He wondered what inner voice was.
“Okay, arsehole,” she said, leaning back. “Enough of this shite. I’m gonna go get laid.” She looked over to Gregory, who was making a great show of not paying them any attention. “Looks like you’re going to have your hands full.”
“Hope so,” Aidan replied.
Kianna stood, using his shoulder as a prop, and looked over to Gregory. “You treat this boy right,” she said. “He owns your ass now.”
Gregory smiled, a blush rising in his cheeks, and before Aidan could yell at Kianna to shut up, she turned from the fire and went to join another. Aidan watched her stumble off.
“Think she’ll be okay?” Gregory asked.
Aidan started. He looked over to Gregory, who had moved close enough that their elbows nearly touched. Aidan tried to turn the guilt and the fear into desire.
He had won. He had gotten away with everything.
He ruled Scotland.
And now, he needed to claim his prize.
One of many prizes.
“She’ll be okay,” Aidan said.
“Good,” Gregory said, his words a lilting brogue. He held up his mug. “So, em, congratulations.”
Aidan clinked mugs. Took a sip. But he didn’t take his eyes off of Gregory.
In the back of his mind, he knew that if he stalled, his thoughts would get the better of him. Already, he could smell the burn of Trevor’s flesh, could hear the echo of his comrades’ screams. Try as he might, those weren’t images that Fire could consume.
He needed a distraction. And he knew just how to get it.
“I have a few ideas of how you could help celebrate my victory,” Aidan said.
“Oh?” Gregory asked. He cocked his head to the tent. “Maybe you could tell me in private. Or better yet...” He leaned in, pressed a hand against Aidan’s thigh, sending heat coursing through his chest. “Maybe you could show me.”
Aidan didn’t think. He just leaned forward, closed the gap between them, and pressed his lips to Gregory’s. There wasn’t a spark, not like with Tomás, but he found a flame. A hunger. One that could make even Trevor’s screams fade away. And when Gregory shifted and sat on Aidan’s lap, straddling him in one swift motion, Aidan let Fire out to play.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“You’re going to love it here,” his mother said.
The plane had just touched down and Aidan wanted nothing more than to pass out and sleep for a week. Overnight flights were apparently not his forte. The four-hour layover in New York hadn’t helped.
But his mum looked excitedly out the window, more energized than he’d seen her in months. Maybe years.
“I haven’t been here since I was a little girl,” she said, staring out at the tarmac and distant fields past Glasgow Airport. “But it’s just as green as I remember.”
Frankly, Aidan was already over this trip. He’d been excited in theory to get out of class, to take two weeks off and explore a foreign country. But he stared out the window at the gray and the rain, exhaustion lying heavy in his bones and a strange sickness in his chest, and he wanted nothing more than to be back in his bedroom. He was already cold, but it beat being in Vermont for the start of winter. Wait, did it snow in Scotland?
Someday, he would move somewhere tropical. Until then, he would do this because it made his mum happy. Because right now, she needed this happiness more than anything. And because this was a free trip, and she promised it would change his life, and even though he would much rather be back with his friends, he’d agreed to go. For her. This trip was for her.
He’d heard her talking to his dad in the weeks and months prior, worried that Aidan was growing distant. That this might be her last chance to reconnect with him before he got too old to want to hang out with his mom.
Just the thought made his chest clench. He stared at her as she stared out the window, tried to find some excitement, if only for her.
He’d do anything to make her happy. Because he knew that, in a few years, he would leave for college and break her heart. He knew that she already reeled from the loss of her own parents. The pain of it was almost too much to bear.
“Why did you do it?”
Aidan turned to the aisle, but he was no longer on the plane.
He was back in the throne room. Back in the room with the frozen bodies. But these weren’t the nameless corpses he’d seen. No. As reality and history crashed around him, he saw them for who they were—Vincent and Jessica and Matthew and Kent. The four Hunters he’d killed at Fire’s command.
They stood poised around him, ashen and frozen, but their eyes...their eyes followed him, glistening with terror, their mouths twisted in screams they couldn’t shed.
And there, above the throne, was Trevor. Nailed to the wall as Calum had been.
Only Trevor was much more alive.
He struggled against the nails in his hands and his feet, and Aidan took a step forward to help him.
One step. And Matthew burst into flame beside him. The moment the fire started, Matthew was able to scream.
Another step, and Jessica went up in smoke.
Aidan took another step forward—he had to save Trevor, he had to—and Kent turned to fire.
When Vincent went up in flame, filling the hall with smoke and the terrible smell of burning flesh, Trevor screamed. “Please! Please stop. You’re killing them. You’re killing everyone.”
The words were a lance to Aidan’s chest. He looked to the burning pillars around him, to the people he had killed without pause.
“No,” came a voice beside him. “You are saving them.”
Aidan’s heart fell to his feet at the sound of his mother’s voice.
He looked over, saw her standing there at his side. Just as she’d been when he’d seen her last—her purple raincoat ripped and dirty, cuts on her hands and face. Blood caking her skin.
