by Emma Dean
Emily stopped dead, eyes frantically searching for a way out.
But they were surrounded.
Guards of the Red Queen, just as horrific as Jack had described, if not more. They were barely more than rotting flesh, human-like to some degree, but no skin covered their mouths or teeth or noses.
They were scrawny and tall, but in a way that told her they had unnatural strength. These things were like some nightmarish creature in a video game, with their ripped and raggedy uniform that hinted at a former beauty, red hoods drenched with blood.
What had this world been like before the Red Queen had used her magic to create this never-ending horror?
There were hundreds of them.
“What now?” Jace asked, the door closing behind him with an indignant click as if to say, karma’s a bitch.
“Well,” Jack drawled. “Guess we’ll have to see how much weight I can still throw around here.”
Without hesitation he sliced his hand and blood dripped on the red carpet.
Emily didn’t know what he had planned, and she was kicking herself for not thinking of this eventuality when they’d been going through the mission to begin with.
Time slowed as she catalogued the raccoons’ positions, the number of guards, the weapons they carried, and the three different halls that were filled with more of them.
At their back was the stupid door, and monsters beyond that screeching and screaming their fury at a missed dinner.
They couldn’t leave Wonderland empty-handed, not after everything they’d been through here, but Emily didn’t know if it was worth the risk. There had to be easier items to obtain, but knowing the way the universe worked, items of power would be insanely guarded or resting in places that ensured a gruesome death.
But she was death.
Emily was a raven.
What gift could she use to get them out of this mess? Fuck Alice and her boys, Emily would do anything and everything to keep her own faction safe, even if that meant chucking their temporary allies to the guards.
They could walk out of here with two items of power if she did that.
Underneath her plotting and planning there was the steady pulse of panic, knowing that her ability to view events slowly would speed up. The molasses over the world would snap together like a rubber band and she’d have to choose now.
Emotions swirled and she didn’t know what to do, or how to save them. Emily didn’t have magic anymore thanks to the river. All she had were her skills and gifts only ravens possessed.
Never in her life had she felt those gifts were limited until this moment.
Jack flung out his hand like a slow-motion moment in a movie and Emily knew she had fractions of a second to figure out what she was going to do. The blood from his hand flew toward the guards and Emily’s stomach clenched as she remembered reading those secret books on blood magic in her eyrie’s library.
Anyone could perform blood magic, but it had been banned by the Enclave, citing it sacrilegious while their blood witches had been hunted and slaughtered to extinction.
But when had she ever followed the rules of propriety?
There was only one spell she remembered, only one she’d practiced in secret, and Emily slid her hand across Jace’s knife just before time snapped up to the present.
As Jack’s blood hit the guards before him, hers dripped onto the floor and Emily muttered the incantation in a language older than humanity. Flinging out her own hand, her blood bound whatever it touched to her, making the creatures hers.
Whatever Jack did must have been similar because half of the mummy-like soldiers turned on their own with a single stomping turn.
The screech of fury from the other guards bounced off the stone and resonated through the space until it gave her a migraine and Emily had to focus. “Clear a path,” she ordered. “Take us to the treasury.”
Jack gave her a lopsided grin before diving into the fray with his own group of guards, hacking and slashing and beheading.
A skull dropped and so did the body.
It didn’t get up again.
That’s all the others needed to see before they fought back against the creepy monstrous human-like soldiers that detached their jaws and screamed as they fought. Emily had to give it to them, it was certainly disconcerting as she beheaded one after another.
Somehow, they were actually making forward progress as each of them fought through the guards. Despite their stuttering, lightning-quick movements, they were easy to track and kill. There were just so many of them.
But every drop of her blood that touched one of the guards turned them and she focused on getting them out and up to their target.
Ben and Jace flanked her, Aiden was in front, and Chance brought up the rear. Together they tore through the lines, every step hard-won and desperate.
The raccoons were getting tired, she could sense it in their auras, feel it as they slowed down almost imperceptibly. If they didn’t get to the end of this madness soon, someone was going to make a mistake and Emily wasn’t going to have that.
Pushing Aiden behind her, she became a whirling swirling storm of blades. Heads fell one after the other. Her blood-controlled guards mimicked her movements and thoughts as she concentrated, as she used everything she’d been taught, every bit of resilience and endurance she’d gathered throughout her life.
This was what she’d been born for, this was what she’d been created for.
Emily was made to be a weapon. Not just any weapon, the deadliest weapon.
She could take down armies alone and she was going to prove it. Emily was a valuable asset. This faction needed her, and she was going to prove why. She was going to prove why Corbin never should have left for his fancy new position, why she was still good enough even with all her flaws.
Using both knives, she screamed back in the face of the guard reaching for her before its head fell to the ground. As it dropped, another took its place and she skewered it to the door behind it.
Her guards started clearing outward along with Jack’s and Emily breathed hard, blinking. This must be the treasury then. The rest of the world came back into focus and she yanked her knife out of the door at the same time she swung her other, beheading the skeletal thing before it could attack again.
