Ruled by Steel (The Ascension Series #3)

by S. M. Reine

  He grinned at the sight of the werewolves.

  “Well, hello there,” he said. “We meet again.”

  Elise had never fought like she fought against Aquiel’s army.

  She lost herself in instinct, dodging and parrying and thrusting with nothing but muscle memory. She didn’t even see half of the attacks that she blocked. The demons around her were a whirl of knives and claws, and her spear was a blur between them.

  They hit her—she was sure that they must have hit her—but she felt no pain. She advanced deeper into the ranks and distantly felt her boots mashing into the soft forms of demons that she had killed. She paved the road with broken bodies and puddles of blood. They fell at her feet, piling higher and higher, and she fought while standing on skulls.

  Her mind was gone, leaving nothing behind but Godslayer.

  And then she couldn’t walk forward through the army anymore. There was a wall blocking her—a flat plane of black.

  Elise’s gaze followed the wall up…and up…and realized that it wasn’t a wall, but a very large cloven hoof.

  Aquiel.

  “Admirable,” he said, the bass boom of his voice rattling deep in her chest.

  His hand dropped on her. Elise jumped back and slashed at it with the spear. He growled, then seized her, wrapping his fist tightly around her body. She kicked as he lifted her, struggling against his grip. Her arms were pinned at her sides.

  “In another era, you may have been good for this city,” Aquiel said almost fondly, giving her a hard squeeze that forced the air from her lungs. “But this era is mine, I’m afraid.” He continued to hold her tightly as he pointed at the gates. “Open.”

  Gears within the Palace wall groaned. The drawbridge fell open again. Elise was too high to see through it—she could only hope that Gerard, Jerica, and Neuma were long gone.

  Aquiel was too large to fit through the tunnel, so he stepped over the walls as his forces poured into the Palace dozens at a time, swarming around the grounds. Trapped in Aquiel’s fist, Elise couldn’t see any surviving allies. She saw bodies. Lots of bodies. Some of them were human.

  So this was how the end came: in the Palace she had failed to take, devoured by a huge fucking Prince of Nightmares, held high above the bodies of her fallen allies. It wasn’t the victory she had wanted. It wasn’t even close. But if the slaves had made it up the bridge, then hopefully they would be safe. And hopefully, the angels would be waiting for Aquiel on the other side.

  “Where’s Belphegor?” she asked. Unable to inhale, her voice came out tiny.

  “Taking care of our business elsewhere,” Aquiel said. He lifted her to his face and leered. His stinking breath washed over her. “Pity. I know he would have enjoyed being the one to kill you.”

  A sense of complete calm welled in her. A sense of watching death approach.

  Elise believed herself to be immortal. But immortal didn’t mean impossible to kill. She had already proven that by killing Yatam and Yatai, her supposedly invulnerable demon forebears. Aquiel could keep Elise from turning incorporeal—so if he digested her physical form until nothing remained, would she be thrown into Malebolge like nightmares? Would she simply turn to a mindless mist? Did she have a soul that would continue…or would it be the final death?

  Finding out was going to be excruciatingly painful.

  She got a good look at the squirming muscle of his tongue as he pushed her into his mouth. His teeth were jagged all the way back—no molars to chew with, only fangs. His throat was crimson-black and meaty. Stinging saliva dripped on her shoulder.

  Elise reached out for James one more time, but his mind was inaccessible to hers. Probably for the best. He didn’t need to see what was coming. Being swallowed, the long hours of digestion, whatever came after that.

  Of all the undignified ways to die.

  “Fuck you,” Elise said, delivering a final kick to Aquiel’s tongue.

  He chuckled as he bit down.

  His razor-sharp teeth closed on her neck, impossibly sharp and huge, crushing the muscles and bones—and then he dropped her with a roar.

  Elise hit the ground at his hooves.

  She was covered in saliva, but her head was attached. Aquiel hadn’t eaten her alive. Trying to bite her had hurt him.

  She was alive.

  “No way,” Elise said, staring down at her saliva-drenched pants.

