I step forward into the fray, ice crawling up my forearms as the last of the seelie warriors finally realize the sky was only ever a pause… not a mercy.
And now?
Judgment comes from the ground.
Chapter Fourteen
RAZE
Through the center of the battle, ice pours from me in relentless waves, crystallizing the air and coating everything within ten feet in frost thick enough to crack stone.
A fae swordsman lunges with a blade enchanted to cut through supernatural defenses, and I meet it with a forearm sheathed in ice three inches thick, the weapon’s edge screaming as it bites into frozen crystal before shattering against the density of power beneath. My other hand closes around the warrior’s throat, and I squeeze, ice racing up his neck and across his jaw in jagged veins as the cold does what my grip alone wouldn’t, shutting down his nervous system, locking muscles in place, preserving terror on a face that will wear it forever.
I release him, and he drops, frozen solid from the shoulders up, hitting the ground with a crack that splits the night.
A fae blade catches me across the forearm, not deep, but enough to draw blood that steams where it hits frozen air, and I barely register the pain, adrenaline, and the savage satisfaction of defending what’s mine burning through my veins with enough heat to push back against the cold that usually defines me.
Suddenly, Rhett’s voice, sharp and raw and stripped of every sarcastic edge, screams the warning as a fae blade descends toward Bennett’s exposed back. At the same time, the angel is focused on infusing a warrior directly ahead of him with divine light.
Rhett doesn’t think.
He moves.
The hellhound form erupts around him in a surge of shadow and hellfire, massive black body launching itself across thedistance between them with speed that defies the size of what he’s become, and his shoulder slams into Bennett at full force, carrying the angel sideways just as the fae blade carves through the space where Bennett’s spine was half a second before.
The blade catches Rhett instead.
It buries itself in his shoulder with enough force to drive him sideways, fae steel screaming against supernatural flesh as it punches through muscle and lodges against bone. Hellfire erupts around the wound in a violent, involuntary response, shadow, flame, and sulfur blasting outward as pain detonates through his system. Still, Rhett barrels forward anyway, dragging the fae warrior closer with a hooked claw before his jaws snap shut around the warrior’s throat with savage, deliberate precision.
Bennett lands in a crouch, wings manifesting fully in a cascade of white feathers and divine light that burns bright enough to make the nearest fae warriors shield their eyes. He stares at the blood-matted hellhound beside him, at the blade still embedded in Rhett’s shoulder, at the fae warrior dissolving from the inside out as hellfire consumes him. Something shifts in the angel’s expression that I’ve never seen before, something that has nothing to do with divine authority and everything to do with the kind of acknowledgment that can only come from watching someone sacrifice for you.
“Not bad,mutt,”Bennett chimes, and the words carry more weight than any sermon he’s ever delivered.
Rhett grins through blood and hellfire, the blade still jutting from his shoulder at an angle that should be agonizing, and the sound that comes out of him is deep, resonant, vibrating through frozen ground. “You’re not completely useless either,birdbrain.”
They fight back-to-back, divine light and hellfire burning in opposing colors that somehow complement each other,the angel’s precision cutting through fae defenses while the hellhound’s raw power tears through everything the light leaves standing. It’s brutal, beautiful, and absolutely devastating to anything foolish enough to stand between them.
The battle turns in our favor by degrees.
Then all at once.
Fae warriors fall faster than they can regroup. Scar draining them dry, Wreck feeding on their terror until they can’t remember how to hold their weapons, Coil’s venom dissolving magical defenses that should have held for hours, Maul’s fury tearing through their formation like a storm through glass. Thorn’s forest closes tighter with each passing minute, the ridge itself becoming a cage that traps the retreating warriors and delivers them to waiting claws and fangs.
And when the last fae warrior finally goes down, it isn’t death that claims him.
It is defeat.
He hits the frozen ground hard, armor cracked, blade skittering away across ice-slick stone as he struggles to rise and fails. The rest are already broken or fleeing, scattered into the trees with wounds they’ll carry long after tonight turns into legend. The ridge settles into an uneasy quiet, broken only by harsh breaths and the slow, steady drip of blood striking frozen earth.
I stride, chest puffed out, to the last one.
He flinches when my shadow falls over him, chin lifting just enough to meet my gaze, defiance burned down to something raw and wary.
He knows what I am now.
They all do.
“This is whereyoulisten,” I tell him calmly, ice still crawling faintly along my forearms, not threatening, just present. “You go back to your prince. You tell himexactlywhat you saw here.”His jaw tightens, but he nods. “You tell him the Kings of Anarchy don’t posture,” I continue. “We don’t negotiate after lines are crossed. Territory isnota suggestion. It’s a boundary paid for in blood… and tonight…was mercy.”
