Storm Princess Saga- the Complete Series

by Everly Frost

  I descend into his arms, shivering, aftershocks rippling through me. I curl over him as he strokes my back, but as I kiss him I realize… he hasn’t lost control.

  He wraps his arms around me, his voice low, insistent, barely contained. “Tell me you’ll let me be yours, Marbella Mercy. Because I don’t want this just once. I want this again. Not just today.”

  My lips part. “I’m yours, Baelen.”

  He places one arm behind my back, the other across my backside and lifts us up to a standing position, still connected, then he lowers me very gently onto my back on top of my cloak, using all of his strength to keep us together. I stretch out beneath him as he begins to move. Giving him everything I have, I wrap my legs around him, drowning in the intensity I see in his eyes.

  Sensation builds inside me again, increasing with every stroke, but I push it away. I want to focus on him the same way he focused on me. I want him to know what it feels like to crash and shatter, to fall into my arms like I fell into his.

  I touch every part of him that I can reach, reveling in the way his muscles tense and relax as he moves, loving the way he responds to my touch. Without realizing, my breathing speeds up, matching time with his as my body moves of its own accord. I can no longer hold back the intensity building within me and it only takes one more plunge for ecstasy to slam through me, coursing through every nerve ending.

  My wide eyes meet his as everything pauses. Then he crashes into me and there’s no way I can control my response or push it away. My hands push against the ground as I arch back, my body wanting to be as close to his as it can be. Where a thousand stars had shattered before, now the depth of my whole foundation shifts. We fall into each other and tiny pieces of me float away into a place where nothing can ever tear us apart.

  42. Marbella Mercy

  I come back to the sound of my name whispered over and over as Baelen gathers me up into his arms, both of us trembling hard. He pulls me in to his side, leaning back against the cave wall while I curl my legs over his. We stay that way for a long time as the roar of thunder and rain continues outside.

  I find myself falling asleep against his chest. Until there’s a strange rumbling in it, making my head and shoulders wobble. I look up at him in alarm only to find that he’s chuckling. It’s such a rare sight that I sit up and take it in for a moment, not caring that I’m still completely naked.

  He grins and lifts an eyebrow at me. “Twice?”

  I match his smile and slide against him, curling my upper leg around his and my arm across his broad chest. “Twice,” I say with a satisfied growl. “I’ll expect that again, thank you.”

  In three years’ time.

  My smile fades and I bury my head against his neck before he sees my happiness slip away. Being separated from him now feels like I’m about to lose an arm or a leg. I want to fight it with everything I have, stop time, stop tomorrow from coming.

  As the rain eases outside, he lifts me up, kissing my forehead and cheeks. Without a word, he picks up our clothing, shaking my dress off before handing it to me. I pull everything back on reluctantly, including my cloak, wanting to stretch out the minutes. When we’re finally dressed again, I wait at the cave’s entrance, watching the final drips of rain, while Baelen retrieves his drawing book.

  The sky is still dark. Evening has arrived. There’s an occasional streak of lightning in the distance, but the worst of the storm is over. When Baelen reaches me, he opens his book and pulls out my ribbon, running it through his fingers. He slides my hair forward, pulling the ribbon around it and tying it at the side of my neck.

  I stop him, entwining my fingers with his. “I want you to have it.”

  “But if you go home without it…”

  “My mother will have to believe that I lost it.”

  He hesitates. “When I get back, I’ll bring you a thousand ribbons. All blue.”

  I kiss the side of his suddenly serious mouth. “I don’t need a thousand ribbons.” I slide the material free from my hair and wrap his hand around it. I ache to touch his skin again, search the contours of his face and neck and other parts of him that I’m suddenly not afraid to think about.

  He kisses me back, the ribbon peeking from his fist. Dark clouds swirl outside as I press into him. My hair splays out and my purple coat floats upward. I suddenly feel… weightless.

  At the same time, he whispers to me. “Marbella Mercy, I give you my heart.”

