Can’t say the butt waffle doesn’t deserve it,I replied.
Oh, he deserves much worse.The anger in Declan’s voice raised every hair on my body.
With one swipe of a massive paw, Percy hit the stone wall. I raced there, pointing my kitchen knife at his throat.
“We’ll deal with you in a second,” I said.
Declan opened his jaws wide to encompass Brad’s whole body. Boiling rage filled the hall and even I started to sweat. The screams sounded endless as Declan ripped him right out of the straps and savaged Brad, stepping on his leg to pry off a hand in his jaws. My sweetDeclan shook him back and forth like a battle flag. Brad’s bones snapped but he was still alive.
“You’re killing our best offering! His outsized ambition was powering half the spell.”
All his shouting sliced my knife into his neck. “Sorry to put a dent in your plans.”
The monks rallied, and Declan dropped Brad as they hooked a rope to his back leg. Declan danced back and twirled in a circle like he was trying to catch his own tail, except his tail was a trail of monks still hanging on to the rope, working to contain him.
Percy shouted into the room, galvanizing the rest of them. “We will see the Godds return. Our Virtue will make sure of it.”
Okay, wolf army, go. Dec, these guys have to be erased.
I pressed my kitchen knife deeper. “The Godds aren’t coming back if you want all of us to be alive.”
The monk’s annoyed expression told me I would never understand. “Who cares about you? We will be here to serve the Godds.”
Percy shoved me back, uncaring that he cut himself on my knife, to race to Brad’s side. “We can still salvage this.”
The monk gathered a barely breathing Brad into his arms, trying to smoosh him together again. Declan plonked his ass right on top of the screaming monks and his gigantic tongue lolled out as he watched me with those bright blue eyes. At least someone was enjoying this. I always left Brad and saving the day to Maggie andEvie. I just wanted to be by my stove. But Percy’s ring started to glow and I wouldn’t let Dec take all the heat.
“Salvage this, you fart flap.”
I summoned all my magic, everything I had won from Anise. I focused on every detail that I managed to bring life to a dish and picked apart the wolves and monsters from the monks. Their texture, their flesh felt different to my power. The chant of life thrummed through my body. I could grow them, enhance them, bring them joy.
Instead, I flipped that hotcake, pointing my intent toward the rest of the beings underground–the monks, fat on the magic they had been stealing from the rest of us. I didn’t enjoy taking life, not even from a chicken, but these monks had proved to be nothing but untrustworthy. The Godds seemed like distant legends, but those legends were bloody chaos. They could not rule the Harrowlands again.
I caught that same woman who brought cookies inching her way toward Declan’s heaving flank. Insanity took over, because I would be Goddsdamned if anyone was going to touch my wolf before I figured out what to do with him.
Yanking all the life from the monks, like I was pulling out offal. I fed it into the sacs above us until they burst in a wash of magic. Bodies slumped to the floor. Every monk present stared upward. Lifeless. Percy let out a final fart in the hall.
I laughed at the addictive rush of power.I scared myself for a second contemplating how I could do it again. Thank the Godds Anise had given me control over this and Declan prowling toward me cleared my mind.
The foundations of the underground hall shook, dirt raining down on us. I turned to Declan to tell him we should get out of here while we were still able when Ned barked his fool head off.
“Calm down, Ned. We did it.” I trotted over to him. “Sit boy. Sit.”
Of course, he did no such thing. He strained toward the golden, glittery slice of air that suddenly had a very pissed-off princess, in a full ball gown, barreling out of it. With unerring accuracy, she raced over to Brad and apparently failed to notice the state of him because she stuck a blade right through his heart.
“Take that, you motherfucker!” The force of her anger pushed the sword out of his back and into dead Percy.
Working it out of two bodies, she pulled on it frantically, presumably to stab him again. Putting a foot on Brad’s limp corpse, she heaved as the King of the Fae himself popped out of the still-open passage. Trailing golden dust behind him, the normally unbothered Fae looked like a harried mother hen. I had only ever seen him neat and collected when he stood witness at Maggie’s wedding and then at her coronation.
“Dolly!” The one word suffused with so much meaning, I was surprised the princess could ignore him.
Severin wrapped around her, taking her hands off the sword. “You got him,” he murmured into her golden hair.
I surveyed the wreckage of the underground lair, emotions a jumble. We won. Wolves filtered into the main hall. Briggs helped a limping Anise. Declan and I met with her between us, brushing hands, then arms as we hugged her. I would never have forgiven myself if something had happened to her.
“I’m fine. I’m fine.” She held us closer.
She was fine. Just like I was fine. The tremors made of everything that happened shook both of us. Our victory tasted like ash in my mouth. There was no hiding from the truth that came next.
