by Melissa Grey
Echo’s shoulder hunched, as if that would make her seem smaller. “I don’t know if it’ll hurt you.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think it will.”
“How can you be sure?”
He lifted one shoulder in a shallow shrug. “You burned the poison out of me once. You saved me. You protected me then. And I think your power is protecting you now.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Echo nodded.
His fingers brushed her skin, sending an entirely different kind of shiver dancing along her bones.
Nothing happened. The skin of his fingers remained the golden tan it always was. He traced the lines of the scar as if he were mapping the branches of a tree. As if it weren’t a grotesque stain splashed across her flesh.
“You will fight this,” he said softly, leaning back into her space. Already she felt warmer. “You will fight it and you will win.”
“I’m not sure I can.” Her words puffed against his skin.
He pressed his lips to hers, silencing her doubt. His hand splayed across the scar, covering it with his palm. She let herself collapse against him, lighter now that she was no longer carrying her secret alone.
He pulled away, close enough to touch her everywhere she wanted to be touched, but far enough for her to feel the force of his gaze, steady and full of love.
“You will,” he said, his voice devoid of even the slightest doubt. “And there isn’t a force in this world that will tear me from your side when you do.”
A riotous mess of emotion bubbled up in Echo’s chest, well beyond the capacity of words to describe. And so she abandoned them wholly and leaned in to kiss him again. And again. And again.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Echo was roused from her slumber by the shrill sound of Stravinsky streaming from her phone. With a muffled curse, she blinked awake. The curtains were partially open, and sunlight fell in bright beams against the library floor. She had changed her ringtone countless times, but Jasper insisted on stealing her phone away to set it back to Stravinsky’s Firebird, no matter how much the song grated on her. Every time the phone rang, the frantic strings wreaked havoc on her nerves.
Grumbling about shrill violins, she groped at the floor beside the daybed, where she had a vague recollection of depositing her jeans the night before. A warm, solid weight was thrown over her midriff, pinning her in place. As wakefulness replaced the slow stupidity of sleep, Echo remembered to feel embarrassed about the position she was in.
It wasn’t the first time she’d woken up beside Caius. However, it was the first time she’d woken up beside Caius absent certain pieces of clothing. She had pulled on his sweater sometime in the night when the brisk evening had proven too cold, even with his body acting as her own personal furnace, but she was suddenly very aware of the way his skin felt against her bare legs.
Stravinsky looped as the phone continued to ring, starting the Firebird suite from the top. Echo tried to shove Caius’s arm away, but her efforts met only with a string of incoherent grumbling in Drakhar, and his nose buried deeper in the crook of her shoulder. He hooked his ankle around hers, ensuring her captivity.
“Go back to sleep,” he mumbled. He was awake, but he didn’t bother opening his eyes as he burrowed closer.
“My phone,” Echo said, though her conviction was wearing thin in the face of Caius and his strong arms and his sleepy drawl and his mussed hair. And his everything else.
“Let them leave a message.” Caius’s voice was muffled by her neck, his words warm puffs of air against the column of her throat.
Abruptly, the sound of Stravinsky fell silent.
“See?” Caius said. “They’re leaving a message.”
The phone rang again. Caius swore. Echo wasn’t sure if it was her imagination playing tricks on her or if the strings seemed even more frantic than usual.
Groaning in frustration, she rolled as far as she could toward the pile of her clothes with Caius still holding her. She spotted her phone sticking out of a pocket of her crumpled jeans, the screen blinking with the caller ID. She reached for it, but it was just far enough to be out of reach of her wiggling fingers.
“It’s Ivy,” Echo said. Caius harrumphed something that might have been acknowledgment. His arm loosened around her middle, his hand coming to rest on her hip. His thumb brushed the bare skin there. Echo flushed. The easy familiarity with which he touched her was strange, though not at all unwelcome. She shimmied out of his grasp, but not off the daybed completely, and grabbed her phone. With a swipe of her thumb, she silenced Stravinsky, making a note to delete the blasted ringtone from her phone once and for all. Jasper would probably just download it again. Bastard.
