by Everly Frost
Baelen is watching me closely enough to follow my gaze. As the situation becomes apparent to him, he relaxes. He knows I can’t make any choices for myself right now. It makes my heart break even more knowing how much he trusts me. His lightning dims but it must be taking every bit of his self-control not to tear Grayson apart.
Whatever happens, I can’t let Baelen touch Grayson or Baelen will die.
Baelen steps to the side, revealing the gargoyle with him. Indira glides into the light. I’d expected to see Llion or Roar, maybe even Senturi, but I’m glad it’s her. A Grievous gargoyle is exactly what is needed on this mission, especially a ferocious female like Indira.
Like Baelen, Indira wears light armor and a smattering of weapons. Her gorgeous wings catch the light as she crosses the distance ahead of Baelen, a strikingly confident form who catches the eye of every male in the room. She is even more beautiful than the last time I saw her, the glow in her cheeks reminding me that she’s pregnant.
Even Grayson is transfixed. “Who is that?”
I reply, “Her name is Grievous Indira. She is one of the most fearsome females I’ve ever fought.” Then I decide to drop a little bombshell. “She was Howl’s sister.”
He is visibly taken back. “But she fights with you now?”
My response is a warning to Grayson about trust, but I’m not sure if he will hear it. “That’s how much Howl hurt everyone around him during his quest for power.”
Indira stops directly in front of Grayson. “I expected a little more hospitality,” she says, holding out her hand while Baelen takes his time joining her.
He’s assessing every part of the room and its occupants. Priscilla’s presence at one of the tables makes him narrow his eyes. He will be able to sense her sorcery. She takes on a casual pose, remaining where she is for now. If the way Grayson is holding me bothers her, she’s hiding it. But her response to Baelen is unmistakable despite her casual posture: she’s afraid of him.
“I thought there would be dancing.” Indira bats her eyelashes at Grayson. Her goal is clear—give Baelen and me space. She shrugs in my direction. “It’s not like Marbella is going anywhere.”
She reaches for his hand but at the last minute my senses go haywire. He isn’t cloaked! I can’t let her die. Not her—and not the babies she’s carrying.
“Indira, don’t touch him!”
She withdraws at my shout. Grayson slides both his arms around me, leveraging me so he’s standing behind me. He nuzzles my ear. “Aw, Marbella, no need to get possessive. She just wants to dance with me.”
“Grayson, please…”
“I promise I won’t bed her.” His hands splay across my hips, making me freeze. My stomach sinks with every moment that he continues to touch me. It’s obviously all for Baelen’s benefit.
Baelen is frozen again. I don’t have to read his mind to know his thoughts: if Grayson keeps mauling me like this, he’s not going to have any fingers left by the time Baelen is done with him. If Grayson were an ordinary male, it would be true.
But Grayson is not ordinary and we all know it.
I sense Grayson’s cloaking spell go up a second before he lets me go. He catches Indira’s hand and spins her a few paces away. The music starts up again.
I don’t wait.
“Baelen.” I run to him as fast as I can, not knowing whether Grayson will jolt me backward and keep us apart. It’s likely that he’ll give us moments and then deliberately tear me away to demonstrate his control over this situation.
I slam into Baelen’s chest, the full force of contact with his body sending my senses into overload. A storm rages behind his eyes, kept under tight control, a growing tension in the lines of his jaw, the angle of his shoulders, and the flex of his biceps and forearms as his arms close around me. Up close, I can see dark circles under his eyes and the fury that fills every part of his body.
I tilt my head back, knowing that before Grayson whisks me away, I have to tell Baelen… I have to make sure he knows…
“Whatever you see. Whatever you hear. Please know this: Baelen Rath, I give you my heart. I will love you, protect you, and honor you until the end of time.”
His eyes widen before I dip my head to his chest and wrap my arms around him. I just spoke the Heartstone oath. It’s the same oath Baelen gave to me in this same arena. It will bind me to him so that nothing Grayson does can force me to hurt Baelen again.
I finish the oath, whispering against his armor. “Until death.”
