Then he caught sight of a black flicker swimming around it, diving into the ocean and bobbing up again.
Jaw clenched, he flashed across the expanse of sea and grabbed the male, hauling him back to shore and tossing him down. Lykon and Drav flanked him. The latter hauled the male up by the scruff of his collar.
“Your Highness!” he rasped, pushing his dripping black hair away from his face, fear darkening his eyes. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
One of the town’s denizens.
Aerén growled, his frustration amping up, unable to expend his anger in a fight. “What were you doing out there?”
The male swallowed. “I search for my mate. For something of hers I can keep. She’s gone. Now, I must endure eternity alone.” His eyes swam with tears.
Had they been destined, the male would have died, too, and would have been spared this grief.
“Let him go.”
The citizen dematerialized, and Aerén walked to the water’s edge, hands on his hips, staring out at the sea. The debacle with Leya left his mind shields too brittle. Every bit of the male’s agony at losing his mate rubbed Aerén raw and had him feeling as if he couldn’t breathe.
Godsdammit! He thrust his fingers through his hair and shook his head, tightening each crack in his psychic shield—
An abrasive sensation slid down his spine, his empathic side instantly locking on to a cloying sensation of jubilance. Slowly, Aerén lowered his hand, mentally scanning the area behind him. There, in the thicket, he found the bastard.
In a flash, he moved across the cliffs to the forested area, startling the rebel.
He rammed his fist into the bastard’s face, and thecaenilashed out with a dagger, slicing Aerén across the biceps. He grinned.
Snarling, Aerén twisted the rebel’s wrist. The blade dropped. The fucker started to dematerialize, sifting away.
“Thecuzzonsnever learn,” Lykon drawled. He and Drav’n leaned against the nearby trees.
Aerén dove and seized the bastard before he vanished. Another punch landed in Aerén’s solar plexus, stealing his breath, but not forceful enough to stop him from grabbing the vermin by the throat. He slammed the rebel’s head against a tree trunk. “Who sent you?”
“Get over yourself! No law states I can’t see what remains of my home!”
“I am the law here!” Aerén bit out, hoarfrost etching every word. “When you deviate from the cause we fight for, choose the path of the enemy, Cidéra is no longer your home—”
“Fuck. You!”
Aerén wanted to quarter the cur and let him bleed out. But within the feverish glitter of the male’s eyes lurked the madness, the sheer knowledge—even if totally off the mark—of impending victory.
“The Revetori will ascend,” he bleated their fucking creed.
“Found these two.” Thiorr appeared, dragging two more bound and bleeding rebels with him, spitting curses.
Then one snarled, “Babe killers! You’ll meet your end like your—”
Lykon punched him in the mouth. “Oops, hand slipped,” he drawled, flexing his fingers.
Anger prowled through Aerén like another entity, but not by a flicker of an eyelash did he reveal the wound cracking open, the old anguish and gut-wrenching torment spilling free.
“Do your worst,” thecaenispat, blood and spittle flying everywhere. “You’ll soon run your sword through the human you brought here, just like your murderous sibling did to—”
His control snapped. Power shot out of him, lassoing the bastard around the neck. Screams of agony rebounded against the cliffs.
Don’t. You still need answers.
It went against every principle he held onto and fought for to grant these bastards a few more days of breathing space. But he did, fortifying his psychic shields and trapping his churning ability within—
Pain exploded in his skull, nailing him with the force of unleashed arrows.Fuck!
