The flail shivered against my back, as if reminding me that it was there. Reminding me that it did indeed seem to have a mind of its own from time to time.
He’s not wrong. The flail is not what the mage thinks, though perhaps, he thought to rule the world himself?
“I doubt Merlin wanted to rule the world,” I said, then frowned. “That doesn’t explain why they wanted to jump me and take it away.”
Maks glanced over his shoulder, making sure Darcy and Steve were still a distance from us. They were, and they were arguing, which was a good sign.
“In the Emperor’s hands, the flail could potentially give him absolute power over all the supernaturals. Merlin said he’d be able to draw on all of the supernaturals, sucking their lives away without even touching them. That is, if he can unlock its abilities, or if he even understands what the flail is capable of; he might not be able to. That was the part I didn’t tell Merlin and the others because I could already see that they’d decided to take it from you.”
“The flail is picky. We both know that. And again . . . so much power in one weapon would never have been set aside by Davin. So Merlin’s explanation doesn’t fit. He wanted it from you for other reasons.”
The flail being picky was an understatement. The flail had tried to kill me multiple times for using it, until we’d come to an understanding that I needed it, and it needed me.
His blue eyes were thoughtful. “The thing is the flail is old, and had been wielded by Jinn, shapeshifters and now you. There is no telling what it is capable of, if any of the original powers that were imbued into it are still intact even. These magical weapons have a tendency to grow and change, just like a person.”
“Sentient, but not,” I said.
“Exactly.”
I can tell you they are all wrong about the flail. They are grasping at straws. Seeing as I am a part of it, do you want me to tell you what it’s capable of, and what it’s not?
I struggled to draw breath as Marsum’s voice spoke inside my head. “Can you speak to Maks too?”
Hold his hand. That should do it.
I reached over and took Maks’s hand. He linked his fingers with me and Marsum began to speak.
15
Merlin
He hated to lie to Zam and the others, especially now, so close to the end game. But she’d taken the move she’d needed to take in order to get a little further. Her heart was too tangled when she had to look out for too many, and they all needed her head clear and focused on the task at hand.
He needed her oriented correctly for the last few moves.
Maks, Lila, and Zam were the three. They were the triad that would break the last of the bindings on the stones and the magic they held, and he would be there to pick up the pieces. He just hoped that she would forgive him one day for all the lies. For all the manipulation that he’d put them through.
Then again, she might not survive to be bothered with forgiveness of any kind. Which would be as it would be.
He waited most of the night, lying quietly while the others spoke over him as if he couldn’t hear, giving Zam time to get farther away. Ford was the one he worried would go after her, more than the others once the spell wore off. His heart beat for that girl, more than Merlin had thought would have happened when he’d asked Flora to nudge them together.
Finally, he could stand it no longer.
He brushed off the blanket, sat up with a groan and pulled the covering off his patched eye. “Kiara, can you cut the stitches for me, please?”
“What?” Her hands were on his arm, holding him steady as if he were about to fall over.
“The stitches. I appreciate the covering, truly, but in all honesty, they are rubbing against my eyeball.”
“Wait, you were dying just a few minutes ago! And you have no eyeball, that’s why I stitched it closed!” she spluttered. He turned and grinned at her.
“I’m an adept liar which is both a blessing and a curse. And an even better actor when my mind is put to the task. I am not dying, and my eyeball has grown back. Or something like that.” He held still as she snipped away at the stitches and smiled as she gasped.
“You weren’t kidding. You have an eye again!”
He carefully rubbed his fingers over the newly healed orb, feeling the tingles all the way to his toes. “Exactly. Now. We have work to do. We need to gather up Flora and my daughter, and get to the other side of the desert. That is where the final showdown will happen with Ollianna.” He wobbled a little as he tried out legs that had been unused for a very long time.
“Wait,” Shem said, “what about the bond between you and Ishtar?”
“Well, when she drew on my life-force, I fed her the bond as part of it. That is what helped to keep me alive.” He shrugged. “Also, well done turning on Zam. That was perfect.”
A slap snapped his head to the side, and he went to one knee. Kiara stood over him. “We are her pride. We should never have believed you!”
He forced himself to smile up at her. “A little magical push was all that was needed. The four of you were ready to see the dark in her. Because each of you have had your doubts where she is concerned, whether it is her strength as a person, her physical prowess, or her ability as an alpha.”
Each of the lion shifters looked down as he spoke.
“Maks and Lila?” Ford asked quietly.
“Neither of them believed me. Not for a second. Because they do not doubt her, my magic did not work,” Merlin said. “It is why they work so well together as a team, and there was no other way for her to let the rest of us go. We need them to go on their own, to travel fast and clean.”
Bryce let out a snarling growl that turned into a guttural roar that echoed across the desert. “Fucking hell!”
Kiara shook her head. “Fine. This is what happened, you have a reason for it. What is that reason?”
“She is going to need something of an army to back her up when facing Ollianna and the falak. We are going to gather that army for her.” Merlin smiled as he lied straight to their faces once more. “We are going to be there when she needs us.”
