Dorian gently murmurs in my ear, but with the roar of my heartbeat mingling with the ringing, I can’t make out a word. My breath hitches as the changeling crouches slightly, but before I can so much as twitch, she pounces, launching at us.
The resounding crash as Azazel intercepts her is so loud that even I can hear it crack like thunder. He has her pinned on the ground in front of us, the two of them snarling like feral wolves and rolling to get the upper hand, snapping their teeth at each other.
Dorian helps me to my feet and I press a hand to my still ringing ear, my fingers wet when I pull them away. But energy thrums through my veins and I focus on drawing it to the surface, to heal the cuts and burns. I exhale a long, slow breath, and though I’m starving by the end of it, I feel worlds better.
Lucien and Atlas finish off the remaining soldiers as the two changelings claw at each other. Although Dorian clearly is struggling not to dive into the fray and pull them apart, he’s wise enough not to, knowing it would end in his death. Another figure passes by the end of the alley, swinging a bloody arm in his hand before bringing it to his mouth like an ice cream cone. My stomach roils, more so when he uses it as a club to trip up a shadow court fae, quickly devouring him and changing forms to match.
Soulless eyes fall upon us, flicking towards the fighting changelings, the chips of stone as bodies are slammed into the sides of the buildings. A tilt of the head, and I know he’s gauged the distance between us, thinks he can make it past the other changelings before they notice him.
“We need to run,” I breathlessly state, taking a step back. He shifts his body, a small smirk playing at his lips. “Now!”
We make it all of three steps before he slams into Atlas. Luce is there a breath later, wrenching the snarling beast off and slamming him into the building hard enough that the stone indents. Atlas raises his gun, but Dorian smacks it away, shouting his objections. All the commotion draws Azazel’s eye, tearing his attention away from the changeling at his throat long enough she’s able to sink her teeth into his shoulders and he whimpers.
“Enough!” My scream mingles with energy, rippling out from me in waves.
Blow after blow, it assaults everyone in the vicinity, and the ensuing silence is deafening, the dull shouts in the rest of the city seeming a mile away. I glare at the changeling hanging from Lucien’s grasp, storming up to him. Yes, I’m fully aware that my confidence stems from the people around me, know that my mental exhaustion is pushing me into recklessness. Yet still, I meet that solid black gaze and hold it. I glare into his damn soul unflinchingly, sending another pulse of energy out to bitch slap him in the face and he flinches.
“Enough.” I repeat the command softer, but no less firm. And as he finds the ground incredibly interesting, submitting, my determination only increases.
Though Lucien’s face is pinched with worry, I stride right up to the both of them, using my fingers to tilt the changeling’s chin up to look me in the eye. “Take a breath.”
His eyes widen, and though I feel like an absolute idiot, I start to softly sing. Dorian’s mockery reverberates through my skull, about being the dramatic princess that commands the creatures of the forest into doing her bidding.
I’m seriously fueling up the psychotic serial killers, giving them all of the energy they could only dream of, sealing our fate.
But as I learned from Azazel, hell, from myself; people do terrible things when they’re desperate. Compassion hurts as much as it heals, and though I thought all forms of empathy had shriveled and died within me long ago, I find myself looking at these creatures with pity despite the blood on their hands.
Far from Home starts spilling from my lips before I ever consciously picked it, but as I start paying attention to the lyrics, I can’t bring myself to regret the choice. It’s hard, not going to lie. Having no instruments means I need to push harder, addmoreto every swell of my voice to maintain the hypnotic effect.
I push a steady stream into all three of them, and when I can barely stand, I dig my fingers into the bloodied dirt, pulling the still hovering energy from the corpses around us that haven’t fully dissipated yet. Their deaths ensure our survival, and when shoes fill my vision, I’m not surprised to look up and see the changelings’ faces peering down at me. They don’t try to kiss me like Azazel did, don’t offer any of the energy back.
But they see me, and that’s enough.
Azazel on the other hand shoves them out of the way, head canted to the side and assesses my face. As Luce and Atlas shout their objections, he leans in, lips hovering millimeters away from mine as he returns a sliver of that power; a symbiotic relationship instead of a parasitic one.
“Thank you.” I collapse on my ass, head swimming as he shimmers, donning my form. “Buddy, that’s the worst disguise you could pick in the realm.” As if he understands my words, he shifts back into Dorian and steps aside.
The real Dorian appears in front of me, helping me up and keeping an arm banded around my waist. “Fuck, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing that.”
I blink. “Me squawking at the dirt?”
He snorts. “If only you could see yourself the way we do, beautiful. And damn, is it something.”
I glance around at the wreckage of the alley, the mangled bodies. “We need to go.” But as I turn to the end of the alley, I see a figure standing there, obviously for far, far too long.
“What have you done?” Achlys demands, a mirror to my words not even an hour ago, before blood ran through her streets like a secondary river. “She was right.” My heart misses a beat as the incredulous shock transforms into utter hatred. “You’re nothing but a traitor.”
A shimmering blue shockwave erupts from her skin as she throws her hand out. My head cracks into the building as I’m thrown from my feet, and blacking out on impact.