  Elise heard a groaning and turned to see the drawbridge closing again on its own, as if operated by invisible hands. Most of Aquiel’s army was still outside. They hadn’t had time to follow. And now they couldn’t get through the wards.

  The sconces on the walls were flaring to life one by one. Pillars of flames shot from them, pouring in molten columns over the walls.

  Her heart pounded as she realized what had happened.

  Neuma had, somehow, taken charge of the wards on the Palace and used them to protect Elise—to keep her from being harmed, same as Lincoln had been. Now Neuma was activating the defenses and Aquiel and his allies were no longer protected.

  “No,” Aquiel roared, “no!” His shouts made the mortar in the towers tremble.

  Demons closed in on Elise again, trying to seize her, but every strike made them rear back and scream. They weren’t the only ones screaming. The molten fire came down in waterfalls to flood the grounds.

  Neuma had definitely activated all of the Palace’s defenses.

  Elise stumbled to her feet and ran into the tower, jumping onto the stairs just in time for magma to slop over the floor. The demons that tried to pursue were lit on fire. It wouldn’t be enough to kill the nightmares, but it did raise ugly welts on their flesh and set their clothes on fire.

  An insane laugh escaped her. Elise wiped the stinging saliva off of her chest, flicking it into the magma. It sizzled when it hit.

  “Holy shit,” she breathed. “Holy shit.”

  Watching the demons burn wasn’t funny. Not at all. Even if she wanted them to stay away from Earth, she wouldn’t have wished fiery death on them—and the way they contorted as they died was well and truly horrifying.

  But after staring down the Prince of Nightmares’s throat and wondering what it would feel like to be digested, everything suddenly felt a little hilarious.

  The tower shuddered around Elise. Huge claws smashed through the brick. Aquiel had clapped his hands around the tower and was trying to tear it apart to get at her.

  Elise stopped laughing and started running.

  She rushed up the stairs even as the tower shook around her. The parts that were only partially constructed were coming apart first. Metal groaned. Bricks showered to the floor and exploded into dust.

  Elise launched herself onto the crystal bridge.

  It was so clear that she couldn’t see the crystal itself—only the reflection of the magma on its underside. Even as she sprinted toward the fissure, she could see Aquiel’s army burning far below, their screams sweet on the hot winds of Dis.

  Aquiel himself had given up on trying to rip apart the tower and was climbing after her now, like some cloven-hoofed ape dragging himself up the Empire State Building with the strength of his forearms.

  Her boots found traction on the smooth crystal. The fissure loomed in front of her, filling the sky.

  Elise could see snow on the other side. Snow.

  She threw her arms over her head and plunged onto Earth.

  At the sight of Lincoln Marshall, chaos erupted among the pack and the humans that had just emerged from the fissure—chaos, and blood.

  The nightmares immediately slit the throats of the humans they were holding. Rylie’s wolf surged through her at the wails of the victims, and she surrendered to her beast.

  The entire pack lunged before the humans’ blood hit the ground.

  Werewolf, nightmare, and human clashed in a tangle of shouts and screams. It was a mess of bodies, and Rylie couldn’t make sense of what was happening. She felt like she saw everything in short flashes.

  Lincoln
with a cleaver in a human’s chest.

  Abel ripping the head off of a nightmare, which broke into writhing, maggot-like pieces.

  Abram separating himself from the worst of the fight, searching for a target to shoot.

  Two werewolves isolating a nightmare, one with an arm and the other with a leg, trying to rip it apart.

  A mess of humans dying as the other nightmares gutted them.

  But to Rylie’s shock, the humans were killing nightmares, too—and much more effectively than the werewolves were with their bites. Their spears and swords made two nightmares vanish at the first contact. The blades themselves did little damage to the nightmares. It wasn’t until Rylie heard the snap-buzz of electricity that the demons vanished.

  Her wolfish mind was in charge, so she was slow to realize that some of the weapons were charged, and that seemed to be the fastest way to kill them. Unfortunately, a lot of the weapons were out of juice, batteries dead, rendering them harmless. And the werewolves, strong and vicious as they were, couldn’t actually destroy the nightmares.

