Perfect Storms (Storms of Blackwood Book 4)

by Elle Middaugh

  Would he kill them too?

  My gut responded with a terrified, yet certain, yes.

  "Welcome," he said cordially to his unfortunate guests. "It took my guards quite a long time to track all of you down, so shame on you for hiding."

  The guards rattled the shoulders of a few people or smacked them in the side of the head. They must've been the ones who'd hidden.

  "Please, enjoy your stay at the palace. Remember to stay calm, keep your mouths shut, and wait patiently for your relatives to arrive. I know my... children"—he said the word with contempt, as if it tasted terrible in his mouth—"they're bleeding hearts. They're probably on their way to save your pathetic lives as we speak."

  At his calloused words, some of the hostages began to cry.

  "None of that," he snapped. "I'll not sit here and listen to sniveling and sniffling for the next however many hours. I'll start killing you off now if I have to."

  As if terrifying them more would help them to calm down.

  A woman accidentally let out a muffled sob at his threat, and the king stomped over to her, seemingly all too willing to give the crowd a demonstration.

  Terror. Sheer, blinding terror washed over me like an icy wave. My blood froze, I swore my heart stopped beating, and I went completely still as I watched, numb and paralyzed.

  He reached into his belt and withdrew a knife, lifted it high into the air, and brought it down hard into the woman's chest. She screamed through her gag, staining it with little flecks of red, and everyone nearby screamed too—even me. Tears clouded my vision as he stabbed her again and again until she crumpled to the floor at everyone's feet.

  The monstrous king was breathing heavy—I couldn't really see it through the tears, but I could hear it over the intensity of the silence.

  "I said no crying," he reiterated coldly. The scrape of a knife being sheathed hit my ears, followed by the sound of footsteps walking away.

  I was numb. Completely and totally numb with shock and terror, and... I took a deep breath and felt my entire body shaking. My teeth were even chattering. It felt like my very bones were frozen.

  I just watched someone die.

  No, I watched someone get murdered… right before my very eyes, and it was... awful. Never in a million years had I ever imagined myself in a situation like this. I didn't know what to do, what to think, what to feel. My heart had gone back to pounding so hard I feared it might explode on the spot. My pulse thundered through my ears, drowning out the silence.

  My gaze slid over onto mom. Her eyes were wide and glassy as if she, too, was petrified with fear and sadness. My... other “mother,” my “real” one, sat stoically with turned-down lips. She seemed to be completely and utterly devoid of emotion. Either she was a calloused wench just as awful as the king, or... she'd been through some trauma. I had a bad feeling it was the latter. The king was evil, and I had a feeling he didn't care who ended up on the receiving end of his violence.

  Even me.

  He said he needed my help, that he had big plans for me and my magic to help him win the war. That he'd keep me and my mother safe as long as we cooperated. But I wouldn't put it past him to kill me for looking at him wrong. Or for not having access to the magic he so desperately needed—which was absolutely the case. I'd never used magic in my life. I wasn't even convinced that I had any at all.

  I needed to be careful. So careful.

  My breath came and went in quivering pants as I studiously tried to avoid the bloody woman on the floor. I accidentally found the king instead, standing on the far side of the room, talking to a small group of men in private.

  The doors to the hall burst open then. No knock this time, no line of hostages filtering in. Just one man, running as if his life depended on it. He dropped to one knee at the foot of the king and shook his head, whispering something I couldn't hear from all the way across the room.

  "What?" the king shouted, backhanding the messenger in a fit of rage. "Order the men to fall back to the palace right now! Revert the dragon! Revert the cannons! Do not let them breach these walls!"

  My eyes were flying wildly in my sockets, searching this way and that, trying to make sense of all this. Who couldn't breach the walls? Alexis and the Storms? Were they here? Had the war officially begun? And did he seriously just say... dragon?

  Gods, I was a nervous wreck. It seemed like death was just a hair's width away no matter where I turned. No matter what the king had promised, the likelihood of Mom and me making it out of here alive was slim to none. If we weren't killed by him, then we were sure to die at the hand of a random soldier in the war or by the jowls of a mythological beast...

