One by one, the souls moved forward and vanished until I stepped back, allowing them to pass without saying anything. I let them touch me to bless their passing, and Thanatos accepted them to their eternal rest. I stared past the dead to where a ghostly figure surveyed me; beside her was the Stag in his male form.
The crowd hushed around us as I glared into the eyes of the one creature I’d been hunting before they slid to my mother, who regarded me through angry, burning eyes. An uneasy feeling wrapped around my throat, clenching my stomach tightly until I swallowed it down.
Flowers still rained down around us while my feet took root where I stood beside Thanatos. This was Danu’s fault for leaving us with the mess she’d created of her marriage. I opened my mouth to speak, but she reappeared before me, placing her finger over my lips.
“No, Mother,” I whispered angrily, my gaze holding hers in challenge. “You did this to us. You damned us to die by letting Bilé into this world!”
“Synthia, I created this world in his image. The deadly beauty within Faery…It is him. You cannot destroy Bilé without killing Faery. You have to find another way. I brought you help to do just that.”
“Help? I needed help when your husband was slaughtering my people! You brought me here to save this world, to save the people. You created me to anchor the beast, and I did. You created me to save the world, but I can’t! You didn’t bring me here to save Faery. I was brought here to save Bilé, and I will not save that monster! He has taken from me and this world. He cannot be saved. He will destroy us all.”
“You cannot destroy Bilé, Synthia. He is stronger than you and filled with rage. I lost my way with him. He grew jealous that I spent my time creating this world for us to love and rule over.”
“Yeah, well, there’s no love within that heartless prick anymore. He’s trying to kill me. You get that, right? He killed Ristan’s mate! He murdered the entire fucking Blood Court, Light Court, and Dark Court, in case you haven’t been brought up to speed.” Crossing my arm over my chest, I glared at my mother, accusingly.
“He’s resetting the world.”
“Yeah, is he? The only court left standing is this one! Footnote, Mother,” I hissed angrily. “It’s mine. I will destroy Bilé before I allow anyone else in my court to die or fall to that bastard.”
“Change his mind,” Danu pleaded. “Bilé is not unreasonable.”
“Did you go deaf or dumb when you died, mother? Because you’re not hearing me or what I am telling you! He’s trying to kill us! He’s slaughtering entire castes of fae as he skips across Faery.”
“Then give it to him,” she stated. “If you cannot reach him, give Faery to him. Leave,” she said icily, something sinister burning in her gaze. “Without him, there is no Faery. I made you the goddess of the people so that you could protect them, so either let your anger for him go and try to reason with him or leave this world. Bilé can be reasoned with, but only if you can forgive him his rage. Meet with him alone and see what happens. Hear him out and give him a chance to explain what is needed for him to end this war.”
“Why would you create me for a destiny that I cannot fulfill? Why give me something to love and then tell me to walk away from it? I don’t understand how you could be so fucking cold. You gave me a world to fight for and love, and now you expect me to stand witness as everything is being destroyed by your estranged husband?”
“Oh, sweet girl. All the greatest love stories have one thing in common. You have to go against the odds to get it, and you never stop fighting to keep it. You have to fight and want to fight because you love it enough to endure the pain. Anger is useful, wrath is powerful, but rage is devastating. You are grieving, and so is Faery, but there’s no balance here. You have to finish the task you started.
“You have to do what I asked, or Bilé will never stop destroying Faery. Create a balance, and you’ll know what to do to save the people and Faery alike. Let your rage out, little daughter. Let it out to play so the world will sense your power and bow at what you are to become. You are holding back because you think you can hold on to that little sliver of humanity. You are not human, nor are you fully a goddess until you destroy that part of yourself. Let the world hear you scream and watch it answer your cry for help.”
“You know you’re asking the impossible,” I whispered angrily, studying her face for any sign of betrayal.
“No, I created you to be brave in the face of destruction. I created you to dance in chaos as if it was no more than rain. I built the most beautiful mess of pandemonium and devastation that any world has ever known. Stop thinking like a human and think like a pissed-off goddess who just got her ass kicked. Buckle the fuck up, Synthia.
“You’re just getting started here. Finish what I told you to do so that you have what’s needed to soothe the grieving man ripping this world apart. Just don’t kill Bilé, or you destroy Faery and everyone in it, which includes your children. I have to go now, but I will be around soon enough. I brought you the Stag because he was the first thing I created in this world after the Tree of Life was planted. I am proud of what you’ve become. We all have to find where to plant our roots on our own, Synthia. If you can’t figure out where yours belong, Bilé will be more than willing to help you, I’m sure.”
I stared at Danu’s hand as Thanatos held his out to her. My heart raced as she placed her hand into his. He lowered his mouth to her hand, brushing his lips against the skin of her knuckles with a soft kiss. Her words echoed through my head as I creased my brow, uncertain what the hell she’d meant by her last words.
“She looks just like you, Danu. Though she is a lot less conniving and jilted.” I tilted my head, watching the tension in Thanatos’s body language.
