I released the emissary and started for them, only stopping when someone familiar shouted. “Watch out!”
I turned in time to duck the giant wolf coming towards me. As I did, a bullet hit the beast’s stomach, cutting through its matted fur and embedded itself in the creature’s flesh.A whimpering, wet sound fell from the wolf’s lips as it crashed into a stone statue of Nyx, tumbling to the ground in a heap.
From the corner of my eye, I watched Adrian limp into view, lowering his gun. “You okay?” he asked, sweat beading across his brow, running down his face.
I noticed then the blood soaking through his pants, the pale colour of his skin. “You were shot?”
He wiped his arm over his face with a grimace. “Yeah, by your groupie.”
Layla. She should have stayed dead in the Old World. Or better yet, she never should have come back. Running would have been better for her, and yet as I searched the ground, I found her unconscious with a pair of cuffs keeping her down.
“The bullets are?—”
“Poisoned,” he said, cutting me off with a cough. “Figured that out pretty quickly.”
“I’ll dig it out. I have something to combat it in my belt.” As I strode towards him, he rolled his eyes. “What?”
“Of course, you have something for it,” he muttered, leaning hard against a pillar. “I already got it out after Rowan dumped me here. Just pack it, wrap it, and help me get to Ivy.”
Despite the pain clear in his eyes, I didn’t fight him. I respected the demand, and it was the least I could do after everything he and the others had done for me. If it weren’t for him, I never would have returned from the Old World—might not have survived, either.
Ivy might have been my saviour, but they had become my equal protectors during the time I couldn’t protect myself. And I would be grateful for that for the rest of our time together.
Grabbing a vial of dried herbs from my belt, I tapped some into the palm of my hand. Pocketing the jar, I pulled out a binding potion to trigger the herbs’ healing abilities.
“What is that?” Adrian asked as I added a drop of the blue liquid to the herbs.
“It’ll combat the poison running through your veins longenough for Ivy to heal you,” I replied, putting the vial back into my belt and grabbing a small knife. “It will sting.”
“Where the fuck do you find this shit?” he whispered, though he braced himself against the wall as I used the tip of my knife to combine the mixture before slathering it directly into the wound.
Adrian hissed, cursing under his breath, but he breathed through the pain I knew he would be in. “I learned quickly how to combat it when I was seventeen and my father tested the bullets on me for the first time,” I explained, wiping my hand and the tip of the knife onto my pants as I stepped away from him. “The poison was one of his creations made from a berry that could only be found by the edges of Luna and Dream territory. The herbs are from the same bush.”
The mage shook his head, teeth gritted as he pushed off the pillar and limp towards me. “That is so fucked up,” he said, wincing. “But once this is over, he’s still rotting in a cell for you.”
For a moment, I expected to feel that familiar urge of vengeance. That desire to sink my own blade through his chest and watch as the light left his pathetic eyes.
But it didn’t come. Instead, I glanced over at Ivy and her surrounding mates, realising I was ready to say goodbye to him. To that life. To the pain only he could cause.
“No need,” I replied, stalking off towards my mate. “I have better things to do.”
100
Rhadamanthus
From clear as night to a raging storm, the sky opened to flood us with its fury.
I struggled to keep my back to my mate while she fought the false king. Slicing through those who would dare try to hurt her without killing them proved harder than I initially anticipated. Especially with my own magic heightened with the power of my mate bond.
It could sweep through these creatures easily and drop them, one by one, until not even their souls survived long enough to enter the killing fields of Wrath.
But with how hard it thrummed through me, I knew my power could not be unleashed. Not when so many of our allies had finally arrived.
Through the pounding rain, I watched as one by one, Ivy’s mates formed a circle around her, moving perhaps without realising to protect her.
The snarling brown wolf appeared with blood darkening his jaw, but he growled at an approaching wolf, snapping his bloodied teeth. To my astonishment, the other wolf lowered his ears, backing away.
“You might have proven your power against them,” I shouted over the rain, glancing down at the drenched beast. “There might be a pack here for you.”
