The Marked and the Broken

by Ivy Asher

  A screech filled with promises of pain sounds to my right, and I turn just in time to see a female lamia charging at me. Her eyes glow red, and her claws are fully extended, poised and ready to do as much damage as she can. I gauge her speed and our differences in size in a split second, and I ready myself to take her on. She’s three strides away from me when she leaps at me, and then mid-air, a giant gray wolf slams into her, his jaws closing soundly around her neck and shoulders. The female lamia is in pieces before Torrez’s wolf paws so much as touch the ground. He lands gracefully and pivots around to face me.

  I tackle-hug him, throwing my arms around his big wolf neck and bury my face in his fur. I’ve never experienced the kind of relief I’m feeling right now, having him here in my arms, and I’m suddenly desperate to wrap myself around each and every one of my Chosen. I’m tempted to look around the chaos in hopes I can spot them, but I can’t lose the focus of why I’m here. I won’t let what happened to Lachlan, my father, my mother, or any of the others be in vain because I let my emotions get the better of me.

  Torrez makes a chuffing sound like he just heard everything that flew through my head and is in complete agreement, and I rub my face against his neck for one more second before I pull away. I keep a hand buried in Torrez’s fur, and I methodically start to scan past the fighting, looking for Adriel’s distinct red-brown hair. I don’t spot him anywhere among the madness, but I do catch glimpses of a group of his guards. They’re fighting shoulder to shoulder, their backs encircling something I can’t see. Each of them is holding a katana-like sword, and I watch as one guard stabs a wolf in the shoulder and then pulls the blade out, all in the blink of an eye.

  Blood splatters the wolf’s coat as well as the lamia wielding the katana. The shifter yelps in pain and is quickly shoved out of the way by another wolf, who immediately begins to snap and lunge at the guard. I can’t see who they have in the middle, but my gut is telling me it’s Adriel. The guards take another step closer to a set of doors before more attacking shifters cut off their path, and I know if they make it out of this room, the hunt for Adriel will start all over again.

  I begin to shoulder my way in the direction of the group of guards, body checking wolves and lamia out of my way indiscriminately. Torrez’s big ass body helps with my efforts, and I’m only ten feet away from my target when lamia start attacking Torrez and me in force. Torrez’s jaws snap around the head of a charging male, and he shakes the lamia like a rag doll until the body turns to ash. I dodge blows and avoid claws as much as possible, knowing if I try to use any magic now, I will be wiped by the time I reach Adriel and have nothing in me to fight him with. I shove a lamia back into the jaws of another shifter, but I don’t turn in time to avoid another set of claws coming right for my neck.

  It’s like I can see it in slow motion, the arc of his claws as they move closer to shred the skin and muscle not protected by this fucking collar that’s rendered me useless. I don’t close my eyes. I stare death in the motherfucking face and let it know exactly what I fucking think of it. It stings when the lamia’s sharp-tipped fingers start to slash through the skin of my right shoulder, but just when I’m expecting to feel hot blood pouring out of a wound in my neck and chest, the lamia is yanked back in a flash like it’s been harpooned.

  A blue sword explodes out of the lamia’s chest, and it turns to ash immediately. Dust and ash drift slowly to the ground, and the sword wielding figure steps through the mess and bellows out a challenge. My heart leaps at the sight of Valen. His hazel eyes are filled with fire and fury, and I know that look well. I wear it anytime I’m fucking pissed that something or someone tried to mess with what’s mine. Bastien materializes next to his twin, and I’m in awe of their presence. They’re covered in ash and move like they’re extensions of the same body.

  Lamia charge them, and they both twist and turn around each other, taking out attackers. Their swords arc and slice through lamia almost in perfect synchronicity, and I’m so stunned by how beautiful and magnificent it is that I almost miss a lamia coming at me from the side. I ball up my fists and ready myself to knock the fucker out when Knox steps in front of me and, with a swipe of his short sword, removes the lamia’s head.

  “I was wondering if you were going to stop drooling long enough to realize we’re in the middle of a battle here, Killer,” he teases, and then he grabs the back of my head and slams his mouth to mine.

