by K. M. Shea
I ignored the gibe and rolled to my feet, glancing at the sky for an indication of how much time we had left. Night had almost fallen—only a sliver of the sun hovered above the horizon. Soon the wizards would be fighting blind.
I needed to end this now.
“Face it, Drake. Your numbers are too low to beat our forces, and unless you send some wizards in to be slaughtered, you can’t catch us.”
Yeah, we’ll see about that.
I removed my dagger from its sheath in my jacket, then attacked.
I was on them in the blink of an eye and started with elbowing Nyte in the throat—she seemed the more dangerous of the two with that harp of hers.
She gurgled and hit me with her harp. It radiated so much magic that smashing it on my shoulder gave me a bad enough zap that my fingers twitched.
Ira pulled back, preparing to stab me. Unfortunately for him, I got my dagger between his wrist and the elongated hilt of his sword, then twisted it.
It bit into his wrist, and he loosened his grasp on the weapon with a cry.
I dropped my dagger and plucked the sword from his fingers. I gripped the naked blade in my hands, wincing when it cut into my skin, but smashed him in the gut with the hilt, making him double over.
I applied my knee to his head—which hurt a lot less than kneeing his armor—and he collapsed.
I chucked his sword across the field and kicked my dagger a few feet away so he couldn’t grab it.
Nyte recovered around then. I heard her strum the first note before I whirled around and grabbed the harp by its intricately carved frame. It felt like I was holding a live wire, but I doggedly held on—this was my chance.
Ira was gurgling somewhere on the ground. I nudged his shoulder with my foot, then put a foot on his chest and pushed, pinning him in place like a bug.
The magic from the harp was starting to haze my vision, so I lashed out, grabbing Queen Nyte by the throat with my free hand.
She kept one hand on her harp and scratched at my wrist with the curved nails of her other hand, but I had them both stationary and in place.
Using every ounce of my vampire speed that I could muster, I let go of the harp and grabbed her wrist, holding her arm high above her head so she couldn’t strum the instrument.
I exhaled, relieved.
“You think you won?” Queen Nyte sneered. “You can’t hold the both of us long. We’ll break free before one of your underlings is able to come help you.”
“Hazel,” I called.
She trotted out around Mr. Baree’s shield and slowly approached us. “This is your last chance, Queen Nyte and Consort Ira,” she said. “Surrender now.”
Queen Nyte spat at Hazel. “You think we’d accept your demands? You overestimate your own skills, wizard. If you harm us, you’ll hurt the Eminence.”
Ira was grabbing at my shoe, trying to force my foot off him.
In a few seconds he was going to succeed. “Do it,” I said.
“My offer is your last chance,” Hazel said. “Surrender now, or die.”
“We’d never choose a wizard’s mercy,” Ira sneered as he almost succeeded in pushing me off. “Our bones will shatter before we surrender to you. You ought to be preparing yourself, because we will destroy your House!”
I could tell the second the honor and valiance that drove Hazel took over. She blinked, and the blue of her eyes was darker, her face showing no regret as she stabbed her katana into the ground. “Very well, you’ve made your choice.”
I grinned savagely, and Hazel started to gather magic to her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Hazel
I opened myself to the wild magic that stirred the air, and it flooded me—almost painful in its enthusiasm.
Since the start of the battle, my heart had screamed at me to take up my magic, to protect those I loved.
Now, it was finally time.
Queen Nyte must have been able to tell I was filtering magic through my blood, because she stiffened.
“You’re going to use magic and hit your ally?” she demanded.
Blue magic crested around me like a wave, glowing brighter and brighter as it transformed into crackling lightning that flickered wildly in a mad dance at my feet. “Yes,” I confirmed.
“You’ll kill him!” Ira shouted. He was clawing at Killian with frantic panic, but Killian was able to keep him down.
My wizard’s mark—powered by the sheer amount of magic I was daring to build—burned my cheek with such strength it stung. “Actually…I won’t.” I smiled, delighted I got to be the one to deliver the bad news. “You see, my magic can’t hurt him.”
Queen Nyte turned ghostly white, and she shifted her gaze to Killian.
He smiled at her…a wizard’s mark identical to mine surfacing on his skin one beautiful flourish at a time.
“You drank from her.” Ira stopped struggling, frozen in his shock. “You drank her blood, and now you’re immune to her magic.”
“But you never—you can’t!” Queen Nyte strained, trying to pull her neck from his grasp. “You don’t trust! You’re the most paranoid monster alive!”
Killian laughed. “Do you see, now, where you made your fatal mistake?” His eyes glowed a frightening red, the kind that stirred fear deep inside your soul. He leaned close to Queen Nyte and snarled. “You shouldn’t have underestimated what the love of a wizard could do.” He abruptly broke off and roared to our joint forces. “Formation, protect!”
As one, the wizards and vampires moved back together, falling into a tight cluster sealed off entirely by my family’s blue magic shields.
“No,” Queen Nyte thrashed. “That’s not possible! You’d never drink from someone! Never!”
