by Leigh Kelsey
“Try harder,” I snapped.
Oisìn’s hand closed around my wrist and even though I wrenched back, he was stronger. He pried the stake from my fingers and—I sagged. All the fury left me feeling weak and terrified. I spared a glance at my mate, at the stake in his hand, but I didn’t want to think about that.
“Close your eyes,” I told Allen gently. “Feel for the connection. You can find him, I know you can. Just let it happen naturally.”
Allen let his eyes fall shut and sucked in a breath. He was silent for moments, and even Bran and Sceolan came over to see what was going on, but then he said, “He’s … he’s inside the church.” His eyes flew open. “That can’t be right.”
I looked at Oisìn. “Could he have gone through the portal?”
“It’s possible,” he replied.
“Right, then I’ll—”
I cut off as a vampire in a grey T-shirt and blood-spattered jeans ran through the graveyard, long dark hair falling from his ponytail. “Sinclair!” he yelled. “Sinclair, there’s more! More are coming!”
My stomach dropped as I followed the dark-haired man’s panicked race towards my father. I heard him say, clear as day, “Those were only the vampires on the other side of the portal. There are three times as many already here, and they’re coming.”
BRITTLE
I took my stake back from Oisìn, my slumped position instantly straightening, like gold forging strength through my bones, my muscles, my entire body. I glanced between Church Road, a flood of figures moving quickly towards us, and the entrance to St. Mary’s Church. I didn’t know what to do.
“Go,” Allen said, flicking his chin at the church. “Go help him. Scarlett and Janna must be with him because I can’t find them either, but go help them, Elara.”
I nodded, grabbed the lapels of his jacket, and kissed him hard.
“I’m sorry for snapping,” I murmured.
Allen shook his head, his amber eyes as tender as they were panicked. “It’s fine.” His thumb skimmed my cheek. “Be safe, Elara. I love you.”
“You too,” I whispered. “On both counts.” I leant up to kiss his cheek, then made myself turn and head for the church.
Oisìn and Sceolan followed, while everyone else converged to block off the path from the new wave of vampires. My heart twisted, worry and panic telling me I’d never see them again, but I put one foot in front of the other and tightened my grip on the stake. I let its strength and bloodlust fill me up until there wasn’t a single weakness in my heart.
The front door of the Church of Saint Mary, The Virgin creaked as I toed it open but Sceolan pushed in front of me to lead the way like a guard dog. With the door open, I could hear the ringing scrapes of swords clashing. Heart thumping, I ignored the empty pews, creeping past them to the far end of the church where the portal hovered over the altar. My breath caught.
Finn and Fear Doirche fought with broadswords on that holy place while three men—hunters, they had to be because the fae allowed them close—stood in a line a few paces away, watching. Waiting for commands?
Fear Doirche wanted to fight Finn himself them. Kill him himself, not that I would ever allow that to happen. Was that why he fought with a huge sword, the hilt sparkling with deep blue sapphires and clear quartz despite the fact he had enough power to make Kwame drop to his knees and bleed from his ears, his nose. He wasn’t using that power on Finn. Because he wanted the physical fight, or because it couldn’t hurt Finn? I begged it was the latter as I flew down the aisle, stake gripped so tight a splinter pricked my thumb.
Sceolan raced ahead of us, snarling and baring his teeth. Fear Doirche didn’t even blink as the hound sank his teeth into his calf.
My blood buzzed with adrenaline as I took another few steps, but I stumbled, a panicked cry falling from my lips as Fear Doirche made a rolling gesture with his shoulders and Sceolan was thrown across the chancel and into the thick stone wall. He yelped and slid down it. Come on, Sceolan, I begged. Wake up, open your eyes, snarl, do something! He didn’t move at all. Fury reared inside me. Sceolan was my friend—my family—mine to protect.
I bared my teeth on a hiss and leapt for Fear Doirche, not caring that he could reduce me to nothing in a split second as I lifted the stake in my hand. Finn dove at the same time I did, sweeping low enough to gut Fear Doirche with his sword, the move graceful and swift. But Fear Doirche took one look at me, at the stake in my hand, and—vanished in a plume of black smoke, reappearing out of my reach.