  The kiss is hard and fast, and when he pulls away, his eyes sparkle in that naughty way that’s entirely Knox. He turns around and starts hacking away at anything that’s threatening us, and I smile at his back and then shove a lamia that’s running at me into the jaws of a waiting Torrez. He rips him apart, and we all press even closer toward the group of guards. I spot Aydin’s giant body holding off any more lamia from getting into the room through a set of doors, and I’m surprised to see Silva and Evrin doing the same thing at a different entrance.

  A silver blade slices out at me, and I just barely jump back and avoid getting stabbed. The guard arcs his katana back up toward me, but a blue-bladed short sword comes down on his arm, severing the lamia’s limb from his body. Ryker follows through with the blade in his other hand, and the guard screams as his body crumbles into nothing.

  “You good, Squeaks?” Ryker asks, his sky-blue eyes jumping from me to the battle around us, on guard.

  “I am now,” I tell him, and we exchange smiles before Ryker spins and ashes a lamia sneaking up behind him.

  I quickly snatch up the katana from the ground and brush the ash off from the handle. I spend a couple seconds getting a feel for the weapon, and I’m stoked when it has good balance and feels like a natural extension of my hand. It’s lighter than my short swords, but after a clean swipe through the neck of a lamia that’s trying to join a three on one fight against Sabin, I decide this katana is the shit.

  Sword in hand, I start doing my part to cut our way to Adriel. I hoot with excitement after a few fancy twirls get me a clean two-for-one beheading, and I’m reveling in the fact that I’m not as useless in this fight as I feared I would be. I hear the words show off being shouted at me, and I look over to see a smiling Enoch. I cringe and then chuckle when a wolf shifter accidentally slams into him, almost taking Enoch to the ground before the wolf scrambles to get his footing. The shifter turns around and gives Enoch a slobbery lick and bounds away to join another fight.

  Red-gold eyes peek out at me between a row of guards, and when my eyes fix on Adriel’s, all the lightness and levity I was feeling at once again being with my Chosen and dominating in a fight, bleeds out of me. I see fucking red, and all I can focus on is getting to him. I want him to hurt, feel a fraction of the pain his actions have caused others. I want to wipe that fucking smirk he’s always wearing right off his fucking face when I remove his head. And I want this fucking collar off.

  I fix my gaze on Adriel’s exact location and move straight for him. I veer to the left to avoid claws and bring my katana up to block a guard’s sword aimed at my chest. I get separated from Torrez and the others as each of us battle our own sets of guards. I focus on the three katana wielding guards all doing their best to separate my head from my shoulders. It seems that Adriel is no longer interested in trying to keep me alive. He’s apparently abandoned all hopes of being marked and just wants to get the fuck out of his throne room alive.

  All the doors are covered by supes here to kill him, and he’s managed to get himself boxed into a corner at some point during the fighting. I want to scream at the lamia still locked in battle not to lay down their lives for this asshole—it’s not like he would do the same for them—but there’s no point. They all seem hellbent on protecting the psycho at all costs. One of the guards attacking me turns to ash as I slice through his neck, and I press the two guards still left fighting, closer to Adriel.

  I grunt with the exertion it’s taking me to fight off their blows. The metal of all of our swords clang and screech as they meet each other and slide apart.
I lean back as far as I can go to avoid a team effort by the guards to scissor their blades at me, and I take the opportunity to cut the backs of one of the guard’s knees. He cries out in pain and collapses, and I attack the last guard ruthlessly. His blade sneaks out and kisses mine ever so softly, and quick as lightning, it moves, searching for skin to sink into instead of metal to be denied by. There was a time where I would have appreciated this guard’s skill, his technique and finesse, but as I spin and dodge and strike, I don’t care how good he is, I need him to die and get the fuck out of my way.

  I’m lucky that the fighting has compressed everyone together, because it forces the lamia to move somewhat slower than I’ve experienced in previous fights. There’s not enough space to be flashing around, and it’s something that’s absolutely saving my ass as I go head-to-head with the last of the guards standing in my way. I aim low, but my slash is blocked. I twist and cut up with my blade and just manage to nick under the guard’s arm as he raises his katana to slash down at me. The feel of my blade meeting its mark energizes me, and I start driving even harder against him, raining blows down and focusing them on the side I just injured.