She didn’t look sad, though. Not like when she’d forced him away from her, when she’d flung herself in front of the kravens that had threatened to rip him apart.
No. She was smiling.
That smile made his chest hurt worse than any pain he’d known.
He crumpled to his knees.
“Mom?”
She stepped in front of him, half blocking his view of Trevor, the man still crucified and writhing. Shadows curled at her feet. Beckoning like fingers.
His mother smiled. Placed a hand on his forehead as tears rolled down his cheeks.
He blinked, and she shifted, becoming someone else—a woman with long blond hair and pale skin, a woman who seemed more shadow than flesh. Then he blinked again, and his mother was back.
Were her eyes always that dark?
Her hand was heavy on his head, her touch cold, colder than ice.
“Do not fear what you are becoming, my child,” she said. “Do not mourn those who burn along the way. They are nothing. Nothing but fuel for your victory march. Nothing, compared to what you will become.”
She pressed her palm harder to his forehead, and behind her, Trevor burst into flame, filling the cathedral with his screams, with the scent of burning flesh. But as her hand pushed into him, through him, he felt no pity.
No regret.
He stared up into his mother’s abyssal black eyes and felt only purpose.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Not for the first time, Aidan woke curled against a stranger’s chest.
Not for the first time, he woke with a gasp, struggling against the nightmares that tried to drag him back under. His breath burned and his skin was slicked with sweat. But the dream was fading, and nothing save for his pulse seemed to be on fire.
For a moment, he let himself lie there, let himself try to find comfort in the slow, steady rhythm of Gregory’s breath against the back of his neck. At the pressure of Gregory’
s arm against his stomach and chest.
Then Fire smoked its way through his consciousness, reminding him that this was dangerous. This was weakness. And even though Calum was dead, Aidan could never afford to be weak again.
Before Gregory could wake up and ruin it all by talking, Aidan slipped from under the guy’s arm and pulled on his clothes, then walked out of the tent. A part of him considered staying by the cooling fire, coaxing the embers back to life, but there was an anxiety in his bones that not even magic would burn out. So he kept walking. Out through the tents, toward the field beyond. A few comrades still sat around their fires, drinking or drunk, singing or asleep. Those awake nodded at him groggily when he passed, raising glasses or cheering softly. One of them raised Calum’s head. Definitely not much left. Aidan smiled at them in return.
He didn’t feel it.
His thoughts reeled from the dream. How long had it been since he’d dreamed of home? Of his mother? Those were two paths he never let himself tread and, thankfully, ever since he’d become attuned to Fire, his dreams had followed suit.
It’s just stress, he tried to tell himself. But what did he have to be stressed about? He’d liberated Scotland. He was, for all intents and purposes, King. He just shagged a really hot guy.
For some reason, though, he couldn’t shake his dream from his mind. Already, it was nearly lost to the fog of forgetting. He remembered being on the plane. He remembered watching his mother watch the plane land, the excitement on her face. And then...
He shook his head. It was already gone.
So why did it latch in his heart like a rusted hook?
He shivered and pulled deeper through Fire, wrapping himself in warmth. The rest of his doubt and dreams faded in the heat.
He passed the last tents. Kept walking. And when he was a few hundred yards away, he finally stopped. He hadn’t realized he was walking straight back toward Edinburgh.
The sight of it made his breath catch.
Smoke curled from the burning castle, snaking up into the heavy gray dawn like the shades of those who’d met their end within its walls. Once more, he felt that pull in his heart, as though the castle were a part of him. As though it had always been his destiny. To come here. To triumph. To rule.
Not for the first time, he felt the twist of disgust within himself. Not for what he had done. No—he couldn’t let himself think about that, couldn’t let regret or doubt sneak back in—not for that, but for what the castle had become. He had wanted to rule. He had wanted a grand coronation. To ascend the throne with pomp and circumstance. To have some relic as a crown. To have a seat of power.
Instead, he was given the shell of a castle and the ruins of a country.
After all his hard work, it still wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t fair.
“What are you thinking?”
Aidan jumped. But before he could pull through Fire, the voice registered, and he forced the adrenaline down.
“What did I tell you about sneaking up on me?” Aidan asked, looking back to Kianna.
“That I’m damn good at it.”
She stood beside him, hands in her pockets, staring up at the castle. Even though they had won, even though there was truly no threat to be seen, she still had a few weapons on her. A katana at her waist. A pistol on her thigh. Undoubtedly a few throwing knives in the inner folds of her coat. And a length of chain wrapped across her chest.
“Why do you always carry those?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer.
“Same reason you’re always open to Fire.”
“Because I’m addicted?” Her words. Not his.
“No. Well, in your case, yes. But in mine, because I refuse to be caught off guard.” She fondled the pistol. “Besides, years ago, I named this one Kindness. So I always carry it with me.”
That was a new one. Though she did always seem to have a gun on hand. He just never realized it was the same one. Or that it had a name.