“Hey, Ivy,” Echo said as she brought the phone up to her ear. “This had better be good.”
“Oh, Firebird, I assure you. It is.”
Echo’s blood turned to ice. She sat up, her hand clutching the phone hard enough to make the plastic casing creak in protest. Caius looked at her, his brows raised in question. The hand on her hip stilled.
“Tanith.” On Ivy’s phone. Fury blazed through Echo; power sparked at her fingertips. The connection crackled with static as her grip on the phone tightened, her hand hot with magic. “What did you do to her?”
“Nothing,” Tanith replied, her tone full of false sweetness. “Yet.” Her voice went distant as she talked to someone on the other end. Echo couldn’t make out the words, but they had the air of a sharply spoken command. She heard the sound of shuffling, as if the phone was being jostled.
The noise ceased, and a sobbing breath came through, loud and clear. “Echo?”
Relief slammed into Echo, hard enough to make her lose her grip on the phone. She caught it with her other hand and brought it up to her ear. “Ivy? Are you okay?”
“Echo, I’m here, I’m okay, but it’s a trap, don’t listen—”
The sound of flesh hitting flesh cut off Ivy’s words. The impact had a meaty sound to it, like a punch. Fire flared up Echo’s free hand, licking all the way to her elbow. All thought of control fled as she imagined Tanith striking Ivy.
I’m going to kill you, you piece of shit.
“Enough of that,” came Tanith’s voice. “The little dove is alive and well. For now.”
“If you hurt Ivy—”
“You’ll what? Set me on fire?” Tanith asked, breaking into a short, mad laugh. “Run me through with that little dagger of yours? We all saw how well that went when that sly little fox tried it. I’d even stand still to let you have a go if you wish. See if you can draw blood this time. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? My blood. Come and get it, if you dare.”
Echo pushed herself off the daybed and began fumbling for her clothes. She put the phone on speaker and tossed it onto the cushions as she attempted to pull her jeans on. Caius followed suit, dressing himself in haste. The tangle of denim proved a struggle for her trembling hands and she gave up on the jeans. “What do you want, Tanith? I’m so fucking sick of your games.”
“Isn’t it obvious? I want you, Firebird.”
“Then leave Ivy out of it.” Echo didn’t trust that Tanith was telling the truth, that she hadn’t harmed Ivy. The thought of her in that monster’s clutches—again—sent Echo’s stomach roiling with a wave of fearful nausea. “Let her go.”
“Oh, I intend to,” Tanith promised. “Once you come home.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
The line went dead. The world tilted and Echo’s vision grayed around the edges. She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath, begging her heart to steady itself. Caius had already taken off, summoning guards and raising the alarm. Echo was still wearing his shirt. Power simmered beneath her skin, itching to be let free. Her muscles trembled with strain. It would have felt so good to let it out, to watch the furniture catch flame. To set the curtains ablaze. The need for release surged so strongly, she almost gave in. A flurry of sparks cascaded to the floor, burning holes in the carpet.
Home.
> Not the isolation of Avalon Castle, hidden by its layers of warding and protective spells sealed with Echo’s blood. Not any of the places she had used as hideouts over the last few months in futile attempts to stay safe from the forces that wanted a piece of her.
Home meant only one thing to Echo: New York City. The streets on which she had raised herself. The library in which she had taken shelter. The place that called her back no matter how many times she left it for far-flung lands and exotic locales.
And Tanith was there.
Caius skidded back into the room, now fully clothed. Dorian was on his heels, buckling his sword belt around his waist.
“Echo?” Caius gave her a puzzled frown. She hadn’t budged since he’d left. Every ounce of effort had gone into restraining herself from flying into a blind rage and burning the castle down around her.
