Ashes (The Divided Kingdom)

by Sophie H. Morgan

With a reverence usually reserved for sweet treats, Ana tugged the sword into her hands. It was solid, but not heavy enough for her to grunt at its weight.

  She swirled it in the air, getting a feel for the craftsmanship. The balance was excellent; it sang as it moved through the air.

  “Beautiful,” she murmured.

  Then stilled when she felt the point of a sword dig into the center of her back. “Drop it.”

  “Stop your grousing.” Cade jiggled his tools—another thing hidden earlier just in case—in the lock as Vander grumbled from behind the oak door. “I’ve almost got it.”

  He’d been delayed on his way to the East Gate thanks to a guard who loved his gin and the maid who personally brought it. Save him from work romances when an assassination was planned.

  He grinned when the lock clicked, tumblers falling free. He tugged off the padlock and pushed the door wide. Vander and Sapphy slipped in, cloaked in black and grasping swords.

  “’Bout time.” Vander’s eyebrows shot up as he took in Cade’s state of undress. “Whoa. Warn a man before he sees your junk.”

  Cade wasn’t even paying attention, jackal instincts scrabbling at his insides, insisting Alana was in danger. “Go,” he told the two, his voice animal rough. “I need to meet Liberty.”

  As the two nodded, Cade shifted into his jackal. After Alana had accepted his shift with wonder, he no longer felt out of control. He had too much to lose.

  The three crept down the hallway. Cade went to separate off when an eruption of sirens and demon roars sounded half a palace away. Their heads jerked.

  Sapphy swore, so unlike her that it capitalized the seriousness of the situation. “They’ve been ambushed.”

  Vander adjusted the grip on his sword and began to run. “Go, help Liberty,” he tossed over his shoulder. “We’ve got this.”

  They sprinted away, both fearless as they went to their friends’ aid. Their bodies were fluid as they ran as a team, the last thing Cade saw as they rounded the corner, Vander touching his knuckles to Sapphy’s in a gesture of friendship.

  Cade followed Vander’s order, claws muffled on the carpet as he stretched his legs. Heroism was not limited to the rich. The Treaty really did have their heads up their asses if they could believe in an aristocrat’s fanatical obsession over this bunch. He sent up a prayer to any god listening that the Hoods remained alive at the end of this—even the ambushed vampire.

  Cade juddered to a halt, the realization skating down his spine in a blast of freezing cold. If one had been ambushed, so could the other.

  The jackal set out at a dead run, a battle howl from a wild animal exploding through the night air.

  Ana’s hands drifted into the air, fingers loosening on the hilt of Excalibur.

  The sword at her back nudged. “Drop it.”

  Reluctantly, she tossed it near the fire that snapped and crackled in the grate five feet away. It landed with a muffled thump. The silver blade gleamed in the glow from the fire.

  “Now turn.”

  Sweat bathed her face. Her breathing rasped under the maid’s hood she still wore. With her hands raised, she rotated.

  Edward stared down the length of his nose as he directed the sword toward her sternum. One of his hands darted out to flick the cloak from her head. “Liberty, I presume?”

  Ana’s gaze slid to the throne that had been facing the window, now twisted around. He must’ve been sleeping there when she snuck in. It hit her like a slap to the head, and she’d have preferred one. This situation had FUBAR stamped all over it.

  When she didn’t answer, the sword nicked her tank, kissing the skin beneath with icy steel. “Or do you prefer Ana? Your highness.”

  Scarlet-and-gold-tipped flames hijacked her veins, melding with her blood as Ana fought the treacherous jolt. Her lip curled outwardly, mind flipping through everything she’d said or done. Nothing should have alerted him.

  “What would I be doin’ this shit fer if I were a princess?” She used a voice from the streets, hoarse and common. Her gaze was sharp as she tracked him.

  His eyebrows created a perfect arch. “My question exactly.” He paused, lips pressing together. “A runaway princess turned revolutionary. How cliché.”