  A wolf trying to gain the upper hand in a different fight skids into us. The guard moves to slash at the shifter, clearly not realizing that he just made a fatal mistake taking his focus off of me. I have his head off three seconds later and a clear path to Adriel.

  25

  My name rings out behind me, but it’s not panicked, and there’s no hint of warning in it. I don’t know who it is, but they can wait. I refuse to let Adriel out of my sight again. He has a sword in his hands, and he lashes out against a wolf who is attacking another one of his guards. The wolf yelps in pain, but it’s quickly silenced when Adriel delivers a killing blow.

  I step toward him, when suddenly pain flashes down my back. A stinging sensation starts in my shoulder and angles in toward my spine. I hiss and spin, my sword ready to deal with the claw-happy motherfucker behind me, but I’m instantly confused by what I find. Lachlan has his back to me. He’s facing off with the guard that I slashed behind the knees, and he has the tip of the guard’s blade sticking out of the middle of his back. Lachlan looks like he’s holding onto the sword as the guard tries to pull the blade free. I quickly pivot around Lachlan, and with one strike, the guard’s head tumbles off and his body collapses to the ground where it breaks down into a gray cloud.

  I stare at Lachlan for a moment and try to make sense of what just happened. He looks down at the twelve inches of blade and handle that are sticking out of his chest, and then his emerald-green eyes meet mine. A look of relief washes over his face, and I struggle to catch him as he falls forward and his legs give out on him.

  “I tried to stop him,” Lachlan tells me as we both fall to our knees. “My magic…it’s…weak, but I had to stop him.” His words float around my head as we kneel knee to knee in front of each other. Lachlan’s bleeding badly, and I’m not sure where to touch him that won’t hurt. I trace the source of the blood, and shock fills me when I realize that he wasn’t stabbed through the chest like I was thinking. He has a wound that starts at the top of his shoulder and slices down to where the sword is sticking out from now.

  Holy fuck, did Lachlan just save my life?

  Lachlan reaches up and pulls on the handle of the sword. It makes a weird sucking noise, and it snaps me out of my surprised stupor and into action. I drop my katana and rip at the bottom of my tattered sweater. I ball up as much of it as I can and press it into Lachlan’s shoulder. He tries to pull more of the sword out of him, and I slap his hand away.

  “Stop doing that; don’t pull it out until I can get someone here who can heal it.” Flashes of me trying to heal Keegan hammer through my thoughts, and I scream out for Ryker. He was near me before, but I have no idea where he is now. Blood soaks through my sweater, and Lachlan’s breathing starts to change. Shit, shit, shit, shit! I scream for Ryker again, and Lachlan sags harder against me. He pulls at the sword handle, and I panic even more.

  “Stop fucking doing that!” I yell at him, fear making my voice shaky and my heart race. “I can’t fucking heal you with this shit on.” I pull at the collar on my neck and scream out my frustration. Ryker isn’t anywhere to be seen. I start to call for Nash, but my hair-raising cry for help is swallowed up by the noisy fighting that’s going on all around us, so I try to get Lachlan as secure against me as I can.

  Lachlan whimpers as I pull him closer, and frustration burns my throat and my eyes. “Fuck, I’m sorry. Just hang on, okay?” I reassure him and then look around frantically. I scream for Nash again, but I can’t see shit, kneeling on the ground with wolves and lamia doing their best to kill each other all around me. I’ve been saving my energy as much as possible and not tapping into my magic so that I can go head-to-head with Adriel, but Lachlan is bleeding out in my arms, and help is not fucking coming.

  I close my eyes and tap into my Healing magic, and pain flashes through me. A cold wet hand touches my face, and I open my eyes, shocked by the sensation. Lachlan’s hand cups my cheek, and his gaze is determined and focused.

  “No,” he grunts out, and a hint of blood stains the inside of his lips. “Let me go. I want to go.” My eyes flit back and forth between his, and I’m not sure what the fuck to do. He must see the debate in my stare, and he offers me a blood-tinged, reassuring smile. “Let me go,” he says, nodding as slow tears spill out onto his cheeks.