“I know, she’s my daughter,” she smiled proudly. “What else would she be, other than perfect?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The brothers were sitting around the table, lost in their grief. Others mingled about, passing around ambrosia to those who had remained long after the funerals had ended. Lena and Lucian sat together, silently speaking with their eyes.
Callaghan studied Erie, who was on her third bottle of alcohol, while she talked to her sisters. She’d pause every once in a while, arguing with them or laughing loudly. Vlad sat quietly, taking in the details of what had happened, staring at us as we filled him in on the appointment of new kings and who we’d lost during the battle.
“So, Bilé just walked through the wards and killed them?” Vlad asked, moving his gaze between us as we nodded. “How is that even possible?”
“I think, since Danu created Faery around him, he’s immune to fae magic. There’s nothing about this situation that makes sense. One minute she’s telling us we have to kill him, and the next she is informing us we can’t, or Faery will die without him.”
“Who took the souls?” Vlad asked, and I blinked.
“Thanatos,” I admitted, frowning.
“Why the fuck would a god from a different pantheon come to collect the dead fae?” His silver eyes studied me carefully.
“Thanatos said it was to rebuild the walls of Hell, or so he explained when he first appeared.” I shrugged at his narrowed gaze, rubbing my eyes as exhaustion weighed me down.
“All life is supposed to return to the Tree of Life,” Vlad said softly. “However, it doesn’t seem to be accepting new life, and isn’t receiving the dead, either, if Thanatos was called in to take the souls of the fallen.”
“Maybe it isn’t working the way we assumed.” Ryder’s deep, somber tone resonated.
Vlad and I turned to look at him, and I frowned, watching the exhaustion play over his face. He had gone to war only to turn around and rush back here to protect us. Not being able to reach us in time was weighing on him. Ryder blamed himself for failing to be here or foresee the outcome. He wouldn’t admit it, but I knew
that’s how he felt—or worse, he held me accountable.
Savlian sat alone, staring at the glass in front of him as Zahruk studied him. I stood up, smiling at Ryder when he reached for me.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” I lied, smiling tightly before I moved across the floor to Zahruk. “You. Spit it out.”
“Fuck off, Synthia,” Zahruk snapped as he reached for the bottle and poured himself another drink.
“No, I won’t. You have yet to speak since you returned.”
Ignoring me, Zahruk knocked back the amber liquid and refilled his glass. When he realized I wasn’t going anywhere, he glared at me. “You know, I liked you better when you didn’t like me.”
“That’s not true. You blame me, don’t you?”
“I blame myself, Synthia. I lost my brothers, and I hurt Darynda. I hurt her because I couldn’t stop myself. I fucked her hard like she was nothing more than a fucking whore. I didn’t hold back because I needed her to see me, to know what I liked when I fucked. She followed me around with those beautiful, vivid green eyes, thinking I was some kind of fucking hero. So when I saw her outside the feeder room, watching me take feeders with her wanton gaze, I pushed them away and beckoned her to me.” Running his hands through his hair, Zahruk leaned over and rested his elbows on his knees as he stared at the floor.
“She had no idea what I was like because I’d shielded her from the truth. I bent her over and fucked her, and worse. I shared her with Cailean.” Lifting his head, he glared at me with a haunted expression. “I wasn’t gentle like she deserved. I wanted to hurt her so she would finally move on. She took it because she wanted me any way she could get me. I made her come for me three times before I pulled out, and when I did, I fucked her virgin ass without mercy and spread her creamy thighs for Cailean to destroy her wet flesh as it was leaking my cum. I hurt her on purpose to make her hate me. What the fuck you got to say about that?” he demanded through gritted teeth.
I slapped him hard across the face, watching his glowing sapphire eyes slowly come back to me, and I hit the other cheek harder than the first. “Feel better, asshole?”
“I hurt her!”
“Yeah, you’re an asshole. Darynda was aware of it, but she was also in love with you. She had the choice to walk away. Darynda knew she could say no to you at any time. All she had to do was tell me, and it would have ended. You and I both know that. I’d have kicked your fucking ass to defend her. She told me you fucked her, and that you were rough.” Dismissing me, Zahruk leaned against his elbow on the table and put his hand under his chin as he poured another drink.
I knocked his arm out from under his chin, and he turned to glare at me. I let him see my disappointment, and he looked down at the table. Sighing, I put my hand on his arm, forcing him to meet my eyes. “Do you know what you’re going to do now? You’re going to shut the fuck up and never tell another person what you did to Darynda. Let her go to her eternal slumber with her fucking dignity. Keep her image pure and untainted by what you did to that beautiful soul who was in love with you.”
“I can’t,” he growled.
“Why, because you didn’t get to say you were sorry for what you did to her? She knows you’re sorry, Z. She fucking knows it,” I whispered thickly.
“I wasn’t in control when it happened, and I don’t lose control, ever! I am never the one to lose control. I thought it was just another fucking nightmare. Do you have any idea how close you came to being bent over next to Eris?” Zahruk looked over his shoulder to Ryder, who was lost in conversation with Vlad. He looked back at me with panic in his eyes as he whispered, “I wanted to bend you over that table, spread your pretty thighs wide, and take what I needed from you. I wanted to feel you clenching around me, to know what it tasted like to lick your flesh after you came.” He clenched his fists and lowered his voice to a hushed growl. “You’re my brother’s wife and the mother of his children, and I’d die before I ever did that. I’d end my life before I betrayed him, but the fact that I even thought of doing it makes me sick.”