One step back and she kicked as hard as she could, forcing the door to splinter open.
“Let’s get this shit and get out of here,” she snapped, standing aside to let the others through.
“Are you okay?” Jace demanded, his face and body absolutely covered in gore.
Chance and Ben held the guards off from the direction they’d come in. Alice, Louis, and Aiden went into the treasury first. Emily focused on Jack and realized she would have to stay out here with him to give the rest time to find what they needed and set up the escape route.
“I’m fine,” she gritted out, eyes flicking to count the coming enemies. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Jace nodded once and gripped the back of her neck, his brown eyes flashing silver. “Hold them back, and whatever you do…don’t die.”
They stared at each other and time slowed once more. Emily took in his face, his aura, the strength in his arms, and the skill it had taken for all of them to have made it this far. She nodded, knowing exactly how he felt.
“Make use of those sticky fingers,” she said, pushing him behind her. “Ben, Chance! I’ll cover you.”
They turned and ducked into the room as she and Jack stood back to back. The guy wasn’t a raven, but his skills were a lot like hers in strange ways. Emily was grateful for it at the moment, both of them fighting and directing their blood-controlled guards to ensure the ones they cared about were safe.
Until she heard a voice that made her stop dead.
“I finally found you, Jace,” he purred.
“Mephisto,” Jace gritted out. “This is kind of a bad time.”
The demon.
Emily turned, feeling a sword slice through her
clothes and cut into her side thanks to being distracted. She barely felt it as her eyes met those of hellfire. The demon grinned at her as his hand wrapped around Aiden’s throat.
“Actually, this is the perfect time,” Mephisto crooned. “Can’t have you gathering any items of power, can I?”
Another slice cut deeper across her ribs, and she grunted, shoving the pain down before throwing out her bleeding hand to entrance more of the guards, muttering the incantation again.
What was she supposed to do?
“Who is this?” Alice demanded, kicking aside a giant pile of gold coins. “We don’t have the time to mess around.”
“Your lives are mine,” the demon snarled, dragging Aiden along with him as he went for Chance. “And I’m here to bring you back to your world, to pay for what you’ve done. Dead or alive.”
Dead or alive.
By the way Aiden was struggling, she was guessing it would be easier if they were all dead. Not like demons cared about the lives of shifters, let alone lesser shifters.
“I see the beautiful raven has taken your side,” Mephisto said, teleporting over to Chance like a stuttering phantom. “Are you going to try and stop me again, pretty bird?”
How the fuck was she going to get them out of this now?
Something sliced through her back and she looked down to see it poking out through her stomach.
The pain was distant as she ignored the way Ben roared her name.
Her hand wrapped around the blade, testing how deeply imbedded it was, and Emily knew then what she had to do.
Whether these four ever trusted her again…that would be a different story.
Grinning up at the demon, she reached back and yanked out the knife, hiding the agony so far down she didn’t even flinch. “Actually, I’m just here for the shiny. Take them and go for all I care.”
Flip.
Every bit of fear and anxiety, love and affection drained out of her like a sieve.
They didn’t have the time or luxury for her to spare their feelings, wonder how turning off her emotions might affect them. The mate bond was tenuous and impermanent, but they’d dealt with it before.
All four of them would deal with it again.
Her hand pressed against the hole in her stomach to speed up the healing, but she looked down in disgust.
How annoying.
Emily glanced back at Jack and the guards and sighed. She walked through the door and slammed what was left of it closed behind her – cutting him and the queen’s guards off from the rest of them.
Then she focused on Mephisto and let him see the blood on her teeth.
“Let’s make a deal, demon.”
24
Emily
The demon’s eyes twinkled at her as she flicked her blood in Jace’s shocked face – well, shocked for him.
Emily ran her fingers over some of the treasure. Gold chairs, velvet-lined boxes, jewels and coins scattered everywhere. Jewelry lined the walls as well as an entire wall of crowns and tiaras that glittered and beckoned.
Alice and Louis ran to the door, trying to wrench it open as the guards howled and howled, no doubt eating Jack alive.
Good riddance.
Emily didn’t like how he could use the shadow realm. It was a risk she wasn’t willing to take, leaving him with that knowledge. Before she left, she was going to pluck that memory from his head like a flower and crush it into dust.
“What kind of deal would you like to make, sweet raven?” Mephisto asked, cradling Aiden to his chest like a naughty child while holding Chance as far from his body as he could.
“They’re mine,” she told the demon, ignoring the looks from Jace and Ben, ignoring the curses Chance spat at her. “I was going to turn them into the Enclave once I possessed all three items. The reputation I would get for that on top of the status…you’re going to have to come up with a very sweet exchange for me to give something like that up.”
All four of the raccoons stiffened as they sensed the truth in her words. Emily had always planned to turn them over, with or without her emotions on. This demon was simply speeding up her timeline.
“Prove to me you were going to turn them over.” Mephisto’s grip tightened on Chance and his face started to turn purple.
