She swung high, forcing Finlay to dance backwards and give her some breathing room.
“So, you are the Fae equivalent to a booster box? Very impressive. I mean, what’s the ability to turn people into black corpses next to that?” Sarcasm dripped from her panted words.
Bless his conceited little soul. She just needed to separate them. Even as they fought though, Lustre was moving with them in perfect synchronicity, although her concentration was obviously elsewhere, or she would have smacked Finlay down for being the stereotypical, psychopathic bad guy and running his mouth.
Azar feinted, and using her wings as leverage, flipped sharply to the left, causing Finlay to turn quickly, and momentarily lose contact with the Queen. Lustre looked annoyed and quickly returned her hand to the skin of Finlay’s back.
“Who is this?” her voice tinkled out, so delicate and sweet, though there were edges of cruelty that even the sweetest of voices couldn’t conceal.
“The Djinn harboring Nevyn of the Golden Court. An annoyance, no more.”
“Well get rid of her already,” Lustre snapped, her eyes closing in concentration again.
Azar had stood there dumbfounded for the entire conversation. The sun glinting off the Queen’s pearlescent skin was mesmerizing in a completely unnatural way. Even more unnatural was that, at this close of a range, Azar had noticed the woman had dimples. There was something terrifying about a woman with dimples systematically torturing thousands of people at that very moment.
Finlay’s sword coming down to cleave her skull snapped her out of her Queen induced daydream. She turned, but too slow, the blade missing her head but catching on her wing, slicing it from her back.
She screamed at the searing pain, but knew that it was going to be her head next if she gave into the urge to sink to her knees.
The sight of her wing, blackened and leathery, lying on the scuffed dirt, made something inside her snap. A red haze came down over her vision, her mind went blank and all she could hear was her own feral screams.
She would later hear Oliver tell people that she went primal, a Were term for when they give themselves over completely to their animal, usually living out the short remainder of their lives as rabid creatures. Eventually the primal Were would be hunted down by their own pack, too dangerous to live.
Whether she went primal or not, the Ifrit that shared her skin roared to the surface, blocking out any coherent thought.
Chapter 20
When she fought her way back into control of her own body, the Queen was on the ground with the pointy end of Basatine at her throat and tiny pieces of Finlay scattered around them. And she meant tiny. The only piece of him that was recognizable was one half of his skull that had been split in two and charred around the edges at some point after its decapitation.
She was going to vomit. She looked around for someone, anyone else, that was able to dismember a man like that. Although Lorcan was standing, he was well back, staring at her and the Queen with forced blankness.
Azar? Bast’s voice in her head sounded scared.
“I… I’m sorry.”
It’s okay, Jaanaman, heart of mine. You are you again. His voice was soothing against the rawness of her emotions. He sounded relieved.
She was back in her human form, nothing but a few scratches along her naked body. It was then she noticed the blackened wing beneath the detritus of what was once Finlay.
“My wing.”
It is too late, I’m afraid. We were under the Queen’s illusion, and then no one could get close to you without harming you, or being harmed themselves. You were in a frenzy. Oliver said your scent changed, it was wrong; raw, like rage and old fire ashes.
Oliver let out a discontented whine.
You almost beheaded Lorcan when he came close.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, not just to Lorcan, but to everyone else who was looking a little pasty around the edges. She dropped her gaze, and unfortunately that meant it landed on Lustre, who still wore a smug grin even though the tip of Basatine was cutting into her slender throat. Azar looked harder, and noticed the fine lines of strain around eyes that held a touch of fear.
The Queen laughed, but it was a forced, cruel sound.
“Look at you, showing remorse for killing your enemies. Such a pathetic species. You really need the Fae to save you from yourselves and your weakness.” A drop of blood welled in the hollow of her throat like a ruby.
“It’s over. You are at the end of my sword. Obviously, we don’t need you for shit, so how about you shut your pie hole.”
To Azar’s annoyance, she laughed again. “Over? Oh, you naïve child. While you were over there hacking Finlay to death, Oisrin and the Goblin army were sneaking into the heart of your territory and doing what Oisrin does best. I am just a distraction.” It was bullshit, she was just hedging her failure. But Azar couldn’t chance it.