I wait for him to say the words that mean he accepts my oath, that mean he trusts me no matter what he saw, the words that will complete the binding. His heart pounds against my ear. He gently draws back so he can search my eyes, the rage in his expression morphing into an even stronger emotion as he cups my cheek in his big palm. It’s the same way he looked at me before he asked permission to kiss me the first time. It’s so fierce and so real that my heart shatters.
Finally he says, “Marbella Mercy, Supreme Incorruptible, Queen of the gargoyles, you are bound to me, live or die, succeed or fail. You will never love another.”
A shiver races through me all the way from the top of my head to my toes. All four of my heartstones burst into light at once, glowing powerful and bright.
I flinch as a harsh cry breaks across the distance. Grayson doubles over, curled up on the floor twenty paces away, clutching his stomach. Did Indira stab him? I wouldn’t have thought any physical assault would have that effect on him. I also can’t believe she got through his defenses.
She backs away from him, arms splayed, bumping into the elves behind her. The shock on her face tells me she didn’t do anything. She shouts at the advancing soldiers, “I didn’t touch him!”
He clutches his stomach, lifts his head, and roars so loudly that the elves cover their ears and the glass paneling in the ceiling of the arena shatters. Glass shards creak, wobble, and separate from each other like a falling jigsaw puzzle, dropping toward the shocked elves below.
“Grayson!” Priscilla screams as she races toward him, waving away the shards that would strike her or Grayson, sending them in all directions. Whatever anger she felt at him yesterday, she’s forgotten it. Her frightened face shoots panic in our direction. But the source of her fear is painfully clear to me: she’s not afraid for Grayson. She’s afraid for herself. Grayson is her protection. Without him, she’s vulnerable.
She screams, pulling at him, trying to make him stand. “Grayson, stop it! Get up!”
Indira also launches into action, speeding toward us just as the deadly glass is about to impale the screaming, clambering elves. “Baelen!”
Baelen’s thunder booms and everything freezes, including Grayson and Priscilla—and the deadly glass shards. Just in time.
But not Indira. She plows into both of us. “I didn’t do anything! I swear. He just collapsed.”
I don’t know what has hurt Grayson, but even the thunder hasn’t stopped his pain. He’s slowly writhing on the floor, clearly in agony. Yesterday, he absorbed my destructive power without making a sound, so the fact that he’s shuddering now tells me how much pain he’s in. My Virtuous heart glows again, its compassion telling me to help him, that I can’t let his pain go on like this.
Stop it! I can’t feel sorry for him.
I smother my empathy with fear for my ladies. I have to get them out of here. I spin to Baelen. “Grayson won’t be frozen for long. He’s too powerful. Can your storm power carry twenty-one females? I need you to get Indira and my ladies out of here.”
“Twenty-two,” he says, piercing me with his green eyes. “You’re coming too.”
My voice breaks. “I… can’t.”
Indira grabs my arm. “We’re taking you home, Marbella.”
I’m shaking. “Grayson controls me. He controls my location and everything I do. If I run, he’ll pull me right back here. You can’t touch him, Baelen. He kills everyone he touches. You have to take my Storm Command and go.”
Indira
’s eyes widen. “That’s why you didn’t want me to touch him.”
“Please. Take my ladies and go.”
Baelen is powerful and unyielding, a tower of strength as he holds me in his arms. “Grayson controlled you through the heartstones.” His eyes meet mine, clear and determined. “I don’t think he controls you anymore.”
He gently turns me in Grayson’s direction.
Grayson is curled up on the floor, shaking, small tremors that would be so much more powerful if he wasn’t contained within the force of the thunder. A soft crackle reaches my ears, a popping sound like twigs burning in a fire. Grayson’s spine is aglow and at first I think it’s the Rath Heartstone like before, but this glow is angry, a deeper shade of carmine, like blood. Beneath the heartstones, his skin bubbles and seethes. It’s such a shocking sight that I’m running before I know it.
Grayson told me that mercy was my weakness. Maybe it is. Maybe I’m about to make a terrible mistake. But the person he is when he drops the mask over his emotions is the one I want to help.
