The dead do not scream. But the dying do.
She swept down again and again, saving the females beset by the males of darkness. Weak, feeble males who surrendered their minds. How easily they became prey to those beings from another world. Leaving their females undefended, feasting upon them. She could not allow it. She fell upon them, ripping limbs and hands and heads. Their taste was vile, corrupted. But they died and it did not matter how they tasted.
Down she dove again, to a female with blonde hair so pale it was nearly white, a beautiful female that reminded her of someone that she loved. A terrible shrill cry ripped from her mouth. She did not love. She killed.
A male monster clawed its way across the ground, its legs a mess that could not support it. But it reached the female, sinking the jagged tips of its bony fingers into her legs. Blood flooded her senses. Too much blood. She angled her body, grabbing the monster with her talons and ripping it away. Those deadly talons severed mangled sinew and bone, raining black bile down up on the armies below.
She landed hard in the muck, the red-orange desert long stained black. Another. She needed another. Another male, another to kill. Vengeance. Death. Die—
Pain wrenched up her wing. She screamed as she turned, her talons already reaching. Another male, this one’s eyes clear. Scared of her—he should be scared of her. She was the monster he’d made her. All of them, with their bloodlust. Now, she would feast upon theirs. His.
“Cyara! Put him down!”
Her head turned. A male voice—that dared to command her.
She hissed through her teeth, the male who’d thrown the dagger still clutched in her talons, feet dangling uselessly. Useless like the male he was.
“He did not mean to hurt you,” the newcomer cried. Another male, dark hair, brown eyes that stared at her with intention. With knowing. He could not know her. It was impossible.
“Put him down.”
She dropped the male in her talons, a new quarry in her sights.
“The succubus,” he said. He did not back away. Stupid male. “The succubus are the ones you want. Not me.”
She grabbed him from the ground like he was nothing. Hewasnothing. Her talons snapped the vines he tried to summon. Puny male. He could not hurt her, could not hold her. He stopped struggling. Good, he realized. Oh, he’d make a tasty meal.
“Hurting me means hurting Maisri.”
Her talons stopped from breaking skin.
“You love Maisri. You would never hurt her.”
Maisri. She did not know that name. She could not love. Love was a weakness. Love allowed males to hurt her. This male would hurt her, just like all the others had.
An image flashed in her mind. A daisy spreading across a child’s palm. Another—dark curls and bubbling laughter. A face, heart-shaped and sweet.
Maisri.
The harpy dropped him and shot into the air.
82
EVANDER
They ran and ran and ran. The elemental queen was stronger than Evander had realized, even after watching her spar for months in the training ring of the goldstone palace, defeating her Goldstones and palace guards alike. Lyrena kept pace at her side, always off of her left shoulder, a half-step behind. Her priorities were clear.
He cursed Veyka with one breath, for refusing to use her void power, even as he begged the Ancestors to help her maintain control of her inner darkness long enough to banish the succubus from Annwyn. He’d seen the terrestrial male she’d eviscerated when she lost control of the portal rift. He understood what she’d explained in stuttering words in the command tent. If she took them through the void now, if she allowed the succubus access to that part of her too soon, she might not be able to get back the control she needed to banish them once and for all.
Evander would make sure Mya made it to the tower. She gasped for breath as they cut through the foothills of the mountains, the difference between swimming through the Split Sea and running through the sandy desert more evident withevery passing minute. But none of them slowed. They could not. The farther they got around the edge of the valley, the less succubus stood between them and the tower. At least, in theory.
But the horde was bigger than they’d realized.
It had grown during the night. They’d planned to sneak around the back once the horde advanced past the tower that stood in the middle of the valley, beyond the edge of the ruined city of Baylaur. But there was no rear, not anymore. The horde filled the valley nearly to the edges. The only space left free was the strip of land patrolled by the Gremog, and even that would not last forever. Eventually even the sucker-mouthed sand demon would be overwhelmed.
Mya slipped in the sand, but Evander caught her before she slid down the dune into the valley. The others had stopped, finally, and he recognized why. They were parallel to the tower. The shortest length from the mountains to the center of the valley lay before them. And it crawled with black death.
“What do we do?” Mya whispered.
