They’re magnificent.
They’re terrifying.
Absolutely committed to whatever violence comes next.
Silence crashes down in their absence, suffocating in ways that make my chest tighten with anxiety I can’t name. I sink onto the bed, hands clutched together to stop the shaking, and I wait.
For them to return.
For news of victory or disaster.
For Raze to come back whole, not broken.
And somewhere deep in my chest, beneath layers of fear and pragmatic survival instinct, something dangerously close to hope whispers that maybe, just maybe, I want them to win. Not because my life depends on it, but because somewhere between chains, frost burns, and kisses that shouldn’t have happened, I started actually caring whether these monsters survive the night.
Even if that does make me the biggest fool to ever walk into a nightmare and call it home.
Chapter Thirteen
RAZE
The eastern territory unravels before us like a wound being torn open in slow motion, the tree line giving way to rocky clearing where the fae have planted their mark deep into the logging yard’s main support beam, a symbol carved with silver-edged blades that still hums with residual magic, pulsing in the frozen air as we pull our bikes into a hard stop at the edge of the compound.
Our engines die, and the silence that follows is heavier than the roar that preceded it, loaded with the kind of anticipation that makes the air seem to thicken around us. Frost bleeds from my knuckles as I dismount, boots slamming into earth that cracks beneath the impact, and I study the carved symbol with eyes that have seen centuries of territorial declarations reduced to nothing but a memory.
But not this one.
The fae presence saturates everything, a disturbance in the air that pricks at the back of my neck and makes my dragon surge against the cage of flesh and bone with more urgency than it has in weeks. They were here moments ago because the magic hasn’t cooled yet, and something that feels like a deliberate taunt.
Scar materializes at my shoulder without a sound, his red eyes sweeping the darkness beyond the compound’s edge with the kind of predatory focus that five centuries of hunting has sharpened into reflex. “They’re close,” he murmurs, voice barely disturbing the air. “Twenty, maybe thirty, spread across the eastern ridge. They’re not hiding, Prez. Theywantus to find them.”
An ambush wearing the skin of a declaration.
“Then let us oblige them.” I face my brothers as they dismount and form up, cuts heavy with rank and territory, the last of the daylight fading fast behind them.
Wreck stands motionless at my left flank, his gaunt form absorbing shadows the way a black hole absorbs light, his hollow eyes fixed on the tree line with hunger that makes the air around him taste stale and cold. Coil shifts his weight, his serpentine grace evident in every movement as his eyes bleed hypnotic gold at the edges, vertical pupils already splitting as the enforcer in him rises to meet what’s coming.
Maul cracks his knuckles with sounds like small bones breaking, dark eyes glittering with the barely leashed violence of something that was built for exactly this kind of confrontation.
Flux cycles through two quick shifts—wolf, hawk, back to human—his eyes calculating angles and escape routes with the efficiency of someone who’s mapped every terrain feature within a mile radius simply by existing in it long enough.
Thorn stands rooted at the edge of the clearing where snowcapped gravel meets dirt, and I watch the nearest trees begin to shift, branches bending inward like they’re listening to instructions only he can hear, roots writhing beneath the surface in preparation for whatever violence is about to unfold.
Ruckus leans against his bike with that perpetual grin, gold charms clinking softly as probability bends itself into new configurations around him, a loose stone rolls into a better position underfoot, the wind shifts to carry scent toward us instead of away, and somewhere in the darkness ahead, a fae warrior’s grip on his weapon loosens by a fraction.
And behind them all, the prospects.
Rhett vibrates with barely contained energy, shadows pooling around his boots like living things eager to be unleashed, hellfire flickering behind his eyes in orange-red pulses that paint the ground in brief, burning light.
Bennett stands beside him with wings not yet manifested but presence heavy enough to make the air shimmer, divine authority radiating from him in waves that have nothing to do with physical power and everything to do with something older, something that existed before the first war was fought.
They’re not arguing. For once in their eternal existence, Rhett and Bennett are completely, utterly silent, and that alone tells me they understand what’s about to happen.
“Formation,” I state, and the word carries enough weight to shift the temperature by ten degrees without me even trying. “Scar, Wreck… you take point. Coil, circle wide and flank from the south. Maul, Flux, Thorn… push through the center and hold the ridge. Ruckus, keep probability bending until I tell you to stop.” My gaze moves to the prospects, and something in my chest tightens at the sight of them standing shoulder to shoulder despite everything that’s supposed to keep them apart. “Rhett, Bennett… you stay with me.”
Rhett’s grin splits across his face like a crack in dark stone, all teeth and barely suppressed hunger.“Finally!”
Bennett says nothing, but the air around him brightens by a single, deliberate degree.