He paused and held out his hand as he let out a low whistle. A songbird flew in from one of the trees and landed on his wrist. He cupped his hand around its beak, whispering only one short sentence before he sent it on its way to find Zam.
“Gather the final two missing stones if you want to survive.”
16
Zamira
Holding Maks’s hand as we rode toward the Emperor’s Throne while Marsum spoke to both of us was weirdly comforting. Marsum had always been the asshole in my world, the one to hate beyond anything or anyone else, and yet he’d turned out to be the one to help me figure out how to save Maks.
Turned out, he wasn’t the worst Jinn, not by a long shot.
So if Marsum thought he had something that would help, I would listen. We both would.
“How do you know all those things that Merlin said are wrong?” I asked.
Because the Jinn made the flail, not the Emperor. The flail was made to protect its master at all costs, even drawing in the life-force of others to rejuvenate its holder.
I looked at Maks and raised an eyebrow. “I think we already knew that much.”
What felt like a sigh flowed through my head. You are the flail’s master, Zamira. Even if you hand it over to the Emperor there is a good chance it will kill him. Or try to.
“That’s good, isn’t it?” Maks said.
Lila continued to fly loops ahead of us, oblivious to the conversation between the three of us. A tiny bird looped around her and I frowned. The bird was a songbird, not known for flying at night.
No. You face three superpowers in our world, and you will need at least one of them to side with you if you want a chance at stopping the other two. Zam has already figured that much out.
I cringed, and Maks blew out a low whistle. “That’s asking a lot. All three have tried to kill her, to kill us, and all three are mor
e than a few grains of sand short of a desert.”
Regardless. You three are strong, but not strong enough. Not yet.
The flutter of wings drew my eyes again, straight to the sky. I couldn’t take my eyes off the bird that swooped around and around Lila. Which was stupid; Lila was a predator, and the bird most definitely prey. But it didn’t seem deterred. More like it was trying to get her attention.
The blast from a gun rocked the night and Lila peeled away from the bird as it fell, and she twisted in the air.
Falling.
My heart caught in my throat and then she was back up again, low to the ground this time. She’d been missed, but not by much.
“What the fuck?” I spun Balder, already knowing who’d shot at her. We raced back toward Steve, who still had his gun in hand. And that fucker turned it on me.
“Time to take the flail,” he said. “Now that your spitting lizard is dead.”
He thought he’d shot Lila.
But he’d shot the bird she’d been flying with instead, and like the dumbass he was, he didn’t wait to see if he was right.
I didn’t slow Balder, but put my heels to him, pressing him into a proper charge.
Darcy was yelling, and from the corner of my eye, I saw her try to get around Steve, to get in between us.
But there was nothing now except to see how this final fight played out.
I’d waited a long fucking time for this moment, and I was damn ready for it.
Balder collided broadside with Steve’s horse, sending it crashing over to its side. Steve’s mouth was a perfect O of surprise while he fell, the gun spinning away from him.
I jumped from the saddle, through the air, and landed next to a fallen Steve. He scrambled to get his feet out from under the horse as I stood over him.
“I challenge you, Steve, for the lands of the desert, and every shifter within it. I challenge you in a fight to the death.” I snarled the words and he curled his lip right back at me.
There was a scream behind us, but I didn’t dare turn my back on Steve.
“I’ve got Darcy,” Maks said. “You deal with Steve.”
Steve pushed to his feet and took a half step back. “On four legs.”
“Done.”
His eyebrows shot up, but he didn’t know that for the first time, I knew my house cat form was strong enough. I was strong enough. There was no way he could keep up with my speed. No way he could survive the blows of my claws and teeth when they were infused with the strength of the flail.
Oh, this is going to be good, Marsum all but purred. Weird, considering he was a Jinn.
Steve started his shift, and in the past, I might have waited for him. But since this was truly about who was better, who was faster, who was stronger, the ability to shift at high speed was part of that.
I stepped through that doorway in my mind from two legs to four and raced toward him as he was caught between the two forms.
I leapt, going straight for his belly, digging my claws into his soft flesh as he finally dropped to four legs. He bellowed and roared as I clung with my front claws and teeth, then dug in with my back claws, gouging chunks of flesh out over and over.
He rolled onto his back and a paw swept me off him, but his claws didn’t touch me. I was too small, and they missed. A gentle toss was all I got before I hit the ground and was running at him. Steve opened his mouth and lunged at me, his eyes closed. His fucking eyes closed!
I dropped low again and he swept toward me. I hooked one set of claws into the corner of his mouth and used the momentum of his own head toss to swing myself up and onto the back of his neck.
If this had happened even a short time before, if I’d been put in this position to kill Steve, I think a part of me would have hesitated. I would have thought about the few good times that I had with him, the way he’d told me he’d love me forever when we’d been married, the dreams that had held me to him far longer than he’d ever deserved.
If this moment had come when I’d been less sure of myself, if I’d had an iota less belief in my abilities as an alpha, I would have paused.
Not now.