Bast, go! If she’s telling the truth, it might be time to go to plan Z.
Oisrin and the goblin army would soon swarm over the remaining forces, especially if Lorcan’s Fae weren’t there to even the numbers. The thought of causing Nevyn pain, or even death, made her heart ache. But if they didn’t do this, they might all die.
The remaining members of Lorcan’s guard sifted away also, but not before Hemlock threw her his tabard. Azar pressed Basatine even closer to Lustre’s throat. “A distraction you might be, but you are about to be a dead distraction.”
Lustre scoffed, her delicate face alight with mockery. “You? Who is having such a delightfully animated internal conflict of what you did to Finlay in the heat of battle? You are going to execute me in cold blood, weaponless and powerless on the ground in front of you? I doubt it. I do not fear you, Abomination. I can take the mind of any other member of your toy army, except my son.” She turned her head to look at Lorcan and Azar’s blade scraped across the skin of her throat, leaving a long red gash. “But unfortunately for you, in his own twisted way, he loves me. And killing me would break him, though he would still do it to protect his stupid ideals. He would have made a terrible Unseelie King. He cares too much.”
“You do not know my mind, Lustre,” Lorcan growled.
“Do I not? You should have killed me years ago. We both know your power exceeds mine. Yet you did not, even when you disagreed with my...practices.” The way she said practices made Azar want to run away and hide under her blankets like a child.
“You are my mother.”
“You are nothing more than a spawn to me. I would kill you in a heartbeat, weakling.”
“And yet you never tried. Isn’t that a sign of something from a woman who tried to drown her third child at birth?” There was a faint longing in his voice.
Her heart broke for him. Her own time with her mother had been brief but filled with love. Looking down at the twisted beauty at her feet, she didn’t think there was any chance that Lustre harbored anything resembling love in her entire body, except maybe for herself.
Her next statement confirmed it.
“No. A wise ruler knows not to go into battles she cannot win.”
“Yet here we are,” Azar retorted, “with you at the end of my sword.”
“I haven’t lost yet, Djinn peasant. Not while I still breathe.”
Someone reached past Azar and grabbed Basatine from her hands, and slid its blade through Lustre’s pale throat. She could not draw her eyes away from the blade as it slid from one side to the other, removing her head with ease amidst the gushing of bright, red blood.
She finally looked up, meeting Lorcan’s glass-eyed gaze, though he hadn’t moved from his place across the clearing.
Azar stood there stunned as Nevyn handed her back Basatine.
“She was right. Neither of you would have executed her. But her soul was as black as a starless night. There was no goodness in her.” He looked at Lorcan. “She does not deserve your grief.”
“Yet she will have it, because the heart knows no logic,” he bowed slightly
towards them both and then sifted to the edge of the outcropping. “The Queen is dead.” His voice echoed off the walls of the valley, making everyone stop. “The Imposter King is dead. I am now your Unseelie King. Lay down your weapons and be spared my wrath.”
It wasn’t an idle threat. One by one, they lowered their weapons and knelt facing him. He bowed low toward them once. Then he walked away from the outcropping and sifted into nothingness.
Azar stared at Nevyn for a long minute. Once again, she’d taken Nevyn as the boy he appeared, rather than the soul that had spent so many years in a treacherous society.
Then she remembered Oisrin and the goblins. “What about the pledging ceremony? The Queen said that Oisrin was attacking the dens.”
Nevyn nodded. “Bast returned, but too late. Oisrin and the goblins had already pushed into the dens. Jack has taken my place in the ritual. He knew that you would not forgive yourself for my pain. He is the Heart of the World, the most innocent creature on the planet. He will raise your Old Ones. But we should hurry, I can feel them shifting beneath the earth.” He grabbed her arms and sifted out, Oliver’s growl at being left behind rang in her ears. She was going to have to do a lot of apologizing to him later. Probably naked. Hopefully naked.