Dorian’s gaze slid down to her bare legs and hurriedly up again. He gave Caius a look. Jasper chose that moment to stroll into the room behind them, incongruously blasé. Some of the Avicen at the Icelandic camp had joined them at the keep after Caius’s declaration of a formal cease-fire and Tanith’s revelation that their secret base in Iceland had not been so secret after all. Jasper had been the first to arrive, and his presence at Dorian’s side had caused quite the stir among the Drakharin. Hair-feathers askew from slumber, Jasper followed Dorian’s line of sight. He turned to Caius and said, “Great minds.” He nudged Dorian’s shoulder in what would have been a playful gesture if not for the tightness in his eyes and the hard set of his jaw. His mask was good, but Echo knew him too well to be fooled by it. He was scared.
“Yeah,” Echo said belatedly. The fog of anger thinned as she tried to get her bearings. Pants. She needed pants. And shoes. And a machete to hack Tanith’s head off.
“We have to go,” Caius said slowly, as if he wasn’t sure Echo was entirely present in the moment. Which, she supposed, was fair enough, considering she was standing in the middle of the library on a cold autumn morning half dressed and raining monochrome sparks.
With a brisk nod, Echo pulled on her jeans, singeing them only slightly. Her boots fared slightly better, leather proving far more fire resistant than denim. Control was so distant a possibility it seemed like something she had read about in a book once. She knew it existed, but she wasn’t capable of it. Not just then.
Unconcerned with her audience, Echo pulled off Caius’s sweater and tugged her own shirt over her head. Her dagger had slid halfway across the room when she’d kicked her shoes off the night before. She retrieved it, secured it in its sheath, and tucked it into the back of her jeans. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail with a tie she scrounged up from the lint-ridden pocket of her jacket.
“Ready?” Caius asked. His green eyes were filled with worry. For Echo. For Ivy. Maybe even for his sister. Even after all Tanith had done to him, to them, he’d been harboring the hope that she could be saved, that there was enough left of his sister to salvage. Echo watched that hope die, fully and finally, in Caius’s eyes when he saw the resolution in hers. Echo was not, under any circumstances, going to attempt to save Tanith’s soul. She was going to stop her. For good.
Echo patted the hilt of the dagger to make sure it was secure. She grabbed her jacket and shoved her arms into the sleeves. And with that, the final piece of her armor slotted into place.
“Let’s see if we can make this bitch bleed.”
—
“Echo, wait!”
Caius grabbed Echo’s arm, stopping her in her tracks. She quite liked where her tracks had been leading her—to revenge—and was not in the mood to be stopped in them. She shot Caius her most acidic look, but the grip he had on her forearm did not loosen in the slightest.
She spun around to face him, heedless of the scene they were making. Guards were streaming down the corridor, armor in various states of disarray. It was evening in New York. Tanith couldn’t have chosen a better time to make trouble in the middle of Manhattan; the city would be abuzz with people living active, vibrant lives, blissfully unaware of the imminent peril that threatened them.
“Caius, your maniac sister has my best friend, and I can’t even begin to think about what she’s doing to her.” Echo tried to wrench her arm free, but his grip was absolute. “Let me go. I have shit to do and people to kill.”
“And that is exactly the mind-set Tanith wants you in when you face her.” Despite Echo’s continued and enthusiastic protestations, Caius managed to steer her into an alcove tucked into the corridor, getting them away from the bustle of activity overtaking the keep. Word had spread quickly, and the Drakharin were preparing to head into battle against the person they had hailed as their leader only hours earlier.
“What are you talking about?” Finally, Echo yanked her arm away from Caius, but the simmering intensity of his expression prevented her from going on her merry way to cut out his sister’s heart with her dagger.
“Pain,” Caius said. He pushed up one sleeve, exposing the scars on his left arm. The bracelet of scarring around his wrist was healing—more rapidly than it would have had he been human—but the skin was still mottled an ugly yellow-green, discolored most strongly where the manacles had bit into his flesh. “That is what she wants to inflict, and you’re playing right into her hands.”
The sight of his wounds only added fuel to the fire burning in Echo’s belly. Anyone who could do that to their family—to their own goddamn twin—needed to be stopped.