  The wind tugs at me, insistent, my coat billowing. “Baelen Rath, I—”

  As I speak, the ribbon slips from his fingers, picked up by the wind, stolen right out of his fingertips. He snatches at it, but it whips upward. He steps out onto the ledge, chasing the twirling blue material. But I don’t care about that scrap of cloth. All I care about is what I need to tell him: I love you.

  I chase after him, closing the distance between us, tugging him to a stop and hurtling into him. He throws his arms around me and we let the ribbon swirl upward, high above us, disappearing into the darkness.

  I say, “I don’t need it. I only need you.”

  He leans down to kiss me but as I tilt my head back to accept his kiss…

  A flash of light streaks high in the sky.

  It’s so bright that it tears the sound out of my throat. It’s so sudden I don’t have time to feel fear. It’s so savage it drives the air from my lungs. It crackles and shrieks, drowning every other sound, filling me with a silent scream.

  There’s only reflex. Only instinct. Only knowing that Baelen’s body protects me—that the lightning will strike him, kill him, and I can’t let that happen. I push him away from me, away from the strike, with all the strength I have. He registers shock and surprise that I shoved him, but at the same time he follows my line of sight upward, sees the lightning, sees me standing beneath it…

  As electricity lights up the space around us it illuminates his eyes and all the fear in them, fear I’ve never seen him show before. Fear for me the same as I feel for him. He swivels and tries to get back to me, tries to cover me with his body again even though I don’t want him to. But his feet collide with the rocky outcrop.

  He slips on the wet rocks…

  falls…

  smashes his head against the overhanging stone…

  “Bae—!” The lightning slams into me, catching me in its burning rays. Pain rips through me, tearing me apart, sharp as a thousand daggers, hot as burning pokers, tearing me limb from limb. A scream shrieks through me, slashing through my throat.

  But it’s not a single lightning strike. Not a strike that hits and disappears. The lightning doesn’t stop. It streams around me on and on. Pain shreds me into tiny pieces and it has no end. I can’t move. I can’t escape. All I can do is scream. Why hasn’t it stopped? Why haven’t I died?

  The light is so bright it could be daylight on the cliff. Baelen lies on his side so close yet so far away from me, blood dripping from the deep slash down the side of his face and jaw. He doesn’t move and I can’t tell if he’s breathing. I can’t tell if he’s alive.

  He has to be alive! I have to get to him. I have to help him. I have to know that he’s okay. I reach forward, pulling and struggling, trying to escape the storm’s grip, pushing through the pain, stretching out my arms and hands as far as I can. I scream with effort trying to break the lightning’s grasp.

  But as soon as I lift my arms, I sense it—the lightning pulsing through me, traveling through me. My eyes widen with horror and realization, but it’s too late. The lightning shrieks through me, through my hands, through my fingers, into the air, across the distance and… into Baelen.

  The impact picks him up, a curl of electricity seizing him and lifting him high into the air. His unconscious body glows red and orange, suspended, connected to me through the shining thread. He shudders, jolts, burns. I’m hurting him even more than I already did by pushing him. I’m killing him.

  It’s my fault.

  It’s all my fault.

  I scream
with the effort to pull my hands back, trying to curl my fingers into fists and drag my elbows to my sides, forcing my hands down. Finally, finally, I break the connection. The lightning releases him and he plummets to the ground, half on the rocks, half on the ledge, smoke rising from his body in white curls. What have I done?

  “Let me go!” I scream into the sky—at the lightning shining back and forth between me and the boiling clouds. It’s a brilliant, white thread connecting me to the expanse above and it widens before my eyes, expanding beyond me, beyond the cliff’s edge, ten feet wide and growing.

  At the same time, the clouds explode into thunder and fireworks made of multi-colored lightning. The thunder crashes. The wind howls. A sheet of rain washes Baelen’s blood from the stone.

  No, this can’t be… Sobs tear out of me, racking my body. I fight it with everything I have, kicking and struggling, not wanting it to be true.

  This is not an ordinary storm. This is… the Storm.