The battle raging at the mouth of the den was fierce and bloody. Goblins, slick with gore, threw themselves at their opponents with frenzied abandon despite missing limbs. Between the blood, dirt and screaming, she couldn’t tell if her allies were winning or losing. A great boom rumbled beneath the ground, the earth trembling as a chasm opened mere feet away. She ran, pulling Nevyn along behind her. Fae, goblin and Were alike scrambled away from the spreading abyss, but not all were quick enough, some falling into the darkness. A deep sense of foreboding shivered down her spine, as a black claw curled over the lip of the chasm.
She fell to her knees in the dirt and wept with fear. It paralyzed every muscle in her body, except for her heart that was thundering so quickly she felt lightheaded.
Thanamen, the original Shaitan. He was the creature upon whom the Christian ideas of Satan and his demons were based.
Some of the Shaitan and Unbound with Shaitan blood were pulling their allies out of the way of the eighteen-foot primitive god. Unfortunately, the goblins weren’t so lucky, lying prone on the ground like a release-day appetizer.
Someone picked her up by the back of Hemlock’s borrowed tabard, grabbing Nevyn too, and dragged them into the mouth of the den. But not so fast that she didn’t see one fiery wing curl out of the ground.
Balraka.
A part of her wanted to get a look at the first Ifrit, but the human part of her wanted to run away, so far and fast that she’d never see another paranormal creature again except in the mirror
She looked up and saw Donovan, his eyes shining onyx beneath a gash on his forehead.
“Thanks,” she tried to smile.
He leaned forward and kissed her lips hard. “Always.” Then he was running back out into the clearing and pulling allies back towards the den.
Inside the dens, the fighting was just as intense. Enemy Fae warriors fought against the Adel and Lorcan’s Black Guard.
“Drive them out of the dens!” Her shout echoed down the stone tunnels. Her foot kicked something solid and she realized belatedly that it was a body, drained completely of blood, the red liquid pooled around an empty husk. She quickly averted her gaze, not wanting to chance recognizing the face of the corpse. Her cast iron chest was getting too full.
They ran down the hall, dodging skirmishes and the husks of fallen soldiers, following the trail of exsanguinated blood that flowed like a river along the stone flooring. But she knew where he was heading. She just needed to get there first.
The weapons vault that housed the Great Weapons was in the deepest part of the dens, the route there so twisted and confusing that she’d come up with a mnemonic rhyme just to remember, but Oisrin was yet to take a wrong turn, as if he knew the way. Or like he was being led. Did they have a traitor? Could he sense the weapons? Neither idea filled her with warmth.
When they reached the double doors of the weapons vault, it was to the sound of a fierce battle raging. It filled her with intense relief. It meant she wasn’t too late.
She turned to Nevyn. “Find Freya. Your mission is to protect her.” With Donovan out there fighting, she worried for the little girl. Nevyn gave a solemn nod and disappeared.
She pushed the door open just a crack, edging into the battle. Oisrin was fighting with a huge Ifrit she recognized as Killian. The battle was beautiful, fast and fierce, a whirl of fire and blades. Killian should have healed almost instantly from any cuts, but he was being hit with a magic imbued Fae blade, and he was healing almost humanly slow. Oisrin on the other hand was looking singed around the edges. But it was Killian who was flagging fast.
Taking a deep breath, she rushed beneath the fiery nova of Killian’s wings to where she could see Jack laid out on the dais, pierced with the six Great Weapons. He seemed to be unconscious, and that worried her. This needed to be over now.
She ran at Oisrin, Basatine swinging, but like the good soldier that he was, he sensed her coming and turned, catching her blade in the ribs. She heard them crack.
Oisrin roared in rage, opening up dozens of cuts on her brother’s body, and he fell to the ground, incapacitated as his body desperately tried heal.
Oisrin turned his entire attention to her.
“Die,” he said in a cold voice without inflection.
“It’s over. Lustre and Finlay are dead.” She edged around him, staying out of his sword range.
“You lie!” He exploded toward her, his blade flashing so fast that Azar could barely see the blade let alone parry it. Basatine was doing a fairly good job of deflecting the blows, but it only had her half-mortal reflexes to work with, allowing most of Oisrin’s strikes to hit their target. Blood began to pour from her body, aided by the Blood Prince’s ability. She could feel the thick liquid emptying from her veins to pool at her feet.
