My father led the first column through. A line of black leaked from the corner of Veyka’s eye. Vera had command of the second column. Veyka coughed, but she could not press a hand to cover her mouth. I saw the droplets she tried to hide by angling her body away. I would have rather she coughed up blood than bits of her soul.
By the third, she had to hunch over, supporting her elbows on her knees.
“Stop this.” I did not know how much longer I could stop myself from touching her.
“There are only a few more.”
A few dozen more.
“It is enough.”
“It is not.”
“Stop.” The wound on her hand was nearly gushing. She couldn’t do this anymore. I reached for her hands, but she jerked away.
“I do not belong to you,” she hissed.
I tried to grab her shoulders, but she twisted away from me. Even at the breaking point of exhaustion, she was so fucking fast. But the movements were disjointed. They lacked her usual grace.
She tripped over her own feet and careened into the line of soldiers. But instead of trying to regain her feet, she turned and sank her teeth into the male who’d caught her.
She did not need the elongated canines of the terrestrial fae to tear him apart. She ripped a chunk free from his neck, thick red blood spurting out and spraying her and the soldiers around us. They couldn’t scatter fast enough, the bright light of the rift illuminating the horror on their faces.
Somehow, the rift was still open.
Inside, Veyka still fought.
“Get through the rift!” I yelled, closing in on her.
I tried to wrench her away from the male, but she fought me with a strength that did not belong to her. The succubus was in control now. I had to get to her skin, to her mind. I ripped away her cloak, grabbing her shoulders hard enough that there would be bruises. There was only darkness on the other end of our mating bond.
Veyka, this is not you.My beast snarled into the darkness.
A second later a voice came. Veyka’s, but not. A hiss in the night.This is me. This is us. This is who we have always been.
Thatwedid not refer to the two of us.
She is mine, my beast howled back.You are mine, I told my mate.
I ripped her away from the male, breaking contact, the severed artery at his throat spraying both of us with blood. We crashed into the hard ground, frozen by months of snow and ice. Pain shot up my leg. Veyka cried out horribly. But itwasVeyka.
“Get him through the rift!” I yelled to whoever would listen.
I did not wait to see if they complied. I lifted Veyka into my arms and carried her through, her fingers still up, still holding the way, still shaking terribly.
Three bodies stumbled through after us. I looked away from Veyka only long enough to confirm that everyone was through. I grabbed her hands in mine, pulling them down. The portal shook and then closed.
“Take him to Isolde,” I ordered, aware of my father’s appearance. But I did not hear him. I lowered Veyka to the ground. I was shaking, too. I needed to check her for wounds. She had to be okay. Those were her eyes looking back at me. Black, but hers. Her lips trembling. Her tears, clear and heartbreaking, flooding down her cheeks.
No words came to me. What comfort could I offer? This was the price.
I’d imagined a thousand different possibilities in the hours Veyka had gone away through the void, leaving us to ruminate on Morgyn’s word. The cost of uniting the Sacred Trinity was Veyka’s soul.
I’d pictured her death. I’d pictured a husk of a person, blank eyes and mechanical movements. Ancestors, I’d even pictures an ephemeral spirit. But I’d never imagined this… watching my mate struggling for control of herself, to keep the shred of her soul that remained intact, only to lose.
This was worse than death. This was torture on a level neither Veyka nor I had ever experienced, even after everything we’d survived together and apart.
And those shadows that Veyka had manifested… those must be tied to banishing the succubus. The key to ridding our world of them lay within Veyka, within the monster now inhabiting her body. To rid us of the succubus, she had to become one.