  I am the new Storm Princess.

  43. Marbella Mercy

  I leave my younger body.

  I fall onto the wet stone on my hands and knees, clambering around to see my younger self suspended above the cliff’s edge. I try to remember why I’m here, what’s going on, but my thoughts are jumbled with the pain I just felt—the pain that’s still reflected on my younger face.

  The lightning had pinned me above the cliff for two hours, completely helpless. Two hours while I watched Baelen bleed out in front of me not knowing if he was alive or dead. The Storm didn’t let me go until the spellcasters finally arrived and cast a spell around me similar to the one in the Vault. I’d pounded my fists against the spell cage, screaming at them to help Baelen first—Help him, not me! When they didn’t listen to me, I threw myself against the cage so hard that I blacked out. I woke up in the Storm Vault. Baelen was gone, the nightmares began, and my future with him was over from that moment.

  Now, I try to block out the sound of my younger voice screaming Baelen’s name over and over again. I cross my hands over my chest and try to breathe.

  This isn’t real.

  My thoughts finally come together to remind me: I’m in a simulation. True, it’s a simulation based on a very real memory, but it isn’t really happening again. It’s all a vision inside my mind.

  Teilo Splendor had told us that the Heartstone Chest would create a simulation that was unique to each of us. For some reason, the chest brought me back to this time, to this night. Everything up to this point was a memory. A memory that I’d tried very hard to forget, but it was an event in my life that had burned at the back of my mind for seven years. The Heartstone Chest must have brought me back for a reason, but… why?

  I wipe my eyes, trying to clear my vision. My younger voice mutes and the lightning fades. The image of my other self is still there, but it’s gauzy and transparent. Without the lightning, the cliff’s edge becomes dark and shadowy.

  On the other hand, Baelen’s younger self remains perfectly clear, unmoving, stretched out over the rocks, right where he’d fallen and damaged his spine.

  I clamber to my feet and race to his side. I couldn’t help him seven years ago, but maybe I can now. Maybe the Heartstone Chest is giving me a chance. Nothing I do in the simulation will change the real past. It won’t change what really happened, but maybe I can change how helpless I’d felt watching him die right before my eyes.

  I reach for my cloak to use it as a bandage around his wound only to find that I’m wearing my armor again. Before I can cast around for something else to help him, a shadow drops over me.

  It’s fleeting, but undeniable. I spin, crouching, and study the darkness overhead, waiting for the shadow to appear again. It flies over me once more and this time I follow its path as it circles overhead, gradually descending. The shape grows clearer and larger as a gargoyle soars toward me.

  I glance back at Baelen. I may not be able to bind his wounds, but now I know why I’m here, why the heartstone brought me back to this place.

  I'm here to protect him from the gargoyle.

  Sebastian told me I’d have to face my fears and this is it. This is my worst fear, because no matter how hard I tried to protect Baelen on this cliff seven years ago, all I did was hurt him. This is my second chance—a chance to save him like I couldn’t before.

  I roar a challenge into the night sky as the beast thumps down onto the ledge, its wings outstretched. Instead of folding its wings to its sides, it keeps them aloft, ready to use the daggers at the pinpoints of its wings against me. This gargoyle is the kind the elves fear—glowing red eyes, horns stretching from two points on its stony skull, its teeth dripping as it growls. Its chest is broad and muscled, even larger than the gargoyle I faced on Scepter Peak. It doesn’t make any difference that I know real gargoyles don’t look like this. The real ones might be far more beautiful, but this one is just as dangerous.

  I reach for my weapons, discovering that I have none. Damn. I’ve only got my fists and I’m pretty sure that’s not going to help. I cast around as the gargoyle circles me. Without taking my eyes off it, I pick up the nearest rocks, two palm-sized ones. Not exactly knuckle dusters, but they’ll pack more of a wallop than my bare fists.

  Wait… bare fists. My gloves are gone. My hands shoot to my veil. It’s gone too, but I’m still wearing the headpiece. It’s not metal and it’s blunt. It was only intended to keep my veil in position away from my eyes, but if I have to, I can use it as a weapon.