  Ana barked a laugh, ribbons of desperation sliding across her throat. “Look, yer high one, I ain’t a rich, spoiled-ass princess. If I were, I’d be ordering servants to wash my butt every day.”

  Though he couldn’t disguise his distaste at her crudeness, Edward persisted. “You can’t hide your hair, Alana. The mark of a true Farrah.”

  Her hand half-rose instinctively before she caught it. A curse spun black threads in her mind.

  Edward smiled. “Sorry, my dear. When you’ve been alive for over a century, you see through deception easily. I knew the second you walked into my palace. A princess doesn’t return from the dead for nothing. Add in red hair, a name resembling one from Liberty’s inner circle, a propensity for fire... The posing and giggling alone would have tipped your hand. Feeble is not your color. That’s a compliment, Alana,” he said to her clenched fist. “I would never have considered aligning myself with a weak person. Even when you were eighteen, I sensed your potential.”

  “Fuck you and your potential.”

  A sharp crack filled the air, sweet pain exploding through her cheekbone.

  “Princesses are above that kind of language, Alana.” Edward shook his head. “You’ve spent too long in the gutter.”

  Ana worked her jaw, fire sizzling in angry swoops of gold. The glare she sent him as she straightened should have smoked him extra crispy. “Fuck you.”

  His next blow sent her to the floor.

  She grimaced as her tongue checked out an aching tooth. The bastard’s strong, remember?

  Yeah. She got that now.

  Fine tremors visibly vibrated along Edward’s body. His tongue swept over his lips. “See what you made me do?”

  Ana had to bite her lips to keep the insult from springing free like a released wolf. She remained half-crouched on the floor, muscles clenching, preparing to swing into action.

  He took it as a sign of her acquiescence. His smile was wide as a crescent moon as he nodded. “Good, that’s good. I don’t wish to hurt you, Alana. I’d like us to help each other.”

  Her reply simmered with barely restrained violence, a cerberus on a frayed rope. “If you think I’ll help you torture kids, you’re crazy.”

  “Not kids, Alana. Others.” He studied her. “You don’t understand yet, that’s all.” He glanced around, lips pursed. The firelight slipped over his beak of a nose to cast shadows across his cheek. “Where is your bodyguard?”

  A wash of fear dampened rising flames. “Cade has nothing to do with this.”

  “Alana,” he chided in a voice as soft as cashmere. The sword tipped in casual threat at his side. “Lies will not serve you here. Where is your bodyguard?”

  Ana ground down on her teeth. The turgid beat of her pulse hammered through her as she stared him down.

  “Very well. It is of no consequence. My guards will find him sooner or later.” Leaving those words to toy and twist with her mind, Edward skimmed his sword across the air as if underlining a point.

  Ana focused on his words. Get him distracted. “Why’d you call me Ana?”

  “Please. You think me so gullible to fall into the trap of talking?” Edward spared her a pitying look. “I didn’t get to where I am by being a fool, Alana.”

  Ana considered. “I guess Jonah still barks when you tug his leash.”

  “He comes in handy.”

  “And Joel…”

  “He had his uses.”

  So, Joel was dead. Ana released a breath that shook at the edges. She’d assumed so, would’ve killed him herself if he’d remained alive. She couldn’t even guess how many had been hurt by his greed.
But the emptiness in Edward’s voice tickled her warning hairs.

  Her eyes slipped to where Excalibur lay across the rug. The fae sword whispered to her, shining in the flaming shadows.

  “Alana, if I wanted to kill you, I’d have separated your head from your neck when I first came behind you.” Edward moved forward, bending over her enough to glimpse the glitter in his eyes, a scatter of wild white across muddy green. “No, you can still be useful.”

  “You think you can convince me to help you?” She scoffed at that, purposely throwing his civil words in his face.

  A muscle ticked in his jaw, each pulse like a bomb’s countdown. He straightened. “One way or the other.”

  He’d drifted to the right, nearer the fire than she at this point, the glow granting him a darker aura. Shadows flickered and weaved around his form, the fire humming an eerie background to the leaping whispers inside her body.