“You’re such a romantic asshole, Zahruk.” I winked at him and reached for his hand, but he pulled it away from me.
“Something is wrong with me and has been since I entered the Kingdom of Nightmares.”
“Yeah, you’re a fucking perverted prick.” I studied him and replayed what he had said as my worry intensified. Plagued with nightmares? Or was he plagued by guilt because he could be a seriously fucked up asshole when he wanted to be? I bristled before slowly shrugging it off.
“Synthia, something inside of me is wrong. I have endless nightmares, but I don’t wake from them. It’s like I’m living them, and when I do think it is just another nightmare, it isn’t. Like Darynda, I assumed I was dreaming. What the fuck could it have hurt to have her in my dreams? It wasn’t real, so sharing her sweetness with others within a dream couldn’t have hurt her, now could it? She wouldn’t get attached, and there I could teach her what I was. The fact was, it wasn’t a fucking dream, and it’s too late to say I’m sorry. She died believing she meant nothing to me. She deserved better, and to know what it felt like to be with someone who wanted her.”
“Because you didn’t?” I cocked an eyebrow because I knew there was a part of Zahruk that had cared about Darynda, or he wouldn’t feel this kind of remorse.
“I wanted to fuck her,” he admitted, pushing his fingers through his dark hair. “I fuck hard, and I destroy when I do. I claim and mark them, and she was too pure for that. She was a maiden when she slipped into my bed, and I had no fucking idea. I wasn’t gentle then, either, as I pushed through her untried flesh, marking it as mine. It wasn’t mine to claim. She’s pure. She was pure.”
“And now she’s gone. She didn’t die a virgin, and she could have told you and Cailean no. It has been a rule for a while now that my handmaidens were off-limits. I think she wanted to be in that room, to know what it was like, but she didn’t like it.
“She said you found her and used her, and that you were rough. She wouldn’t have gone back, and she didn’t say more than that to me. Darynda never spoke of what you did, or anyone else involved. You will keep that to yourself because screaming it to the world does her no good.” Nodding, Zahruk reached for the bottle to fill his glass, but I caught hold of his arm. “If you ever do that again to hurt someone, I will remove your penis, and only give it back to you once a month to feed. Feel better?” I smiled tightly and then turned toward the door as the alarm sounded.
Erie nodded to the Raven Guard that fanned out, vanishing into the shadows as they searched for the threat. Lucian stood, stretching and cracking his neck as Bane, Devlin, Spyder, and another male I didn’t know joined him. I moved to Ryder’s side, nodding as he held out his elbow for me to accept as we started toward the battlements.
“You think it’s the mages?” he asked as his brothers and the other guards who trailed behind us.
“I don’t think they’d be stupid enough to come back already, but I don’t intend to underestimate them again.” I shivered against the heat his arm offered and stiffened my spine as we started up the staircase to reach the battlements.
On the wall, we stared out over the funeral pyres that continued to burn, sending ashes into the starlit sky of Faery. A midnight flag flew with the crescent moon and stars flowing around it. I studied the tallest male rider and the surrounding females that remained close to him. My eyes drifted to the black armor they wore, which blended into the night.
“What flag is that?” I asked cautiously.
“It’s the Court of Nightmares,” Ryder answered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I summoned them to answer the marriage contract before the first wave of mages marched toward the Winter Court. Bloody hell, the arrogant prick has bad timing.”
“And the flag behind the Court of Nightmares, which court’s fla
g, is that?” I inquired, watching the troops moving closer with their russet-colored armor bearing leaves on the shoulders. “Oh, look, the Summer Court is coming, too.”
“That’s the Autumn Court,” Ryder corrected.
“Look behind Autumn Court. Winter is here already. The lesser courts are coming, Ryder. And they’re wounded,” I noted, watching as the back of their numbers came into view with wagons full of creatures lying or sitting wherever they’d found enough room. “Open the gates.”
“Synthia, we’re at war,” he growled.
“Not with them, Ryder. Faery is in trouble, and it is leading them here. The Stag sent out a call-to-arms and named our stronghold as the gathering place to amass the troops. He also requested that the gods and goddesses congregate within these walls, along with whatever the hell Lucian is, which not even the fucking Stag knows. This is the safest place in Faery.”
“Lucian is older than the Stag,” Ryder shrugged as my gaze narrowed.
“I’m fucking Batman,” Lucian growled beside my ear, sending a chill up my spine.
“I’m not fucking Robin, dick. I don’t wear fucking tights.” Spyder folded his arms over his chest, daring Lucian to argue that fact.
“No, you just dance to one-hit wonders for pretty girls,” Lucian teased.
“I got Lena back. Not even your dick could do that, brother.”
“You two done?” Ryder asked, and when they continued to glare at each other in silence, Ryder nodded at the guards to raise the gates and allow the lesser courts into the sanctuary of the stronghold. “We will need a bigger fucking courtyard.”
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