“Kindness?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Mum always taught me to kill my enemies with kindness. So I do.”
Aidan snorted in spite of himself. “That’s a terrible pun,” he muttered.
“Whatever. You laughed.”
Silence lingered for a moment while they watched the smoke curl. At least, Aidan tried to. The mention of Kianna’s mother brought his dreams back to mind, the tiniest spark in the ashes of his thoughts. He let go of Fire, just for a moment, and let the dream smolder.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked. “And up so early, too?”
“Thinking.”
“Dangerous.”
He nudged her. Thankfully, she didn’t nudge back.
He wondered if she remembered what she said last night. About always being there for him. He wondered if she would still mean that, if she knew what he had done.
She didn’t let him wonder too long.
“I always thought that when we destroyed Calum, we’d find a way to get it back.”
“What?” he asked.
She gestured to the field. “This. I dunno. Like there’d be a switch. But here we are. Day after victory and nothing’s changed. Scotland’s still a pile of shite.”
“I’ll make sure to complain to the landscapers. You sound depressed. Did you not get laid last night?”
When she did nudge him back, he stumbled to the side. Slightly.
“They were quite amazing, thank you,” she said. “All three of them. But you know what I mean. I guess I wanted to believe we would wake up and it would feel different. All that’s changed is that there are a few less Howls for us to kill.”
He shrugged. “At least we woke up.”
“Aye. I guess.”
He considered telling her about his dream. But that would open a door neither of them wanted to peer through, victory or no. They didn’t talk about their pasts. Ever. Hell, he barely gave himself room to think about his. So why was it coming up now, when he should have been elated with the promise of a future?
“So what do we do?” she asked.
“What we were trained to do,” he replied. “Kill the undead.”
“I never understood why we call them that. I mean, they’re not raised from the dead or anything.”
Aidan shrugged, remembering the vision of Calum. One of them was, and I have to find the secret to it. Kianna continued.
“Do you think they’re going to let you back in?”
His heart stopped.
“What? Why wouldn’t they?”
“Because you were exiled.” As though he could have forgotten.
“I killed Calum.”
“I know,” she said. “But it might be difficult to convince the council that’s enough. They still might see you as a threat.”
Little do they know... he thought, visions of Trevor and the rest flashing through his mind. He squashed the images down.
“I’ve redeemed myself,” he said, his words flat.
“I know, love. I’m just saying we might have a bit of difficulty convincing everyone else that.” She looked over at him, and her serious expression faded into a grin. “You’re going to have to be on your best arse-kissing behavior. And I know that’s hard for you. Licking, however...”
He nudged her again.
“How was Gregory, anyway?” she asked. Just as nonchalant as if she were asking what he thought dinner was.
“Fine,” he replied.
“That bad, huh?”
He just shrugged.
They stood there for a bit, staring out at the ruins of Edinburgh, the silence between them heavy and mostly comfortable. Aidan refused to worry about returning to Glasgow. He had worked too hard and sacrificed too much to let Trevor’s sentence of exile get in the way of further victory. He’d earned his place.
Even if the re
st of the country didn’t know it, he was King. And they would learn that soon enough.
“Strange, innit?”
“What?”
“I’d thought that I’d feel more relaxed once this Calum business was over with. If anything, I feel more stressed.”
“Worried someone’s going to come after us?”
“Nah. I know that’s going to happen. It’s more...” She tapped her lips with a finger. “It’s more like, what do we do when there’s no one else to fight? Do we just live? With this?” She gestured to the field, to the ruins beyond.
He knew what she meant. He told others that he fought to rid the world of Howls, but he and Kianna, they knew the truth.
They fought because the alternative was boring.
They killed because anything less felt worse than death.
“Don’t worry, love,” he said, mimicking her accent. Poorly. “We’ll be dead long before that happens.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said.
Trouble was, he could tell she meant it.
So did he.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The troops made it back to Glasgow the following afternoon. The slow, two-day trudge was one he hoped he never had to repeat. If only the Howls hadn’t eaten all the damned horses. If only the necromancers hadn’t destroyed the roads.
If only it hadn’t started raining after the first hour, and hadn’t let up since.
Aidan had expected cheering from the amassed crowds when they made their way through Glasgow’s gate. After all, the army would only return if victorious. There was no option for failure.
Instead, the moment the drawbridge opened and he and his army marched into the waiting city, there was silence.
He walked at the front of the troops. Made sure everyone within Glasgow saw him for who he truly was—a leader. Victorious. Loved. He would have held Calum’s head, but it had “accidentally” been dropped in a fire the night before.
It didn’t matter. No one was there to see it. At least, not the crowds he’d expected.
They walked past the high black walls of magically crafted stone, a heavy rain falling around them, making everything gray and black and green in the pallid light. At once, the familiar smells of the city wafted over him—the scent of baking bread, the tang of stone, the undercurrent of excrement. Above them, high on the wall, the guards left to man the city watched them pass, hands to their foreheads in salute.
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