sammael. Or perhaps he’d never meant to enter Kalach himself, but had simply planned to lurk in the woods, using the Kniaz to lure her to him. The end result was the same: The villagers had bent over backward to welcome the Kniaz with the finest hospitality they had to offer, scraping the bottom of their near-empty larders to cobble together a feast. All the while, they’d had no idea they were rolling out the royal carpet for a prince of Hell.
It had all been a ruse to get his hands on Katerina, to leverage her gifts to drive back the Darkness. And when it had failed, the Dark Angel of War had sought retribution. Who had he killed? What if the Darkness devoured Kalach, because Katerina had prioritized saving her Shadow over loyalty to her village?
Fury simmered in her blood, overtaking everything else, igniting her magic. She braced for the out-of-control pitch and yaw of it, the unpredictable surge and ebb that had so terrified her ever since she’d lost her Shadow. But instead, her body hummed with the familiar pulse that had always accompanied her rising magic. Even though they ran toward what might well be Kalach’s destruction, she couldn’t help but find joy in the renewed balance of her gifts.
The moment they barreled through the gates, though, Niko’s paws pounding the ground at her side, all of her elation fled, replaced by terror. The village was under siege. Everywhere Katerina looked, buildings burned, flames licking up their sides with avid hunger, as if the firewitches’ magic had somehow failed to hit its target and had turned on itself instead. The air was laced with the sickly-sweet scent of Grigori demons’ blood, and sure enough, some of the creatures lay along the path to the village square, caught between one form and another, leaking their silver-blue blood into the earth.
Grigori demons were shapeshifters, fond of assuming whatever appearance would do the most physical or emotional damage to their victims. In death, they often lost control, reverting to earlier forms they’d taken. One of these appeared to be part-Shadow, judging by the gear they wore, and part-Bukovac, a six-legged creature with long, curved horns, fond of drowning its victims. Another had died with its form frozen halfway between Likho, the one-eyed, black-cloaked woman known for bringing misfortune wherever she traveled, and Psoglav, an iron-toothed creature with the hind end of a horse, the head of a dog, and a taste for human flesh. The third was so contorted as to be unrecognizable.
Beside them lay Natalya, the young Dimi who’d once delivered the message about Satvala’s demise, and across her body, blessed blade still gripped in his hand, lay Gregory, her Shadow. His blade had skewered the unrecognizable Grigori, half-buried in its chest—but the demon had had its revenge. Gregory’s body was scored with demon bites; they had had their way with him, piercing his skin with venom over and over again. He had fought them to his last breath, as he was trained to do, and had taken the creature down with him as he fell. But it had been too late for him and Natalya.
Next to Katerina, Niko growled at the sight of the fallen Shadow. It came to her that she hadn’t told him he no longer held the pack, that Baba had appointed Alexei as alpha. Well, there was no time for it now. They would do what they must, alpha Shadow and shamed Dimi or no.
Shrieks emanated from the heart of the village, and her Shadow’s eyes met hers. In them, she saw perfect understanding: they would charge toward the threat, as they always had, and meet it together. She carried his blessed blades, and her own magic. It would have to be enough.
Niko leaned against her side, bracing her, and she buried her free hand in his fur, the connection between them both reassurance and strength. Again, she felt that disturbing hint of Darkness stirring within their bond, the one she’d first sensed in the clearing. Niko tensed, as if he felt it, too. But now was not the time for questions. She would ask him later, if they lived.
She let him go, and they ran onward, past buildings charred with smoke and women weeping on their knees, past small children that wandered, lost and wailing, through the streets. The apothecary was aflame, the scents of burning sage and garlic and yarrow filling the air, in a terrible perversion of a healing spell. The anti-venin, Katerina thought with dismay; that was where the village stored the powerful antidote to the demons’ bites. Without it, a Shadow in human form would die. And the apothecary was burning.
She swallowed her horror and forged on, past buckled earth and piles of ash, Niko keeping pace at her side. Where were Ana and Alexei? If something had happened to her best friend, she would never forgive herself.
They had to be in the thick of the fighting. As the alpha Shadow, it was Alexei’s responsibility and his right. And where he was, there Ana would be, also.