“How would you like for me to prove my intentions to you?” Emily asked, tracing the outline of one of the crowns.
It pulsed with dark energy.
She placed it on her head, and it fit like it had always belonged there. Emily turned to admire it in a nearby mirror, framed in pure gold. Power filled her veins, unlike anything she’d ever felt or sensed in her life.
“Kill that one,” the demon told her, jerking his chin at Ben.
Interesting that he considered that one the biggest threat. Emily eyed Ben, his shaggy, soft, black hair that curled at the ends so perfectly. His honey-brown eyes were blazing silver and he didn’t once blink as he stared at her—through her.
Into her very heart and soul.
She saw the moment he realized they were no longer there and tilted her head as the muscle in his jaw tightened – the only sign of his disappointment and fury.
The crown was heavy on her head as she walked around the room, eyeing the treasure, as she considered. “Oh, and if I do kill him…whatever deal we make,” Emily told the demon, holding up a ruby to the light so she could properly inspect it. “I keep whatever catches my eye.”
She tucked the ruby and a diamond into her pack. They’d make nice additions to her hoard.
“Fine, kill him and be done with it. I don’t have all day,” Mephisto snapped, hand tightening on Aiden’s neck so hard she could practically hear the tendons grinding together.
Alice and Louis got the door open and Louis ran out, backing up the red prince who was miraculously still alive. Emily honestly hadn’t expected anything less from the chaotic individual.
She picked up something that glittered with a vicious light. “Okay, I’ll kill him.”
Jace took a step forward and Emily whipped the gorgeous sword through the air until the pointy end dug into his chest. “Take another step and I’ll kill the other two, just for funsies.”
Jace glared at her, hands up.
Emily grinned, feeling the weight and power of the crown trickle into her skull, infusing her very bones. “Good boy,” she murmured, blowing him a kiss.
Ben came forward slowly and knelt before her, so tall his head still reached her shoulders. He glared up at her and nodded once. “For Chance and Aiden.”
They stared at each other for a moment and Emily glanced over her shoulder at Alice who was watching her warily. Much like Emily, the female didn’t give two shits about anyone other than those she considered hers to protect.
Alice watched Emily with a calculating eye.
“Gonna make a run for it?” Emily asked her. “After all, this is none of your business.”
Her veins burned and a pressure was building behind her eyes, but Emily ignored it like she ignored the gut wound she had, still leaking blood.
“I don’t care what you do, I want an escape route promised,” Alice stated, crossing her arms over her chest like she didn’t give a single fuck about Ben’s life. Or any of them really.
“A girl after my own heart,” Emily murmured, her head jerking to the side of its own volition. She held the sword with both hands and adjusted her stance to make sure to get a clean cut.
Emily looked up one last time, her skin crawling, to grin up at Mephisto. “Ready to make that deal, demon?”
The demon’s grip on Aiden and Chance loosened ever so slightly as he returned her crafty smile. “I always enjoy making deals with ravens. After you.”
She tightened her grip on the sword, feeling every muscle swell and tighten.
Then she swung.
At the last moment she released the sword and it flew across the room, end over end, hilt landing right in Alice’s outstretched hand. Emily smiled down at Ben as time slowed again, and
he nodded. She jumped into Ben’s cupped hands and he tossed her up.
Emily went flying right over the demon and Mephisto’s snarl was warped by the molasses that covered the world, allowing her to move through faster than most shifters.
The crown seeped into her—body, mind, and soul.
But Emily was already crazy and a little bit…off. There wasn’t anything the Crown of Madness could do to break her. All it did was give her the power that came along with that kind of schism, the ability to ignore reality and do what normal people considered impossible.
She landed in a crouch and grabbed the demon’s wrists, clamping her hands down so hard he screamed as the bones shattered, releasing Chance and Aiden in the process. Emily drove her knee into the demon’s back and shoved him to the floor. Planting one foot she yanked.
Both arms ripped off his body with the force of her new strength, blood spraying the entire room from where he’d been pulled apart. She stepped back as the demon’s screams rivaled those of the guards outside the treasury.
Emily gave Alice a nod.
Down came the Vorpal sword, right across the demon’s neck.
The snick was such a satisfying sound Emily closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of sulphur like it was a bouquet of roses.
Thump. Thump.
She smiled. Being an item of power, the Vorpal sword made sure the demon was dead dead.
“Throw all his pieces into the moat,” Emily ordered Aiden, tossing Mephisto’s arms on top of his still twitching body.
“Emily,” Jace snapped – fury and…fear, in that tone.
She glanced over her shoulder at him but didn’t stop. “Did you really think I’d let a demon take what was rightfully mine?”
The alpha raccoon watched her warily with those glittering eyes. Jace didn’t trust her. Probably the first smart decision he’d made since she’d met him.
Emily ripped the rest of the door off the hinges and saw Louis and Jack still fighting, bleeding and panting with exhaustion, but they were still holding their own with the small group of turned guards.