  Face it, Gretta—Tia, whoever the hell you are—you're going to die. And you're going to die soon.

  I pulled at my bonds and another droplet of blood fell to the floor.

  I briefly contemplated hacking away at them so that I could at least die on my own terms sans any murder or torture, but the thought quickly flitted away. That wasn't who I was. I might've been hugely underprepared for this godsawful experience, but I wasn't about to go down without at least trying to fight.

  Not like, fight the king or anyone, but fight for my life and for survival. I couldn't just give up. My salvation might've been outside the walls at this very moment. I needed to stay calm and take this one second at a time.

  Slowly, a strange sound met my ears. It was quiet at first, so quiet I almost didn't notice it. But then it grew steadily louder. The sound started as an incomprehensible noise, but eventually grew in clarity to the call of a yelling crowd. A yelling army. Metal clanked and clanged, and the shouts got louder.

  The king paced around the room almost nervously, his royal purple cape billowing behind him as he marched. "Why is this happening?" he shouted.

  But his advisor was nowhere to be found.

  "Ares?" he called curiously, glancing all around. Then he shouted the name at the top of lungs. "Ares!"

  The volume of his anger forced many of the hostages’ eyes to squeeze shut in fear. He remained silent and still for a long moment. I couldn't take my eyes off him. I watched in curiosity and terror as his skin went from normal peach to pale white to plum purple.

  "NO!" he bellowed in a rage perfectly fit for a tyrannical king. He stopped shouting and started pacing once more, whispering to himself as he went. I strained my ears to hear.

  "He set me up," the king muttered. "He fooled me, tricked me. Made me believe I could win, then vanished when I needed him most. Well, I'll show that two-faced sorcerer. I'll show everyone. Zacharias Storm won't go down without a fight. Oh, no. And if I go down, I'm taking everyone down with me."

  I watched in horror as he stomped over to the line of queens and special prisoners, a malevolent look dancing wildly in his deranged eyes.

  "Starting with my most important playing pieces," he said out loud, though it wouldn't have made sense to anyone but those who'd heard his mutterings. "Can't let them gain control of my most valuable assets, now can I?"

  The queens tried to talk through their gags, but obviously it didn't work. Their words were nothing more than muffled shouts. The king simply pretended he knew what they'd said. Or maybe after being married to them for so long, he just knew what they must've been thinking?

  I sure as hell didn't.

  "Now, now, we had a good run, didn't we, ladies? No need to get all sentimental now. You made a fool of me for the past thirty years, you know. You thought I'd never find out, but I did. You thought you'd never suffer for it, never pay the true price of your treachery, but you were wrong. The time to pay for your sins is right now."

  The slicing sound of metal on metal scraped across my ears as he withdrew his still-bloody knife.

  Oh my gods, he's going to kill them. He's going to kill us all. What am I going to do?

  Tears flooded my vision, and fear pounded through my veins, but the distinct sound of torn flesh and gurgling blood crashed into my ears just before the sound of another body slum
ping to the floor.

  I sobbed as quietly as I could, but he must've heard me.

  "Oh, don't worry, precious Tia. I haven't forgotten about you. You and your traitorous mother will be joining the rest of them very soon."

  My lips quivered, and my brain went blank. There were probably words I should have been thinking, memories I should have been replaying in my mind, plans I should have been formulating... or something.

  But there was nothing.

  I just stood there—horrified—as he went down the row, one by one, slicing the throats of the very women he'd been married to all these years. He was so heartless. He was so cruel. He was wicked and evil and selfish, and I couldn't stand to think I was about to die at his horrid hand.

  Another queen went down, until all that was left was a young blonde-haired girl, my mother, and Francesca—my “other mother.”

  "You were the trickiest bitch of them all, Fran. All those years, I thought you truly loved me for me, and it was nothing but a lie."

  Francesca muttered something through her gag, and the king laughed.