  Rylie would have given anything for a really big bathtub and a toaster.

  She closed her mouth around the hilt of a short sword and picked it up, battery pack dangling from the other side of her mouth. Abram was standing at the base of Bain Marshall, firing at the demons to no avail. She leaped up and dropped it at his feet.

  He realized what she had given him. “What—?” He looked out at the other humans as if seeing how they fought for the first time. He had been so focused on protecting the werewolves that he hadn’t been watching. “Great,” he said, picking up the sword. It looked awkward in his hand. He had never wielded such a thing before. But when he flipped the switch on the battery pack, the hum of electricity filled the air.

  Abram plunged into the fight.

  Rylie leaped in the other direction, knocking down another nightmare, ripping out its throat. Ichor exploded into her mouth. As soon as she stepped away, a man stepped in with a handheld Taser. He pushed it into the nightmare’s face. The demon exploded.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Rylie heard a familiar growl nearby. She turned to see Abel fighting nearby, jumping and biting at another one of the nightmares.

  Before she could move in to help, the demon plunged her cleaver into Abel’s side.

  His yelp made her heart shatter.

  Rylie hit his attacker an instant later, snapping her jaws around the nightmare’s arm hard enough that her teeth ground against each other with nothing but a thin layer of spongy flesh between them. She wrenched her head to the side.

  A wet, sucking pop rang out, and the arm was severed from the nightmare’s shoulder.

  The demon’s scream sounded so human.

  Rylie didn’t let it stop her. She didn’t even think as she ripped into the nightmare, letting the wolf shred it with all the fury she felt for the sake of her mate. She couldn’t destroy the nightmare as quickly as the electrified weapons did. The wolf didn’t mind.

  In moments, she stood over the dismembered pieces of a nightmare. It squirmed under her as it attempted to reassemble.

  She turned back to Abel, pressing her nose into his injured side. There was so much blood.

  Rylie’s mind whirled. She was back in Las Vegas, watching Seth fall under Elise’s blade. He was cupping her cheek in his hand as his skin became stone. Elise was swearing under her breath, smearing her own blood on Seth’s injury, trying to figure out how to save him but failing.

  Was she about to lose Abel, too?

  Rylie whined. He licked her face and stood—then staggered.

  His injury smelled like silver.

  There was a hint of his lopsided grin in the tongue-lolling glance he gave her—an almost puppyish look, like he was laughing at her for being so worried. But he couldn’t get to his feet. He was gushing blood, the tip of his nose fever-hot, and his eyes were glazing over.

  No. No, no, no…

  Rylie turned back to the nightmare that had attacked Abel to see that the pieces were dragging themselves back together, reforming bit by bit into a full body again. The tendrils connecting them looked like melted wax. The wolf didn’t know what to make of that. She wasn’t used to the things she killed trying to come back.

  She didn’t know what to do, but she didn’t need to.

  The wolf attacked on instinct. She snapped her mouth shut on the pieces of nightmare, flinging it toward the fissure.

  That thing had stabbed her mate.

  Rylie was still shredding it apart when she realized that something was running at her and Abel.

  Not something—someone.

  Lincoln hurtled out of the darkness, a cleaver in each hand and a bloody grin on his face. She remembered that look from the night that he had burned Northgate. The wolf wasn’t impressed, but it filled Rylie with hate. He was coming to finish Abel. He was going to hurt her family. Her skull filled with cold murder.

  She met him halfway.

  The nightmares couldn’t be effectively bitten, but he could—theoretically. Rylie snapped at his legs. Her teeth sank into the leather but didn’t penetrate skin. It was too thick.

  Lincoln slammed Rylie to the ground with super-strength and hacked at her side with the cleaver. She twisted out of the way. The point jammed into the asphalt next to her. He struggled to dislodge it and failed. The strength that had driven the blade into the ground wasn’t strong enough to free the blade again.

  She twisted, thrashed, trying to bite him. He jerked his hands out of her reach and cackled like it was funny that she was trying to bite him.