  The gargoyle takes a glance back at the shimmery vision of my younger self, looking between it and Baelen, growling at him before turning its focus to me. It crouches, wing daggers pointed at me, and roars so loudly its breath gusts across me like a stormy breeze. Lightning flickers in the distance, a backdrop of crackling electricity illuminating the beast’s silhouette.

  I don’t wait for it to attack. I take a running jump, knowing I’ll only get one shot at its head. The gargoyle braces as I leap but it doesn’t use its wings to defend itself. My rock-filled right fist connects against the side of its face with a thwack. I’d intended to land the blow and use my own momentum to somersault over it, but the beast anticipated that. It twists, accepting the blow to its face, but swatting me at the same time in one forceful move as it follows me down onto the cliff’s surface. For a moment, its bloodied face hovers over mine, as if it expects me to yield.

  I may be winded with a pounding headache on the way, but yielding is not going to happen.

  One-two, I knock my fists into its face first and then follow with a two-footed kick, knocking the gargoyle backward and sliding myself out from under it at the same time. I jump to my feet and fly back at it, exchanging quick blows. It blocks and defends everything I throw at it, but manages to get in a few hits of its own before it circles me again.

  The creature shakes its head, takes another assessing look at me, and I realize I’m in trouble. It was just playing with me before. It charges at me, its wing daggers ripping through the air, scant inches from my arms as I jump backward. I have no idea if my armor made of Elyria web will protect me. The gargoyle on Scepter Peak had shown me that the gargoyles and Elyria spiders live in harmony. For all I know, the wing daggers could be just as strong as the web. I don’t plan on finding out.

  The gargoyle drives me backward, slamming me up against the side of the cave. One of its daggers grazes my face. I can’t let it pin me against the rock like the other one did. I scream out the pain, grab my wooden headpiece, and shove it right at the beast’s eyes. Wood can’t break that stony skin, but it causes the gargoyle to jerk backward, giving me a slim gap to slide through beneath its wing. As I do so…

  A dagger! The beast is carrying a dagger!

  I throw my hand back at the last moment and snatch the weapon, tearing it from the gargoyle’s hip. I slide across the ledge toward Baelen as lightning springs to life around me. Glowing blue light snaps around my body, hissing and crackling.

  The beast turns, realizes its weapon is g
one, and charges at me. At the same time, thirty black flying creatures appear in the sky above us.

  More gargoyles! For a second, confusion overwhelms me. The Elven Command said I’d only have to fight one, not that many all at once. All of the new gargoyles speed toward me, blurry forms, only seconds away. I can’t let them reach me. I can’t let them reach Baelen.

  I draw on all of the storm’s wrath, vaguely aware that the first gargoyle has skidded to a halt, eyeing me with… surprise? It’s hard to tell, but right now I don’t have time to think.

  Electricity crackles around me as I plant my feet and scream, “I won’t let you hurt him!”

  The gargoyle jolts, its voice a sharp growl. “You’re protecting him from me?”

  I don’t have time to reply. The other gargoyles have reached us, a cloud of them, shrieking, mere feet away from me now. They’re reaching for me, for the dagger. With a scream, I drop to my knees, turn the dagger upside down, and slam its hilt into the stone with all my might. The electrical thud reverberates around me, pulsing outward.

  Lightning streaks in a wide circle from my weapon, bashing into the oncoming attackers. Their teeth and claws light up, bony, glistening, wings snapping as the force hits them, hurling them backward.

  All of them tumble away from me. Some of them drop from the sky, clinging to the ledge before sliding out of view. Others plummet down the cliff immediately, but most of them spill backward, the force of my lightning propelling them far, far away from me.

  Their screams fade as I spin back to the male gargoyle. It alone is still standing, one arm flung across its eyes, braced against the storm raging around me.

  Blood drips down the side of my face. I roar at it. “I will protect Baelen Rath to the death. Because I love him!”