  My breaths start to stutter. Lachlan drops his hand from where it’s cupping my cheek, and it falls limply at his side. I stare at him for a moment, his eyes pleading, my eyes uncertain and sad. Slowly, I reach down and pull the sword from his chest. He gasps as the blade leaves his body, but it’s not pained, it sounds almost hopeful. I lay him on his back and push his dark hair out of his face.

  “Okay,” I tell him, and he gives me a look of pure serenity. “Say hi to Keegan for me,” I whisper, and his lips tilt up in the smallest of smiles.

  “I will,” he murmurs up to me, and then just like that, he’s gone.

  Lachlan’s body relaxes as who he is fades from his eyes. I stare at his peaceful face for a moment and take a second to absorb what just happened. I’m not sure how to feel about him or what happened between us. I don’t know if I’ll ever understand the kind of broken he claimed to be, but as I close his eyes, I hope he finds peace wherever he is now. I grab the katana on the floor next to my knees, and in the other hand, I arm myself with the sword I pulled from Lachlan’s chest. The blade is still stamped with Lachlan’s blood, and I stare at it numbly.

  I take a deep breath and stand up and once again push my way through to the last place I saw Adriel. Lamia all around me are either surrendering or turning into ash. The chaos in the room feels like it’s starting to settle, and I can almost touch the end of the battle with my fingertips. It’s clear our plan has worked, and we’re on the winning side of the carnage and ash that’s coating everything in this shiny, black room. I spot Torrez’s wolf as he and Sabin work together to finish off a handful of lamia. I pass them and notice Enoch, his coven, the twins, and Knox, fighting the last of Adriel’s guards.

  An injured lamia charges me, but I stop him with one blade and remove his head with the other, not even breaking my stride. I’m in the zone, numb, bloodthirsty, and ready for this shit to be over. I sidestep the last of the small skirmishes surrounding Adriel and find him standing in the corner, waiting. He’s leaning against his sword, like he hasn’t a care in the world, watching the last of his guards die, with no hint of emotion or concern. He perks up as I step into view, and the smug smile he’s always armed with stretches even wider across his face.

  I stare at him, the feel of this moment surprisingly anticlimactic. Adriel, the big bad lamia, the reason I exist, the shadow that’s been hunting me my whole life, the murderer. I run my gaze all over him and decide he doesn’t quite live up to his reputation. He’s a petty, jealous psycho who amassed too much power, and now he’s going to d
ie. I watch him carefully, not trusting his casual demeanor. I ready my weapons and move my weight to the balls of my feet. I bend my knees slightly and then I wait.

  “If you kill me, you’ll never get that collar off,” Adriel taunts. He takes a step toward me and twirls his katana like it’s an umbrella and he’s about to pull a Tom Holland and bust out some Rihanna. He’s going for cool, calm, and collected, but his movements just announced that he’s skilled with the sword, and he’s struggling to move is left hand. It looks like he’s not recovered from my attempt to cut off his arm, or maybe he just wants me to think that so I underestimate him. Looks like I’m about to find out.

  “You know, it didn’t have to be this way, Vinna. We could have done great things together,” he tells me, like he’s truly sad things have come to this.

  Adriel brings the blade of his katana up slowly and taps lightly against one of my swords. I recognize the move well; Talon used to do it to me in the ring. Touch his pads to mine to test my resolve or see how tightly I was wound. I wonder offhandedly if Adriel taught the move to Talon or if Talon taught Adriel. I shake off the question and hold firm, not taking Adriel’s bait.

  “Nothing to say, pet?” he presses, and I watch him shift his weight ever so slightly.

  I say nothing. He’ll get no monologues from me. No final declarations about how he has this coming and only has himself to blame. He knows what the fuck I’m here to do. I can see it in his eyes, and he can see in mine that I’m not going to be fucking played with. Adriel spins tornado fast, and I get both my blades up in time to absorb the brutal blow. The power that he hits with vibrates from the swords into my hands and up my arms. I clench my teeth against the jarring sensation, and a shriek of metal on metal fills my ears as we both take a swipe at each other and meet the other’s blocks.