I ignore Priscilla’s frozen form. Her sorcery isn’t natural like Grayson’s. She can’t defeat the storm’s power and she will remain frozen until Baelen chooses to release her.
I kneel next to Grayson where he can see me, waiting for his eyes to meet mine. Then I pull him toward me so that the side of his stomach rests across my knees and I can reach his back. The stones are loose, boiling his skin. I reach for the first one—part of the Mercy Heartstone—and lift it away from him. It falls into my fingers and the boiling beneath it stops. I repeat that seven times for Mercy and ten times for Rath, gathering the pieces into a pile on the floor while Baelen watches over me. I have no idea what he’s thinking now. He must think I’m crazy to be helping this elf. But Grayson is part gargoyle and it’s the gargoyle that I’m helping now.
I glance up at Baelen in the middle of my task. “We broke the tether. When I bound myself to you, we must have broken his connection with our heartstones. The heartstones are punishing him for forcing the link.”
Baelen’s expression is shuttered, controlled. “We should take these with us so they can’t be used against you again.”
Indira swoops to place the shards in a pouch at her waist. Unlike gargoyle heartstones, elven heartstones aren’t deadly to touch so they don’t harm her.
By the time I’m done, Grayson has stopped shaking, but his eyes leak tears of pain. He squeezes his eyes closed, turning his face away. I guess he doesn’t want me to see him like this.
I check the wounds on his back. His skin has stopped bubbling but it’s burning hot. I can’t heal him but I can soothe the pain. I draw on Incorruptible’s ice, allowing it to seep from my fingertips into his spine. His skin cools immediately, the redness fading. I run my fingers up his spine again, making sure it is completely cooled, before I pause on a spot on his back, frowning at it. Underneath his golden runes, several strange bumps interrupt his smooth skin, but there’s no time to wonder how they got there.
He relaxes, the tension in his body releasing, but his eyes fly open, watching me again. He struggles against the force that binds him, confusion more than fear filling his eyes as he sees Baelen standing so close by. He probably wonders why Baelen hasn’t struck him dead already.
As a warrior, Baelen knows exactly what Grayson is thinking. But Baelen has always fought with honor. His jaw clenches. Lightning crackles around his torso. “This would not be a fair fight. But I will meet you in battle, Grayson Glory. And when that time comes, no measure of mercy will save you.”
I lean down to Grayson. Now that the tether is broken, I can leave. Grayson can’t pull me back to him anymore, but my feelings toward him are so conflicted. He said last night that he wished we weren’t enemies. I wish that too, but not for the same reasons as he does. I can’t love or be with anyone except Baelen who holds my heart and soul in his strong hands. But I’ve seen who Grayson is under the mask: he is a gargoyle, and that makes him one of my people.
I take his hand and fold mine inside it for a moment, asking for his trust. “I didn’t lie to you, Grayson. I’m sorry I took Gideon away from you. I wish I could change the past. But you need to question everything the Elven Command told you. Everything.”
I draw to my feet and use my power to send all the remaining glass shards speeding up and away. I could let them fall on the soldiers but, as Baelen said, with them frozen, this is not a fair fight. The shards quiver where they impale the walls.
Baelen sweeps his power through the room, mini tornados picking up each of my ladies and transporting them toward the door. He wraps me up in his arms and pulls me to his side, lifting Indira with his power at the same time.
“Baelen?” I’m heartbroken, can barely get the words out as I say, “They told me Elise is gone… They said she didn’t survive…”
Baelen and Indira exchange glances. “They thought she was dead,” he says, “But Elise is alive.”
“What?” I stare at him, dreading that I heard wrong, needing him to confirm that she’s alive.
“They left her for dead; threw her in a shallow grave out in a field. That’s how she escaped. She spellcast a call for help and I found her. But the location of your ladies was still cloaked and Elise had been separated from them for days so it was impossible for me to find them.”
Tears of relief stream down my cheeks. I press my hand to my heart, feeling like this pain at least is healing. I can’t stop the sob wrenching from me. “I thought she was dead. It broke… my heart…”
Baelen plants comforting kisses on the top of my head and forehead, his touch and his arms soothing and warm. “She’s okay, Marbella but… after I rescued her she stopped speaking. She says she’ll only speak with you.”