My brow creased. He’d … run away?
I lifted the stake higher, gripping it tight as Oisìn touched the small of my back. His breath fanned over my ear as he whispered, “You can kill him. He’s afraid.”
I blinked, remembering my power and what it was supposed to do. Kill any creature—ancient or young, vampire, fae, shifter, witch. With the Harker blood in my veins and my gran’s legacy, I could kill him. I wanted to, had decided to, but seeing him run now told me I could.
I wanted to check Sceolan was still breathing, wanted to touch Finn, but I had eyes only for the monster by the east wall. He clicked his fingers at the line of hunters and they leapt towards us. I straightened, gripping the stake in suddenly unsteady fingers. Oisìn let out a deep rumble and drew his sword with a rasp of metal, the edge sharp and already flecked with blood from the battle outside.
I could do this. I could kill Fear Doirche and end this. I took a step forward, trying to pour every ounce of power I had inside me into the wooden stake in my hand but pain splintered through my head and I screamed. I crashed to my knees on the stone floor, gripping my head as pain built brutally sharp and unbearably loud inside my skull. The stake rolled across the floor away from me but I couldn’t hear it hit the floor, couldn’t hear anything except the sound of my own voice screaming inside my head.
Dark, oily power slid a shiver down my spine, coating my skin like cool water as I screamed and suffered, and I swore I felt its glee.
Hands touched me, lifted my head, but I couldn’t see the face in front of me even if I recognised Finn’s touch. He roared—and it must have been loud because I could hear a faint echo even through the howling scream inside my skull. I sobbed, curling around myself as the pain just built and built, warm liquid splashing onto my hands where they locked into brittle claws against the stone.
I had no thought for self-preservation. I couldn’t begin to think of getting up from my vulnerable spot on the floor, didn’t have the strength to shift even an inch. I laid curled on the floor crying, bleeding, my head a second away from exploding. I thought the pain had crested, so bad my eyes felt like they would pop, my throat would collapse, but it paused for only a second before it shot high again. I screamed—I knew I did because I could feel the rawness of my vocal chords.
I was going to die. As I screamed and cried and writhed on the floor of the church, the slick, gleeful power curled all around me like a cat with a ball of wool, I knew it—but then it cut out all at once. The absence of the pain was almost as agonising as the pain itself, and it took an eternity to reorder my body, my self, around the lack of it. I sobbed, squeezing my eyes shut, my nose blocked with blood or snot but my hearing back now, if a bit thick.
Swords clashed in front of me, grunts and growls coming in a constant stream of fury. Those sounds promised murder. To my left I could hear a deep rumble of a snarl and I knew it was Oisìn, like I knew he was fighting viciously and dirty. Fighting for his life.
I forced my eyes to peel open, forced my head to tip back so I could see him. He was fighting three vampires with his sword. The hunters—all of them at once. I watched him feint, falter, and my throat scraped with a cry, but it was just a trick to get the tallest hunter to slash with a curved blade at Oisìn’s thigh, where Oisìn caught the thin sword with a smaller, sharp dagger in his left hand and twisted it so quickly the handle shot out of the hunter’s hand. While the two other hunters forced their swords harder against Oisìn’s own, the three scraping and fighti
ng for more ground, Oisìn slashed his knife into the throat of the weapon-less hunter.
He went down, and my eyes went wide with shock and wonder as Oisìn pushed his sword with more strength, gaining ground and forcing the hunter’s swords closer to their own bodies. He swept out with the bloody dagger and opened a line across one of their stomachs, a muscular bronze-skinned man as big as Allen. The hunter didn’t stop, trying to twist his sword free of the tangle of weapons, but Oisìn had obviously been fighting long before this vampire had been trained.
I pulled my chest off the ground, ignoring the way my hand slid in the pool of blood that had formed beneath my face, and watched my mate. It happened in a matter of minutes, one move after another, pure strength and skill in his body. He twisted his sword free, leapt back, and as the massive hunter moved after him, slower with his bulk, Oisìn hacked his sword through the neck of the third, a pale, small man. His head rolled to the ground. Oisìn didn’t pause, running his sword through the chest of the third until it thrust out his back.