I was holding in so much magic it felt like I was on fire. My limbs ached from the concentration of magic, and my fingers were starting to go numb.
“This can’t be! Never, you’re too soulless to do it!” The queen of the Night Court and her consort struggled to get free, and when Killian’s red eyes met mine I unleashed my magic.
It was like a lightning storm went off.
Gigantic bolts thicker than cars struck the battlefield, sending frozen chunks of turf and dirt flying as it struck deep into the earth.
Bolt after bolt hit Killian and the two fae monarchs, shaking the earth and splitting the air with deafening rumbles that vibrated in my gut.
The air was so heavy with the electric tang of my magic, I could barely breathe. It was physically heavy.
And still I poured more and more magic into my attack, which was getting hard to control because there was just so much. I had to cling to my sword to stay standing upright.
Killian was a black blob in a sea of white lightning. A few of the magic-unleashed bolts actually went wild, striking the area around Killian and me.
One struck our forces, but my family’s shields held strong.
I knew Nyte and Ira had to be dead, but part of our strategy was to use this moment to scare the rest of the Night Court into submission. And it seemed like it was working. As I poured more magic out, the Night Court forces scattered.
When I started to see white—not because of all the lightning, but because I was getting really lightheaded, I finally stopped.
My wizard mark pulsed with pain, and it was hard to stand. But when I blinked the fatigue from my eyes, I saw Killian—unruffled and perfect, with the exception of his torn sleeve—standing in the crater my magic had created.
Queen Nyte’s and Consort Ira’s bodies were at his feet, and for a moment I was sorry it had come to this.
But we had spared so many lives of innocent fae with this strategy, so while I was sorry it had happened, I wouldn’t regret what we’d done.
I twirled around, and as we had planned, Felix, Josh, and Gavino had singled out the highest-ranking noble present. (It wasn’t a hard job—his helmet had extra flourishes and a glowing circlet of magic etched into it, the perfect shining beacon.)
“Adept,
Eminence, we have found the fae in charge after Their Majesties,” Felix said.
I was glad my wizard mark still burned with the leftover magic from my attack, because I didn’t think I could summon even a single flame of magic at the moment, but I wanted my mark out as a reminder.
“Do you, as a lord of the Night Court, accept our mercy on behalf of your brethren and admit defeat?” I asked.
Momoko—standing off to the side—threw a couple more lightning bolts, which only raced across the sky but still made the fae grimace.
“We do,” the fae lord said.
Killian raised an eyebrow. “You do what?” he specified, his voice icy cold and dangerous.
“The Night Court admits defeat and surrenders!” the fae lord quickly replied.
I smiled. “Excellent! In that case, House Medeis, stand down!”
“Drake Family, disengage,” Killian shouted.
Our people pulled back from their pursuit, and as if on cue, at the far side of the field, the Paragon waved a white flag, signaling the battle was officially over.
The Night Court still crowded as far away from us as they could get, but it was over.
The Drake vampires were offering each other curt nods and a few smiles and back slaps, until Momoko hugged Celestina and it became a free-for-all hug fest that involved most wizards chasing down slightly panicking vampires.
(My favorite, I think, was when June snuck up on Rupert and gave him a hug. He squealed like a pig, but sat through it like an obedient dog.)
Something in me loosened, and I shifted so I could see Killian again.
My wizard mark was still stark on his face—the edges actually glowed a soft blue light.
Huh, mine must be doing the same.
Killian crossed the gap between us in a second, steadying me when I staggered.
“You know,” I finally let go of my katana and shook out my numb hands, “it is disgusting you look this good with my wizard mark when you are clearly a vampire.”
Killian gave me a crooked grin, which actually made him look a lot younger and less perfect. “If I made an inappropriate joke here about your blood and my looking good while on it, I assume you would stab me.”
I glanced at my katana, which was still staked in the ground. “I don’t think I’d have the energy for it,” I admitted. “My arms feel like noodles. That was about a thousand times worse than shielding you all in the Cloisters.” I leaned slightly so I could peer around his side, still barely able to believe it was all finished. “It’s over?”
“It’s over,” he confirmed. “We won.” He tugged on my arms, and I happily tilted forward, letting him take my weight.
“Thanks for trusting me,” I mumbled into his suitcoat.
“I should say the same.” He slid his arms around my lower back so he could better stabilize me. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah, just a little light headed.” I tilted my head up so I could suspiciously look at him. “Unless the Elite or Paragon is heading this way. Then I feel awful.”
“Because they’re going to grill us?”
“Exactly.”
Killian chuckled. “Once word gets out, we’ll have to face a lot more than just those two.”
“I know.” I leaned back so I could smile up at Killian. “But just think how long we can drag out telling everyone. We can exclusively own the supernatural rumor mill for the next month at least!”
Killian leaned down and brushed his lips against mine. “I think we can make a few more scandals that will last much longer than a month,” he murmured before delivering me a knee-knocking kiss in the steaming remnants of the battlefield.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Earlier That Day…
Hazel
I followed Killian down the hallway. We were heading to a room in Drake Hall I hadn’t ever seen before, the place where the blood donors fed the vampires.