  “Hey, asshole!”

  He twisted at the shout of a human voice—and a fist met his face as soon as he turned.

  Lincoln sprawled to the ground, and Elise stepped into view.

  She didn’t look quite like the woman that Rylie remembered from their last meeting. Elise had looked passably human then. There was nothing human about the way her skin glowed with brilliant inner fire, black eyes like endless pits, her hair blasted back by the winds from the fissure. She looked even more like a demon than those gaunt-faced nightmares had.

  Elise leaped over Rylie as Lincoln began struggling to stand. She slammed her boot into the side of his head.

  He fell and didn’t move.

  Rylie hoped that it had killed him.

  Elise wrenched the cleaver out of the ground. “Silver,” Elise said with a scowl. She grabbed a fistful of fur at Rylie’s ruff and helped her stand. “Are you okay?” She rubbed the top of Rylie’s head between her ears. Wolves didn’t like being petted, but it was kind of a nice gesture, coming from her. Rylie managed a half-hearted wag of her tail.

  Rylie padded to Abel’s side. His breathing was shallow and rapid. So much blood—it caked the side of his fur.

  “I see. Okay, get him out of here,” Elise said. “I’ve got your back.”

  She spun with the spear, plunging it into the throat of an attacking nightmare. Elise released it quickly. Electricity arced over it as soon as she let go, and the other demon vanished with a wail. The spear clattered to the ground.

  Rylie braced her feet against the ground, ready to face another demon—but there were no attackers left. Elise had killed the last of them.

  She swung around to see Abram alive. Most of the pack was standing.

  No more nightmares.

  But Abel was bleeding, and the fight wasn’t over.

  Twenty

  When silence fell over Northgate again, Elise took a quick inventory of the survivors. All of the nightmares were gone—that was good. Aquiel was nowhere in sight. Also good. But there were only thirty-seven werewolves and, maybe, at a quick count, a hundred humans.

  That was a lot of death.

  A man with a gun strode toward her, and she tensed until she saw the similarity to Seth in his face. It was one of Rylie’s kids. The guy named Abram.

  “You came at a good time,” he said, shaking her hand. He had a good, firm grip, and the contact mad
e something spark in the back of Elise’s mind. He was a kopis, just like Seth had been. A natural born demon hunter. The only kind of man that could survive running with werewolves.

  She glanced around. “Any angels?”

  “None.”

  “Fuckers,” she said.

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “I don’t disagree.”

  “Abel got stabbed,” Elise said, holding up the silver-bladed cleaver. “He probably wasn’t the only one. Whatever you guys have to do to heal those wounds, you need to do it fast.”

  Abram wiped his sweating upper lip dry on his sleeve. “Damn. We’ll need to get all of the injured werewolves back to the sanctuary fast. If we can just get them to change…”

  He kept talking, but Elise didn’t hear him. Her eyes skimmed the clearing. It felt like something was still amiss. They had won the battle with heavy casualties, yes, but the total absence of demons felt wrong, even though she knew that nightmares always vanished when shocked by electricity.

  But a human possessed by a nightmare shouldn’t have disappeared.

  Fuck.

  “—if you can help us move them,” Abram said, “then I think—”

  Elise interrupted him. “Do you see the deputy anywhere?” she asked. “Lincoln Marshall, a human man in demon armor. He’s got bulging veins and bleeding eyes.”

  “I saw him,” Abram said, frowning deeply, “but I don’t see him now.”

  Rylie gave a short yip, catching Elise’s attention. Rylie stood over Abel, whose entire body shook with seizures as he shifted back to human, but she was staring pointedly up the street.

  A man was sprinting away from the battle, disappearing into the smoky haze a couple of blocks away.

  Lincoln was fleeing.

  Elise had made the mistake of letting Lincoln leave the last time she had been in Northgate. If she had followed him quickly enough, she might have been able to catch him before he made it to Hell. She might have been able to keep him from killing Vassago and Devadas and however many other victims he had taken since then. She might have been able to save him.