I pulled myself to my knees as Oisìn wrenched his sword free and kicked the final hunter to the floor. Gods. I’d watched it happen but I couldn’t really believe it had, that my mate had just fought three hunters trained by a fae god and won.
With Oisìn safe, my eyes went to Sceolan—still on the ground but breathing when I looked closely—and then Finn. He and Fear Doirche were fighting again but the swords had gone and they lashed out at each other with fists and vicious claws. Where were Scarlett and Janna? Had they never been here or had Fear Doirche … no, I couldn’t finish that thought.
“Elara,” Oisìn breathed, dropping to his knees in front of me. I catalogued his injuries: a slash on his ribs, blood pouring freely from a wound on his bicep, the cut going cleanly through his charcoal leathers, a stab wound on his thigh. “Elara, sweetheart, look at me.”
His hands framed my face as I lifted my eyes to his. My eyes hurt, and moving them only made it worse. But I looked into Oisìn’s vivid green eyes and I sagged. I wanted to stay there forever, just curl up with him and fall into eternal sleep, but he only kissed the centre of my forehead and rose, pulling me to my feet. “You need to finish this,” he said in a hard voice, but I knew it was only to hide how exhausted he was.
“I can’t,” I breathed.
He held my face tighter. “Yes, you can.” He bent to retrieve the stake, curled my fingers around it. Strength filled me instantly and I stood straighter, leaning on him less. “I’ll give you your chance. All you have to do is stake him, like you did with the vampire outside. Okay?” He traced my cheekbone, his eyes imploring me.
“Okay,” I said, and made myself remember everything Fear Doirche had done to me and the people I loved. He’d cursed Sadhbh to live her life as a deer just because she’d chosen a different life than the one set out for her, the one he wanted her to live. He’d made Finn’s life hell, torn his mate from him and forced him to live in a world without her, and kidnapped his new son, all because he’d married the woman Fear Doirche saw himself as having a claim on. He’d stolen Oisìn as a new-born baby, moulded him into the shape that served Fear Doirche best, ripped his life and his natural species from him, and hardened him into a brutal weapon against his own kind, himself, his father, and his mate.
He’d had me killed, and turned, had my mum kidnapped, all to please some nameless Mistress. He’d imprisoned me, hurt me, tortured me, made me cry and scream and bleed and almost beg—and he would keep on doing so, keep hurting me and tormenting my blood family and my vampire family until we broke or died.
I fixed my eyes on him, the stake in my hand shivering with eagerness. Kill him, draw his blood, force death upon him as he has forced death upon millions in his lifetime. The stake had its own voice, its own desire and will—it wanted Fear Doirche’s blood for whatever reason, and I was glad we were on the same page. My fury grew as I stood fully, my eyes going to the back of the church where Fear Doirche and Finn still fought, Finn trying everything in his power to hurt the fae. He grabbed a knife from his belt—it dissipated into black dust. He picked up a heavy brass ewer of violet alstroemeria, a bible—all turned to dust. Fear Doirche was playing with him, tiring him out, and it was working.
As I crept closer, my heart slamming against my ribcage and pain splintering through me with every step, Fear Doirche got a brutal blow in against Finn’s ribs. I inhaled sharply at the crack of bone but even though Finn faltered, he didn’t cry out, didn’t scream in pain. His hands just flickered with shadow, and then black, wicked claws tipped his fingers. He lashed out with them, and my eyes burned with tears. I loved him so much. I wasn’t about to let him die. And neither was Oisìn.
My mate rushed Fear Doirche from behind, his blood-soaked sword back in his hand and raised above his head, his muscles bulging against his pewter leather sleeves as he swung it down. I crept closer, in the shadows against the wall, as Fear Doirche spun with a laugh, the sound so thrummed with glee that it made me sick. He was enjoying himself.
He lifted a hand and touched the thick blade of Oisìn’s sword, and I waited for it to turn to dust but the blade stayed sharp steel and cut wickedly through Fear Doirche’s finger. The fae howled, more with anger than pain, and I watched his eyes blaze as he summoned a sword from the ether and met Oisìn’s lunge.