  Surprise at his gall pounded against her holding pattern, eroding common sense. “You’re crazier than a FED. I’ll die before I help you.”

  “I’m trying to help my people.” Frustration pulled across his features, a rubber band yanked taut. “Can’t you relate to that as a ruler, that I’m trying for the greater good of mankind?”

  “The greater good of yourself.” Ana’s voice snapped like a frayed guitar string. “All you want is power.”

  “If I craved power, I would have tested the serum on another.” Edward tensed his hand around his sword’s hilt, knuckle whitening. “I have allowed my body to be used as a guinea pig to see the results.”

  “Very noble.”

  “I believe in a better future. I always have. Do you think I would have purchased you if I didn’t?” He peered at her. “Your parents understood the risks and rewards.”

  Ana’s breath wedged halfway from her lungs to her throat at the mention of her parents. The door swinging into darkness. Cold oozing puddles that cling stickily to bare feet. A young voice, wavering as she called out for her parents. Her locket a dull gold, mottled with red where it lay.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  An alarm suddenly blazed through the room, shrill shouts and screams echoing as a battle was launched in another section of the palace.

  Both of them jolted instinctively at the noise; Ana, seeing her opportunity, flung herself backward.

  She hit the ground near the fire, scrabbling upward and grabbing the hilt of Excalibur. She swung it in a competent arc to ward off the high ruler.

  “Don’t even think about it,” she warned when he made a move. Her brain splintered, frantic at who’d set off the alarm. Trick? Faer?

  Cade?

  Her concentration fractured into shards of worry that cut deep.

  Edward made a humming sound in his throat. “My guards have been on alert for your gang. Seems like they’re here.”

  Dual blades of fear and panic, anger and frustration, stabbed her skin at his gentle mockery. Heat throbbed at her pores, begging for release. It was slipping from her hands. Everything, slipping.

  Please let the guys be okay.

  Edward shifted to the right. Trick’s training snapped into place with a deafening whip as Ana matched his move. The Hoods could handle themselves; the deranged high ruler was the bigger worry.

  Back in the room.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Cade’s teeth closed around a human’s throat. With a low-pitched snarl, he ripped it out, barely listening as it hit the floor with a sound similar to a wet sponge. The human slumped to the floor, red spurting. Blood smeared over his muzzle, Cade snapped at the guards who crowded outside Edward’s office. Swords jabbed at him, which he dodged with ease. Urgency was poking him like an incessant toddler, his jackal instincts ruling the more logical human. Over the blood of the humans and the stink of dusty ash that belonged to the flame demons, he could scent honey and blackberries. Alana.

  He threw back his head and howled, frustrated as more guards poured into the hall. He wasn’t slow; he knew Edward must have suspected something. No number of guards could have assembled this quickly without warning. It made the situation that much more explosive. It meant Alana was in there with someone who knew her identity. Someone who’d been experimenting with powers not suited to his body chemistry.

  He flipped backward as a demon’s claws slashed the air where he’d been crouched. With a deep snarl, he pounced, tearing the demon’s throat out with his teeth.

  A commotion of swords tangling in a jarring clash and foul curses drifted down the halls. Flame demons and humans screamed in death as familiar voices crowed in victory.

  “You want a taste of pain, demon?” Vander. There was a grunt, a shriek. The coppery stench of blood. “You want the whole fucking thing?”

  Other noises, including a sigh of vampiric patience, rolled toward Cade, louder and louder.

  Trick and company were heading his way.

  Unsure if that meant they’d won or were being herded, Cade hunkered onto his paws as if to say come and get it. He snapped and lunged, the muscles in the wiry body working in harmony.

  When one guard defended himself with a swipe that almost gelded him, Cade cracked. Fuck this.

  Shifting in a blur of light and sparks, Cade grabbed the guard nearest, hurling him with an incensed roar at the farthest wall. The crystal cracked on impact, spider-webbing out when the guard dropped. Cade ducked a sword, seizing the demon’s hand and twisting until the sword fell from his grasp. Catching it, Cade slashed through the guard’s neck a moment later.