“They send a mortal to fight me?” Oisrin laughed, thrusting a blade toward her abdomen. Basatine moved up sluggishly, but her balance was lost, and she fell, landing on the flat of her back. She was beginning to feel the chill in her bones and the room began to spin. This was it.
Basatine was still half-heartedly trying to block Oisrin’s blade, but she could barely keep her head up, let alone her guard. She turned to watch Killian try to get to his feet, but he was losing blood as fast as his Djinn body could replace it. She had no such luck. She healed mortal slow in both forms.
She could no longer maintain her grip on Basatine, and he clattered to the hard stone floor. The tip of Oisrin’s sword pressed against her throat.
“For my mother,” he growled. She held his gaze, defiant.
And then his head exploded.
Blood, brains and bits of skull rained down over her face, getting in her mouth and eyes.
She wanted to scream but she didn’t have the energy. She couldn’t even lift her arm to wipe her face.
Ethan’s face came into view, and if she could have sat up, she would have kissed him.
“Seriously, what is with the fucking swords? Does no one realize it’s the twenty-first century. Iron bullets beat your ornamental letter openers every day of the week. Patch her up,” he said to someone behind him. He leaned down and wiped the gore from her face. “Can’t lose our Councilor this early in the game.”
Someone rushed over, stemming her bleeding, using some kind of staple gun to stitch the larger gashes closed.
There was a flurry near the door and Oliver ran in, still in jaguar form. He sniffed her gashes, and took in the now headless Oisrin and let out a roar that was deafening inside the weapons vault. He grabbed the corpse by the arm and flung it around the room like a chew toy. It was disturbing watching the animal form of a man she loved tear apart the headless body of her enemy. Disturbing, and a little satisfying. She had issues.
Finished d
ecimating what remained of Oisrin, he prowled toward her. He was very obviously pissed. He leaned right over her face and she couldn’t help but shy away a little. She could see his disappointment in those intelligent cat eyes. He growled and shifted to human. Ruh-roh.
“What the fuck, Azar? You can’t just leave me behind like that! I was meant to be watching your back. Bast is going to kill us both when he finds out.” He was agitated, waving his arms around as he spoke. Unfortunately, she was still on the ground. And he was naked from his shift. All she could see from this angle was his junk waving around in the breeze.
“I’m sorry, okay? But if you want to keep yelling at me, either put some pants on or get me to my feet. I can’t concentrate from this angle.”
Oliver just stared at her, his grim face slowly transforming into the grinning Oliver she knew and loved. He reached down and helped her gently to her feet. He pulled her into a tight, albeit naked, hug. They were fast becoming her favorite type of hug.
“Thank god you’re alive. I saw you bleeding on the floor…” Then he did something very catlike and rubbed his cheek along hers, his stubble scraping like sandpaper, completely uncaring that he was smearing blood across her skin.
Azar rubbed soothing circles on his back. “I know. I’m fine though. But if Bast catches you hugging me naked in front of half the den, he really will kick your ass.”
He grinned and released her, darting out into the hall, and returned wearing pants. She resisted the urge to pout. Now they were officially a thing, she was suddenly very fond of his need to be nude.
She stumbled toward the dais, Oliver holding her under one elbow to keep her steady. Killian was giving orders, back on his feet and with a few new scars, but really no worse for wear. She stared down at Jack on the dais, counting the weapons lodged in his flesh. Posidagi, the dagger that had almost killed Bast, was pierced through his left palm. She hated seeing that dagger embedded in another man she cared for. She wanted to tear it out of his skin and throw it into the huge chasm that had opened up in front of the den. Umedesta, the Indian style Katar that Roxx had stolen from the Finlay’s bedchambers, was pierced through Jack’s other hand. Drakhul, the Ifrit sword, was pierced through one thigh, pushed all the way into the stone. The curved edge of the chakram, Ibsali, pressed into the meat of his thigh, and the spear-tip of Abazhana through his left calf muscle. But all these were overshadowed by Zindagi, which was sliced through the flesh of his ass cheek, held in place by ropes secured to rings around the dais.
The Azar Omnibus: The Complete Azar Trilogy (The Azar Trilogy Book 0) Page 66