“You insolent boy,” Fear Doirche hissed. “You’ll suffer for this when I’m done with your useless waste of a father.”
Oisìn flinched, and my fury blazed hot enough to burn down cities as I moved within two steps of the monster. “You are the only useless waste of anything I see,” Oisìn threw back and I was so fucking proud of him. I was sure he felt it through our bond because his back straightened and he gritted his teeth, his face flushed and determined. He danced back and raised his sword to block Fear Doirche as he swept his sword towards Oisìn, another laugh bubbling from him.
“Finally grown a backbone, then. Good for you, kid. It’ll only get you killed but at least you can die as something other than a snivelling, pathetic coward.”
Oisìn flinched again and my heart grew hard with rage. Yes, Oisìn might once have been a snivelling, pathetic coward but I loved that scared, hesitant man as much as I loved his fierce, relentless warrior spirit. I loved every part of him and I made sure he felt all of it. I felt it echo back to me with his own love, that soft, awed feeling of tenderness bolstering my heart like the stake in my hand incensed my bloodlust.
“I should have killed you when you were a babe,” Fear Doirche said, again with that laugh in his papery voice as he ducked and lashed his sword in a move that should have slit Oisìn’s stomach open. Oisìn stepped neatly out of the path and opened a slice on Fear Doirche’s arm, his blade already coming up to block the next assault.
“Yes,” Oisìn snarled back. “That was your mistake.”
I took a breath, steadied my mind even if I couldn’t steady my hands, and I took one look at Finn, his expression hollow, his black claws dripping blood. He wasn’t attacking Fear Doirche because he’d spotted me and was staying out of my way. He met my eyes, nothing but steady belief in them. He wanted to kill Fear Doirche himself but … he was giving me his killing blow.
This is for you, I wanted to say, for your suffering for the past thousand years. The way I’d felt when Oisìn had been ripped from me for a few hours—he’d been feeling that for a millennium.
This is for you, and for Oisìn.
I exhaled and struck.
OVER
I thrust the stake with such power and anger and burning vengeance that there was no resistance. It buried deep inside Fear Doirche, just beneath his ribcage, and I twisted it up so the tip pierced his heart. I felt the stake surge with joy and power, and fed it more and more, everything it needed to destroy this monster once and for all. It sucked everything from me, every bit of strength in my body, my heart, my mind.
Fear Doirche bellowed with rage but he stumbled and I knew it was working. I also knew this wasn’t going t
o be a death like the vampire outside. This was going to be huge and messy and powerful. His blood rolled down my hand and the stake purred. I sucked in a breath and fed the stake more and more of the power given to me because I was a Harker, forcing my legs to hold me even as they wanted to collapse. Finn must have seen me waver because he was suddenly there, hands bracing my waist, holding me up. I leant against his chest, my fingers locked around the stake buried deep inside Fear Doirche’s twitching body. Whatever power I had made him unable to fight, to thrash, to tear away. He froze as I poured every single drop of power into him.
He roared, a raw explosion of noise, before he rasped a final breath and—the pressure against the stake vanished. It was done. All of it. Over.
I slumped against Finn, letting the stake roll from my fingers as my eyelids fell half-lidded over aching eyes. I felt like I’d been run over by a train, all mangled and torn on the outside and cut to ribbons on the inside, but I felt a bit better when Finn helped me stand and then a clatter of a sword hitting the floor proceeded Oisìn scooping me into his arms. I kept my eyes open long enough to look at Fear Doirche, a collapsed body on the altar. Still, unmoving. More importantly, I sensed nothing from him. No warning from my instincts that he was old and powerful. No magic. No life.
My job done, my eyes rolled back into my head and I fainted.
COMFORT
I woke to the sound of shouting. My body felt wrecked, like muscle and sinew and veins had been cut to shreds and turned inside out, all my organs wrecked and my skin sent through a wood chipper. I whimpered, the sound turning to a cough that hurt my chest as it exploded from my bruised throat.
“Elara!”
I sighed in relief to hear my mate’s voice, and then the shouting stopped and Allen and Finn were touching me, followed by Sceolan and Scarlett and Kwame and a signature I didn’t recognise.