  You never went for a man’s jewels.

  He was a blur of motion as he decapitated the remaining five guards, his chest heaving and his naked body spotted with blood splatter as the last fell to the carpet.

  That was how the others saw him as they rounded the corner.

  Vander immediately shielded his eyes, his fingers bloody, the rest seemingly untouched. “Dude! Cover your junk!”

  Cade yanked at a dead guard’s clothes, indifferent to the grisly condition. He pulled them on with deft motions, ignoring Vander. “You good?”

  Trick’s face was streaked with blood, chin coated similarly to Cade’s. His arm was hanging oddly, dislocated. Still, no hint of pain shadowed the vampire’s face as he braced his shoulder against a wall. “Liberty?” he pressed with sharp expectance, then hissed as he jerked against the wall to reset his arm. A snap echoed off crystal.

  “In there.”

  At a familiar sound, a growl worked its way up Cade’s chest to rumble into the air. “They’re like ants.”

  Sapphy was limping, a gash in her thigh seeping blood. It must have hurt like hell to stand on it, but she swung her sword around to face the incoming enemy. “We can hold them.”

  Faer inclined his head. Both eyes glowed ice blue. “You fuckin’ save our girl, merc.” One horn had been slashed, the armor crumpled around it like paper. He had a burn on his arm that blistered red.

  Cade eyed all of them, set to fight for Alana, and felt a shot of affection. Even for the vampire, who’d cared for her when nobody else had. He met Trick’s gaze, nodded.

  Trick’s fangs extended. “Go.”

  As guards flooded around the corner, Cade leaped for the office doors. An obstacle shimmered into place a second before he broke them down.

  Gable.

  He and Cade crashed into each other, both buckling under the force. Memory of Gable vanishing from Edward’s library darted through his mind, the whispers of power from their nymph mother.

  Cade pushed upward and met the eyes of Edward’s son.

  Gable’s features were tight with insulted rage, elegant in the same clothes as earlier. He gripped a greatsword in a hand, the long reach of it gleaming with deadly promise.

  “The bodyguard?” he hissed. Blond hair unfurled from his immaculate queue as his head whipped to
take in the Hoods, seeming to understand the situation in the blink of an eye.

  Cade waved his pinkie, brandishing his borrowed sword. “Hi.”

  Gable’s chest swelled as his grip on the sword changed. Eyes like his father’s narrowed. “You’ll die for this.” He struck out with a powerful blow.

  Their weapons met and rang with the sound of battle.

  Ana brought the conversation back, mind focused on the high ruler. Fire buzzed in her ears. “What do you mean purchased?”

  A casual shrug. “What I said. All it took was a few introductions here, a few handshakes there. A few large amounts transferred.”

  Her mind flashed to Cade.

  “Huge sums of money were transferred into your parents’ accounts on a monthly basis, going on for more than a year.”

  The taste of sour milk stung her throat as bile coated it thickly. Her palms were wet where she gripped Excalibur. She blocked the shouts from outside the quiet room, where a fire flickered with comforting warmth and a man watched with eyes like a snake’s.

  Her parents…surely they couldn’t have traded their own daughter? For money? She’d always been led to believe they had all they wanted in the High Lands. He must be lying.

  She grabbed on to that with both hands, fire swimming in the acid of her stomach, tingling. He must be lying. The mushrooms in a cream and wine sauce threatened to make a reappearance as heat swam over her. Too hot.

  The clamor from the hallway was thunderous, a flinch drawn from her every time swords clashed or a jackal’s snarl ripped through the night. There were familiar voices, ones that quieted her mind.

  But she couldn’t afford to take her attention off the high ruler.

  His mouth had a smile playing around it, ears seemingly deaf to anything outside the room. The hints at wildness had cooled to an iceberg. Ana wondered how much was beneath the surface.

  “You’re lying.” She raised Excalibur so the silver glinted from the fire that pulsated under her skin. It would burn through soon.

  “Believe my words or don’t, it hardly alters the facts. Your parents and I had a contract for me to marry you.”