Page 62 of Mate of a Monster

My heart pounds once, so hard it fucking hurts.

Haide isn’t just a random gifted who grew up on Exile Island. She can’t be.

So, what the fuck is she? More importantly…

What is she to me?

Chapter Thirteen

Legend

The last of the dragons vanish into the cloud line, their massive silhouettes swallowed by smoke and brine as the sea finally settles into a resentful churn, blackened trenches still steaming where her fire carved through it. The air reeks of fear and drained magic. Beneath it all something darker hums in my chest.

The children—injured, but alive—are carried through portals straight into the infirmary in Rathe, where Silver and our other healers are ready and waiting. Their recovery is what matters, even if the four-hundred-year-old structure—where thousands of youths have been educated—is nothing but a pile of shit at our feet, the majority swept out into the ocean.

Bet some of those broken pieces will wash up on that worthless island of hers.

They don’t deserve any piece of Rathe on that forsaken scrap of land, especially not some as sacred as the walls that protected the young of Rathe. The power the structure held should have been impenetrable. As far as we knew, it was.

Creed steps in close enough that I can feel the residual heat in his armor. “The council is assembling,” he says, and there’s something beneath his voice that mirrors the tremor running through my own bones.

Our soldiers, cleanup crew, and a second group of healers pour from an open portal onto the grounds. Their magic rolls over the lands instantly as they begin performing their tasks.

Of course, the council—if he insists we call them that—are assembling. It’s currently made up of only a few appointed gifted to take the lead and step in where their fallen, traitorous equals once stood.

The sea doesn’t just break through Royal wards with ease. Not without consequence.

There is a snake in our grass, and we have to draw it out.

Bet I know who the fuck it is, too.

My eyes slice toward the girl with midnight hair blowing in the damn wind like some sort of warrior princess. I swear it looks like those black flames are dancing along the tips of her curls.

Why is there a second element that’s drawn to her? She already carries the scent of the sea, for fucks sake, and now fire?

And where do the black flames come from? I’ve never seen one, and as far as I know, changing the color of fire is a hat trick. Something fire Fae do to put on a show, turn their flames into rainbows and shit. But even then, never black.

Hers didn’t look like that.

“Legend?” Creed’s voice cuts through my thoughts.

“Let’s go.” I yank myself free of his hold and spin toward the portal Knight opened.

The instant we pass, we’re hit with the chaos of a second storm.

The war chamber is already crowded. Gifted speak over one another; nobles force their way inside under the excuse of concern for their children. Portals snap open and shut along the perimeter, spitting out academy staff, shaken instructors, and parents who look seconds from having a full-on meltdown.

The air inside is unstable. The demon smoke living in the walls grows antsy with the number of magical sources currently occupying the room.

The reports are coming in too fast through the royal mind links. The bridge between us and Vicente overflows to the point he has to cut off his message, and the mind link goes quiet.

But not before we get the news: five bodies found so far, all under eight years of life. And they’ve only worked their way through a quarter of the land.

My brothers and I share a single look before Arabella appears, cutting off my view.

“Oh, thank the gods!” she gasps, slamming into my chest, her arms coming around me. “I was so worried! I heard what happened. It’s just sickening, what she’s done.”

My muscles tense on their own and she pulls back, her fingers moving to rest along my forearm, grounding me for a moment, before she takes in the rest of the room.