Osheen barked orders, arranging the terrestrials.
Three neat columns formed behind Arran. Beyond them, Barkke organized a dozen or so more. One group to retrieve the survivors in the goldstone palace, another to guard the rift should the succubus try to overtake us and attack Eilean Gayl. It took less than two minutes. Brutally efficient.
The Brutal Prince.
He lifted his battle axe, cut a sharp nod to the assembled troop and turned with unmistakable purpose glinting in his black eyes. I could see exactly who he was, then—who he’d been for the past three centuries. Arran Earthborn, the terror of armies on this continent and many others. There was no mercy in the line of his jaw, no hesitation in the set of his eyes. The fear in my gut eased fractionally. I could trust Arran above all others to do what must be done.
But he did not step through the rift to lead his troop into battle.
He turned to me.
He did not need to speak, aloud or through the bond, for me to read the question on his face.
No, I was not all right. But that wasn’t really what he was asking—he already knew that answer. He could surely feel the despair in my soul.
So I answered the question I could. “I don’t know how much longer I can hold the rift.”
The shining white edges of the rift cast shadows across his face. “As long as you can,” Arran ordered. “But don’t push yourself to collapse.”
I opened my mouth to argue.
He took a step closer to me. “When this is over, we’ll need you standing. If you cannot hold the rift open, you’ll have to come for us one by one. We will barricade ourselves in the old palace until you come.” And they’d be safe. Every single one of the males assembled wore a sparkling amorite stud through his ear. Only a third bore amorite weapons. It was not enough. There would be losses.
The hand that did not hold his axe brushed against mine. The briefest, subtlest touch. All that he had time to offer, and all that I could stand without breaking. “Annwyn needs its queen.”
And I need you,his beast growled softly.
My fingers closed around his.
Arran’s mouth crashed down upon mine, teeth and lips grabbing desperately for anything I could give. I took as much as I gave, drawing his tongue into my mouth for a too-brief second before we were separated again.
We ripped apart as suddenly as we’d come together, and Arran did not spare any more words or touches. He was through the rift, then Lyrena, then the lines of terrestrials behind them. They walked through the rift I’d opened to Baylaur as if it were nothing more than a door. I felt the impact of each body passing through, like the tightening of a belt notch by notch. The power inside of me squeezed tighter, tighter, tighter. It threatened to burst, but I summoned a lifetime of control.
I would not let the rift close.
Arran had once declared that he was the greatest power Annwyn had ever seen. But he was wrong.
I was.
4
ARRAN
The entire palace reeked of decay. Black bile coated the once shining goldstone floors. It adorned the walls in a ghoulish duet, mingling with the coppery tang of fae blood. How had Gwen borne it in her lioness form, with her senses even more heightened? I did not dare ask. She barked orders at my side, but I recognized a soldier a second from shattering. Even the mighty Guinevere could not hold her composure forever.
“End of the corridor, opposite corner of the courtyard, down the flight of stairs,” she said, each word closely clipped.
I kept my tone equally brusque. “How many dead?”
“In the palace? Hundreds. I don’t have a count on the city. The messages stopped coming a week ago.”
No emotion clotted the blood pounding through me, fueling my muscles and my mind. In this place of violence and bloodshed, I was immune. It was what made me such an effective commander—and had earned me my title of Brutal Prince.
We reached the end of the corridor. Deserted. We made the turn and the courtyard came into view. The wave of shock was palpable as it rolled through the column of soldiers behind me.The courtyard was not just painted in black bile and blood. It had been submerged in it.
Bodies were everywhere, three or four thick in places. Some were clearly fae. But so many were nothing but a ghastly remnant. Elemental males who had been taken by the succubus long enough that their skin had melted away in places, dark bone visible. Half charred, where the elementals had fought with fire.
Yet the grotesque transformation of fae to succubus was nothing to the carnage those monsters had wrought. Females. Children. Dismembered, eyes gouged out, shredded by black fingers worn away to blacker bony nubs.