  "Oh, Ares told me all about your pact with the gods to fool me. That's how I found sweet little Tia over there." He pointed in my direction, and Fran's haunting gaze landed on me, sorrow filling the space between us in heavy waves.

  This was it. She knew this was it. And that look, that was her apology. For failing to give me the life she thought she could by sending me away. And... I was suddenly grateful. Grateful for her sacrifice. But sorry too. Sorry that I'd never known her.

  He slit her throat in the next second, and I watched her eyes roll into the back of her head before she crumpled to the floor.

  "Gemma," he muttered, addressing the blonde I didn't recognize. "Gemma, Gemma, Gemma. I can't believe you had me fooled. You plotted your escape so meticulously, even I have to give you credit. If it weren't for Ares, I never would have known you were still alive. Just goes to show, though, that I always find out in the end. And you always pay for what you've done."

  Another slice and the blonde girl joined the queens in a bloody puddle on the floor.

  All that was left now was...

  "Mom!" I screamed, nothing more than a shrill muffle through my gag. "Mom! Mom! Mom!"

  I knew calling her name over and over wasn't going to change anything, but I couldn't seem to think of anything else to say. I ran toward her, just wanting to be near her in the midst of so much terror and fear, but a guard gripped my tied wrists and squeezed hard, halting me to the spot. I fought, lurching and yanking and trying to break free, but I was no match for whatever man stood at my back. I was just a pathetic peasant girl from Southern Blackwood, watching her mother die...

  "You almost had me fooled too, Harriette." The Storm King sneered at her. "I'm so happy I could tell you, right to your ugly fucking face, that you failed. And I'm so happy I could do it, right before you fucking died."

  I watched the subsequent events unfold as if I were hovering outside of my own body. The blade touching her throat, his muscles flexing as he jerked it swiftly, the river of blood that poured down her neck, the empty look in her eyes as she dropped to her knees, and the bone-crunching sound of her face crashing onto the stone floor.

  And I completely lost my mind.

  I was screaming, I thought, but I couldn’t actually tell because I was pretty sure my senses were shutting down and starting to fail. Nothing felt real anymore. Nothing felt like anything at all.

  Suddenly, glass shattered, and a stray arrow tore through the palace window. It happened so quickly, I wasn't entirely sure I'd seen it right. But the pained wail that tore from the Storm King's throat ensured me that it had, in fact, actually happened.

  My eyes scanned the wicked king's body, trying to find the cause of his agony. Had the arrow pierced his chest? His throat? Lodged in his spine? Maybe burrowed into his spleen? One could only hope.

  He stumbled, half turning to the side, and I caught sight of the arrow's fletching, tracing the skinny wooden shaft all the way back to where the sharpened tip was stabbed into… his groin.

  Oh my sweet gods above, the wicked king had just been shot in the junk. Karma had just bit him in the dick with an arrowhead. Vengeance had repaid him in the same bloody torment he so loved to dish out. I hoped his cock had fallen down his trousers and now rested in his boots. I hoped his balls would shrivel up into pathetic little raisins and crumble off.

  I'd barely formulated those satisfying thoughts in my mind, when the doors burst open and Alexis and the Storm Princes flooded into the room. They silently took in the carnage before them: the blood of their loved ones spilled on the floor, the bound and crying hostages huddled in the center of the room, and the king's guards as they rushed at them, their swords held high in the air.

  Then all Hades broke loose.

  Wind picked up and whipped around the room. Vines burst in through the windows, shattering the glass and coiling around whatever they could reach. Water then poured in through the broken windows and started soaking the floor. Fire erupted from Alexis's hands and soared through the air as she threw it in various directions. The screaming of banshees and the howling of ghosts haunted the halls, sending the candlelight flickering ominously. And finally, a bloodcurdling roar tore through the night air outside along with the heavy whooshing of wings and the crackling of fire.

