“We fight.” Veyka turned to Lyrena. “Give me Excalibur.”
The Goldstone reached for the mighty sword, sheathed on her back alongside her own.
“You cannot give her a weapon,” Evander protested. He knew better than to reach for Lyrena. The female was as likely as her king to cut off his arm.
Veyka rounded on him. Her arms were still bound, her leg shackles gone to allow for running. But she was terrifying even so, her black eyes shining, lips curling in a sneer that did not belong to the succubus, but to the queen.
“That is a succubus horde. That is an amorite blade. Your wife’s best chance of survival is if that blade is in my hands. Leave the shackles on. I can kill them just fine with my hands bound.”
If they entered that horde with only Lyrena and him fighting, the succubus would overwhelm them and kill Mya. Veyka would survive. Her soul be lost entirely to the succubus, but her body would live on.
Veyka might lose herself to the succubus. With the sword in her hand, she’d be even more deadly. But at least Mya stood a chance.
“At my back,” he ordered Mya. For once, his wife listened. “Use your powers, but don’t sacrifice yourself. Do you promise me?” he demanded.
Lyrena handed off the legendary sword. But Veyka watched Evander and his wife, her brow wrinkled as she listened carefully to their words. He did not care what she heard. He needed Mya’s promise.
“Yes,” Mya agreed, water already spinning from her fingertips. “I promise.”
They entered the horde at a run. Five yards, ten, they wove their way through the horde with as much speed as they could, for as long as they could. But they succubus were drawn to Veyka. They clawed for her first, closing in from every side. Veyka beheaded one easily with Excalibur. Lyrena twisted with the grace of a dancer, taking out one that came from the other side. A blast of water sent three of them falling back, and then Evander could not watch Veyka and Lyrena anymore. He had his own queen to defend.
Lyrena took the first injury—a slice down her thigh that would have felled most warriors. She screamed, missing a step, but Veyka was there to cover her, slitting the succubus who’d inflicted the wound open from navel to throat. The amorite did its job. When the monster fell, it did not rise again.
Now it was Veyka guarding Lyrena’s back instead of the other way around. Mya sent out spiral after spiral of water. They combined into tidal waves that knocked down rows ofapproaching succubus. Her water could not kill them. There was no life to choke out of them; they could not drown. She could only hold them at bay. But it was enough. They were closer to the tower now, more than halfway.
They were going to make it.
Until Veyka fell.
She was impressive with her daggers, but in the time he’d been away she’d mastered the massive greatsword as well. But her hands were bound. Graceful and powerful as she was, it hobbled her. She drove the blade straight down through the decayed skull of a succubus, but she couldn’t release her hand to swing back and defend herself from the one that attacked her from behind. It sank its fangs into her neck, the features of the male whose body the succubus had taken long since melted away to nothing but black, rotted bones. Veyka ripped the sword loose, but it was too late. She stumbled to her knees.
Lyrena tried to get there. Mya too. But they were too late. Three, four, five succubus fell upon her. She screamed so loud, Evander was sure her mate must have heard it on the other side of the battlefield. He expected the great white beast to break through the horde, demanding justice for his queen. But nothing came. She screamed again, terrible and wrathful and—
The bodies of the succubus flew back, forced away by plumes of shadow. The queen rose from the heap, her fair skin coated in black bile. But it was impossible to tell where it came from. Dozens of scratches marred her skin, and from each of them leaked the darkness of her soul. She lifted her head to the sky and screamed again.
“Veyka,” Lyrena skidded to halt, barely keeping her feet under her in the puddles of blood and black spray.
But there was nothing of the queen in the creature’s eyes.
She turned to the mass of black around her, the mindless, soulless horde, and smiled.
Shadows shot from her hands toward her golden knight. Evander moved without thinking. If he’d thought at all, it would have been to protect Mya, surely. Not Lyrena.
But there they were, rolling through the blood and bile. The succubus streamed for Veyka now, and she lifted her hands to greet them. Still bound—she was still bound. But those were shadows at her command now. The succubus inside of her had seized control and awakened some new, strange power.
Before Veyka’s shadows could greet the succubus streaming toward them, a plume of heat blasted past. A wall of fire rose up, encircling them with golden flames that reached over Evander’s head.
Lyrena. The blood flowing from her leg had slowed to a steady stream. At least it wasn’t gushing. She was on her feet, hands thrown out on either side of her, wielding fire instead of a blade. A few of the succubus tried it, but they fell back from the pure, cleansing heat.
Evander reached behind him to lower Mya’s hands, to tell her to hold back her water. But she wasn’t there. A flash of blue cut across his field of vision.
“Stay away from her!”
But Mya didn’t stop. She didn’t even turn as she ran. “I have to help her!”
She dropped to her knees, grabbing the elemental queen and dragging her down to the ground alongside her. “Veyka, you can do this. You can get back control.”
The creature that was Veyka snarled, throwing her body forward, teeth first. Mya dodged, but Evander could not allow it. He dove— “Stay back!” his wife ordered.