I wipe my eyes. “Why?”
He shakes his head. “We don’t know. She won’t say a word.”
As we ascend into the late afternoon sky, I ask, “What about my family? Are they safe?”
Baelen smiles for the first time. “All of the elves who were loyal to me have gathered on Rath land—a small army—including the entire House of Mercy. Eli Elder is there too.”
“That can’t have made his grandfather very happy.” Eli Elder is Elwyn Elder’s grandson. Eli was one of the first elves to recognize the Elven Command’s sorcery and he went against his grandfather’s wishes in the marriage trials.
Baelen says, “They’ve defended Rath land from every attempt to invade it. That’s where we will go now. To your brother.”
Rath land is right on the northern border between Erawind and Erador. It sounds like it has been virtually seceded into gargoyle territory now.
“Baelen, the entire elven army will attack Erador as soon as they find out I’m gone. I made a deal with Grayson to buy you more time and now I’ve broken it by leaving. The gargoyles aren’t ready and it’s my fault. I should have warned them.”
Baelen says, “They’re ready, Marbella. Your decision not to tell them only delayed their preparation by a few hours. As soon as you disappeared, a war council was formed.”
“With Baelen at its head,” Indira interjects, calling across the wind barrier. “He brought Llion, Liliana, and Talia back and they explained what happened to you. We’ve spent the week fortifying the border.”
“You’ve bought us enough time already,” Baelen says. “We’re ready for war.”
The flight to Rath land takes a full two hours. Baelen has to fly much more slowly and carefully because he’s transporting twenty elves at once. Along the way, I try to talk to him about Grayson. “Baelen, about what you saw…”
He gives me a quick shake of his head. His gaze flickers to the talon crows flying in the distance. “Not here.”
I try to read his expression. His response was a lot more clipped than I expected it to be and I’m suddenly worried. Back at the arena, I was sure he’d understood the situation, but now I can’t tell if he’s upset, betrayed, angry, or something else. He definitely doesn’t want to talk about
it right now.
We approach Rath land as the sun begins to set. As we fly over it, I can see how prepared they are. A number of gargoyle males patrol the sky while the outposts on the ground are manned with elven soldiers. Baelen signals to them and they lower their weapons, allowing us to pass. We travel onward through the outer village and finally into the center to the Rath mansion. It’s not as big as the Royal Residence, but just as imposing. It feels like forever since I spent my childhood in this place.
A group of elves wait for us outside: two male and three female. My heart leaps to see my mother, father, and brother, as well as Jordan and Sahara.
As Baelen sets me down, I don’t know who to go to first. They must have figured this out in advance because my mother races to me with open arms. “My baby girl!”
“Mom.” I haven’t spoken to my mother in a year and haven’t hugged her in seven. She’s crying as she wraps her soft arms around me. I’m a grown female, fought a lot of battles, but seeing my Mom brings me to tears.
“Marbella, I missed you, sweetheart.”
My father wraps his arms around both of us, kissing my forehead. “Darling girl.”
“I’ve missed you both so much.” While I was the Storm Princess, I wasn’t allowed to see or speak with my brother and father. Only my mother was allowed to visit me once each year.
After a long hug filled with tears, my parents give way for Jordan and Sahara, who are beaming at me. Sahara looks exhausted, but she gives up her position leaning on Jordan to hug me. “Welcome back, Marbella.”
Jordan is next, her eyes sparkling with tears. She was the head of my Storm Command before she was married. For many years she was my protector as well as my friend. I hug her for forever before my brother jostles in for his turn. She rolls her eyes at him, squeezing my hand one last time and quickly whispering to me, “We’ll catch up at dinner.”
Macsen fills my view with his ginormous self, giving me a great big bear hug that lifts me off my feet. I still can’t get over how much he’s changed. His auburn hair is cut short at the back and sides and is not much longer on top—a soldier’s haircut. His enormous chest and biceps dwarf me. He raises his eyebrows at my revealing dress. “Wow, big sister. Who did they make you marry?”