Perhaps sensing the direction of her thoughts, Caius plowed on, cupping her elbow with his other hand. “Do you remember what I told you about why Tanith had me whipped?”
Echo nodded impatiently. “Yeah. You said it made it easier for her to drain your magic so she could bust open the seals, but what does that have to—”
“What could possibly cause you more pain than targeting the people you love?” Caius interrupted. “What could possibly hurt worse than destroying the only home you’ve ever known right before your eyes?”
Oh.
It made a twisted sort of sense. “You think she wants to suck my magic dry,” Echo said. She closed her eyes, thumping her head against the wall of the alcove with a soft thud.
“Think about it, Echo.” Caius dropped his hand, the gesture oddly helpless. “She has Ivy, but we know she hasn’t harmed her. Not yet. Not severely, anyway. She wants to make you watch when she does it. It’s a solid strategy—force your enemy to play by your rules. She’s chosen the field of engagement, set up the pieces to her advantage. If you charge in there like this”—he waved a hand in front of her, as if to indicate Echo’s very being—“then you’re meeting her on her terms. I know my sister. Playing by her rules is never a good idea.”
“Then what do you suggest?” Echo spoke through gritted teeth. He wasn’t wrong. But he wasn’t right, either. “That I do nothing? That I sit this one out?”
“If I asked you to, would it do any good?”
Echo replied to his question with the answer it deserved. Dead silence.
Caius ran a hand through his hair and sighed. He had his two long knives strapped to his back, their gilded pommels gleaming in the torchlight emanating from the sconces lining the corridor. Dark circles stained the skin beneath his eyes, highlighted by the fan of his lashes as he let his eyes momentarily close.
“I can’t lose you, too.”
The words were spoken so quietly, Echo thought she had misheard him. But when he opened his eyes again, revealing the raw emotion in them, she knew she hadn’t.
“I lost Rose.” His voice was choked, as if he was struggling to get the words out. “And I have lost my sister. I cannot lose you, too.” He shook his head, his hair, still messy from sleep, falling across his forehead.
“Caius—”
“This is your fight.” His eyes bored into hers. “I know it is. But I just—”
Echo brought her hand up to the back of his neck and pulled him down into a bruising kiss. Their teeth clacked together gracelessly as s
he swallowed his small gasp of surprise. She broke the kiss and rested her forehead against his.
“You’re not going to lose me,” she said. “I meant what I said last night. Every word. This war ends today. And after…Well, we have the rest of our lives to figure out what happens next. But one thing is certain: I won’t let her win. We end this.” She gave the back of his neck a gentle squeeze. “Together.”
He nodded, his forehead nudging hers. “Together.”
Furious Drakhar whispering sounded from the other end of the hallway. The firebird making out with the Dragon Prince was probably the most salacious bit of gossip the keep had seen in gods knew how long. Echo was about to pull away from Caius, but he stilled her with a hand on her waist. “Swear to me you’ll be careful.”
She stepped out of the alcove, straightening her jacket and securing the dagger tucked into her belt. “Careful is my middle name.”
Someone called Caius over in Drakhar. Dorian, Echo saw, was waiting at the end of the corridor with a contingent of guards. All were fully armored. Caius spared them a glance before turning back to Echo, a grim smile in place. “That is the grandest lie you’ve ever told.”
Echo shrugged and started down the hallway. She had no idea how they were going to subtly enter New York City and fight a potentially world-ending battle without alerting all of humanity to the existence of magical creatures among them, but she figured the logistics were best left to savvier minds than hers. She had bigger fish to fry. “True,” she said. “But I swear, I’ll be as careful as I always am.”
Caius snorted, adjusting the crisscrossed straps that held the daggers in place. “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
“So much for subtlety,” Echo said as she stared down the barrel of a gun. Floodlights surrounding the ruins of Grand Central backlit the group of soldiers who had the misfortune to find themselves standing directly where Echo and her company had emerged from the in-between. “We really should have seen this coming.”