  All of that happened in the background though. Because, in the foreground, all I could see was the Storm King. Locking eyes with me… ripping the arrow out and throwing it on the floor… his feet moving in slow motion as they propelled him in my direction… the scarlet glint of his blade as it shone in the flickering candlelight…

  He launched at me, his mouth wide open, teeth bared, as he prepared to sink that murderous blade into the fragile skin above my collarbone, ready to make one last kill before he was slaughtered by his own children.

  But it never happened.

  All at once, light and energy and power erupted through my body, sizzling through my veins like lightning. It shot out of every orifice and pore, even zigzagging through my hair, as it fought to break free and protect me from imminent doom.

  It pierced through the air around me like deadly rays of sun or like glittering spears of ice, felling every bad guy in sight—including the Storm King. A magical ray burst through his chest, knocking him backward and stealing the light from his eyes in the same motion. He crashed to the ground in a lifeless heap of limp limbs and unfulfilled promises.

  By the time it—and I—was finished, there was no one left to fight. Somehow, this inhuman magic of mine inherently knew to only single out the evil in the room. The Storms still stood. The hostages still huddled together on the floor. But the guards lay on the floor, just as unmoving as the king.

  I could hardly breathe, and I was shaking so violently I thought I might crumble apart. But I was alive, and… and it didn't even matter. Because now, my mothers were both dead.

  One of the Storm brothers stepped forward and held out his tattooed arms in irritation and disbelief. "Well, that was just fucking… anticlimactic."

  Two of the other princes shared a conniving little grin and a fist bump. Then the first one spoke up. "Don't worry, bro. We got you covered."

  Chapter 31

  ALEXIS

  I wasn't going to lie, we were all… incredibly put off.

  Rob, seemingly, the most of all.

  We stood there staring at Tia, looking like idiots, unsure of what to say or do.

  We'd all wanted to get a good hit on that vicious, merciless bastard, and to have Tia just go full-blown badass on him before we could even take a swing? Yeah, that was painful.

  Thank gods we had a pair of necromancers on our side.

  "Clear the hall," Criss instructed us, pointing at the hostages as well as the dead bodies littered on the floor. "Get everyone out of here."

  Half an hour or so later, all that was left were the bodies of the queens, including my mother, Gemma, and Fran's handmaid. Tia
was there too, hesitating, like she wasn't yet ready to leave her mothers' sides.

  Criss noticed too. "It's all right," he assured her. "Rob and I have power over spirits and healing. As long as your mothers' spirits have remained, we can bring them back to you."

  "But if their spirits have passed to the Underworld," Rob finished darkly, "then I'm afraid there's nothing we can do."

  Tia was wide-eyed in surprise once more. No doubt, the magic was a lot to take in. She nodded since she couldn't seem to speak. I briefly wondered if that was the price of her magic—being unable to speak for a certain amount of time?

  A group of servants reentered the room carrying simple gurneys made of long sticks with a bit of material sagging between them. They placed the remaining bodies on the cloth and hefted them up by the ends of each stick, preparing to carry them away for safekeeping.

  "Leave Queen Francesca and her handmaiden, please," Criss told the servants gently. Then he turned toward Rob. "You better make sure the Storm King's spirit is still hanging around. And if not, maybe you better catch it before it passes into the Underworld."

  "Oh, shit," Rob cursed before closing his eyes and—I assumed—scanning the astral plane for the wicked man's wandering spirit. A few minutes later, his eyelids popped open and he raised both brows. "Caught him right at the edge of the Styx River. I… I spoke to Hades. First time I ever saw him. I fucking look like him."

  I smiled, feeling excited for him.

  "He…" Rob shook his head in amazement. "He agreed to keep the Storm King out of the Underworld until we're ready."

  "Fuck yeah!" Dan cried with a fist pump.

  "That'll be perfect," Criss decided.

  "I found the queens as well," Rob continued. "And Harriette and Gemma. We'll be able to resurrect them all."

  Tia's face contorted like a sob might escape her trembling lips, but no sound came out. Her eyes widened with panic and she clutched at her throat like touching it might somehow make her vocal cords work again.