I gripped both sides of his neck and tore away the flesh with claws and teeth as he bellowed in pain and rage, and then fear . . . the bellows shifted to cries as he began to beg for his life, as he promised he’d go away forever and never come back. Darcy begged for his life and the words of the two of them filled my brain the way the coppery tang of his blood filled my mouth and nose.
I found the big artery I’d been digging for, and I shredded it. Even a shifter with quick healing abilities couldn’t come back from that.
My father had taught me how to kill, as well as how to survive.
Steve slowly went to the ground, blood pouring out of him, Darcy screaming in the distance.
The world didn’t wobble. I didn’t feel ill or nauseous. I held my ground and stayed where I was.
“Goodbye, Steve.” I sat on his back, essentially making sure that he and Darcy knew that in life, and in dying, I was the alpha.
“I . . .” he gurgled and rolled, blood pooling around his mane, and I bounced off to avoid being squashed, “I never loved them.”
Darcy gasped and I stepped back, taking back my two-legged form so I could look at Steve one last time. “I don’t believe you ever loved anyone but yourself, Steve.”
“Not true.” His tongue lolled out and a deep exhale slid out of him.
“If you mean that, what was your message for the Emperor? How can you help me survive a little longer?” I asked, not really expecting an answer. I was feeling weirdly detached in that moment. I’d taken down a full-grown lion as a house cat. But more than that, I’d killed Steve, my ex-husband, sheep fucker, man whore, lying, cheating piece of shit. The emotions swirling through me were intense, and I let them flow, let them do their thing.
He gurgled. “No message.”
I looked over my shoulder at Darcy. “You want him to keep suffering? Or are you going to tell me what Ishtar really sent the two of you to do?”
She was on her hands and knees, and I could see her thinking about shifting. “Maks!”
He took a step back, pulled his weapon and swung it, the curved edge sweeping across her neck before she could fully shift and turn on him. Darcy’s head rolled, her eyes still looking at me, still full of light for just a few more seconds and then they dulled, the shine in them gone as if nothing in her realized that she was dead, at least not right away.
“She hated you,” Steve said.
I turned back to him, surprised he was still alive. “Yeah, it took me awhile to figure that out. Made you quite the pair, didn’t it?”
He looked up at me. “Not hate.”
“How many times did you try to kill me, asshole?” I crouched so we were as close to eye to eye as we were going to get.
“Wanted you as my own.”
I could almost believe it. “So if you couldn’t have me, no one could?”
He blinked once. “Ishtar same. She wants you to love her and no other . . . she wants you safe . . . Emperor is dangerous. I was to protect you.”
“But again,” I poked a finger to his head. “You tried to kill me.”
His golden eyes blinked heavily, and I thought he might yawn, he looked so tired. Like he was falling asleep. “Ishtar wanted you safe. Wanted me to save you from lizards.”
I frowned and he went on. “Other witch offered something better.”
“Ollianna?” Her name shot out of me and he blinked once.
“Yes. Offered freedom for the flail.”
He’d taken a deal when he could have just protected me? “You’re about to die, Steve. Any last words?”
His mouth wrinkled as if he’d smelled something bad. “I’ll always be the best you had.”
Another big sigh slid out of him, and there was no inhalation of breath. He was gone.
His entire body seemed to shrink as I stared at him and then his form shifted on its own, slid
ing back to two legs.
I grimaced and shook my head. “You know what, Steve? Fuck you. Fuck your stupid sheep loving carcass.”
I couldn’t help myself, I took a swing with a boot and kicked him in the side. The meaty thunk was heavy in my ears and I stepped back, not liking the sensation as much as I’d hoped. Nope, I hated him, he was a douche, but I couldn’t make myself kick him now that he was dead.
I swallowed hard. “Lila, you okay?”
“Yeah, he missed me and hit that bird. It was jabbering away at me, like it had its own voice. So weird.” Lila swept down and landed on my shoulder. “You okay?”
I stared down at Steve, kind of shocked that it had finally happened, that he was truly dead. But also knowing that this confrontation had been inevitable. One of us was always going to end up dead. That was where this relationship had been headed from the moment we’d met.
“Maybe.” I crouched, forcing myself to stare at him a moment longer. “I’m worried that I don’t feel anything. Not sadness, not grief, not even gloating that I’ve won. That I beat him.”
“Shock,” Maks said, coming to crouch at my side, “and a lot of history between the two of you. Not much of it good. Doesn’t mean you wanted to kill him. Doesn’t mean that you didn’t want to kill him. Just means that you did what you had to do.”
I leaned my head onto his shoulder. “That’s just it. I wanted him dead a thousand times for all he’s done, and all the hurt. And that last bit? That last I loved only you garbage? The I’m the best you’ll ever have? One last game to try to hurt me, to make me feel bad for killing him. That’s how well I knew him. He was trying to get me to save him even at the last moment, to play on my sympathies.”
“Too bad the fight was over so quick,” Lila said. “We could have strung it out for hours.”
Her words made my eyebrows rise slowly and I stood, my mind ticking over a possibility. “You have a point, Lila. Maybe we aren’t done with him yet.”
Emperor’s Throne: Desert Cursed Series, Book 6 Page 12