It was in the basement and highly secured. Killian said some vampires would be standing guard at the doors once we got inside, but I was so glad they weren’t there yet. This whole thing felt twenty degrees of awkward.
And, apparently, I was the only one feeling it.
When Killian reached the unremarkable wooden door at the end of the hallway, he unlocked it with an elaborate gold key and stepped inside.
I, however, hesitated in the doorway. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“If you’re worried I won’t be able to actually drink your blood, it shouldn’t be a problem. We’ve already established you smell…amazing to me. The greater issue is whether you trust me enough that the magic in your blood doesn’t taste rancid.” He flicked on a light switch, illuminating the room.
It was more…average than I thought it would be.
It still had all the same expensive and comfortable furniture the rest of Drake Hall had—imported Turkish rugs, fancy wall sconces, and elaborately framed portraits.
The plate of fruit and reusable water bottle placed on the coffee table were a bit out of place. But they were probably for me.
Killian had explained that usually blood donors were immediately escorted out after a vampire fed so they wouldn’t see how helpless the vampires became. It was going to be the opposite for us.
They were locking me inside the room with Killian—it would be a big security risk to open the door if someone ever found out what was going on, and, frankly, he was safer with me at his back since I could blast anyone who tried to attack us, and my magic wouldn’t harm him.
If this all worked.
I still wasn’t certain Killian really trusted me enough to go through with this.
“My blood will taste fine.” I wandered up to the plate of fruit, noticing it contained all my favorites. (How…thoughtful? And a little weird, honestly.)
“You can’t know that for sure.” Killian swung the door shut. It creaked on its hinges, and I heard the lock click into place.
I didn’t love the idea of being locked anywhere, so the noise made me a little uneasy. “Of course I know for sure,” I said. “I trust you, and I can just feel it that my magic isn’t going to reject you. And I wasn’t actually referring to my blood or any of that, I meant are you sure you want to do this? I know what this means…can you actually do it?”
Killian shed his suitcoat and pulled his tie off, tossing them both on a padded chair before he started rolling up the sleeves of his dress shirt. “You mean after everything I told you about how helpless we become and how easy we are to kill, can I really stand putting myself in a position where you could off me?”
I rolled my eyes. “I was trying not to be indelicate, but since we’re abandoning thoughtfulness, yeah. How are you going to be able to do this? Having you drink from me and then using my magic on Queen Nyte and Consort Ira while you hold them down is the best sucker punch we could ever come up with because your unwillingness to drink from a donor is an image you’ve been building for decades. Or centuries, even. But can you actually set those hundreds of years aside for this?”
Killian considered me—his eyes were their usual obsidian-red shade at the moment. “Could I do it for the battle? No. However…” He crossed the room in the blink of an eye, joining me by the coffee table.
Slowly, carefully—as if he was afraid he might break me—he raised a hand and brushed my right cheek. “For you? I will.” He smirked. “And I am not planning for this to be a one-time thing.”
That news floored me. I reared back in surprise. “Wait, for real?”
His smirk lost that usual edge of arrogance he always had. “Yes…seeing how much I trust you, why would I limit it to just this once?”
“Because of everything you’ve told me! Even if you trust me, even if you know I won’t hurt you, it’s still a risk every time. And after the fight everyone will know that you drank from me, so it’s not like we’ll even be able to keep it a secret and—”
“You are right, I know you won’t hurt me,” Killian interrupted. “You’re too good for that,
and you continue to be a virtuous idiot.”
“Yeah, but…” I trailed off, unable to grasp the immensity of what he was saying. “Why? With this fight it makes sense, but we’ll never be able to use this again. Supernaturals will know. What’s the point?”
“Because it’s the only way I can prove how much I trust you,” Killian said.
I stared up at him, trying to puzzle through what he meant. “I don’t get it.”
“I’ll never be able to tell you everything,” Killian said. “Even if I trust you with my life, there are politics in play I don’t want you to have to know about. But I can drink your blood, and prove to you time and time again that I don’t just trust you enough to drink your blood, but I trust you with my life when I’m weak.”
The red in his eyes flared to life like hot coals, and he intertwined his fingers with mine.
My heart spasmed in my chest, but it was his explanation that floored me. This was about us? That’s why he was doing it?
“It’s the greatest reassurance I can give you.” He took a step back to give me breathing room, but he kept my hands enfolded in his. “Will it be enough?”
It wasn’t exactly what I wanted…but I was realistic enough to recognize he was right. No matter how much we trusted each other, there were certain things we couldn’t share.
I had become obsessed with trust after Mason’s coup and my parents’ hiding so much from me.
But demanding absolute clarity wasn’t possible for us, particularly since he was the Eminence and there was a slight possibility I might one day be the Elite.
If he drank my blood, though, I’d know. It was a physical symbol of our trust. There was no way for him to manipulate it, and even with my belief in all things right, my magic wouldn’t passively sit by if it thought there was a problem.
This was how I would always know, and always have something to lean on.
Killian Drake was manipulative, powerful, and lethal. But he was willing to risk it all just for us.
