“Get away from her!” Orion roared. “We had a deal, you cannot kill her or-”
Lavinia silenced him with a whip of shadow wrapping around his mouth and terror danced through my veins.
I came to a halt in front of Lionel, my hands still raised, but no power sparking in them as I desperately tried to draw magic to the edges of my skin. The eyes of the monster who had caused everyone I loved so much pain gazed deep into my own, smoke slipping from his nostrils and heat radiating from his chest. He was a huge man, at least three times my size when you accounted for all that muscle, but the real danger in him didn’t lie in his bulk, it was the power in his veins and the merciless cruelty he ruled with.
“Is she quite under your control, Lavinia?” Lionel asked again.
“Fully, my King. Her magic is being devoured by the Shadow Beast, there is little of it left at all and my creature has already stolen her Order form away from her. She’s basically a mortal.”
Lionel grinned, his smile taking up all of my vision, the savagery in it promising my suffering. I didn’t give him the satisfaction of trying to run, defiance flaring in my eyes as I held his gaze.
“Good,” he purred. “Mortals can burn.”
I gritted my teeth, trying to tear magic from my well of power, but the Shadow Beast wouldn’t relinquish it. Lavinia was right, I was powerless, and there was no chance of me defending myself.
“Have your false queen order the Shadow Beast to return my magic so I can fight you one on one. Face me like Fae and find out which of us really deserves my father’s throne,” I demanded.
“You don’t know the meaning of being Fae,” he said coldly. “You mother hid you in the mortal world and you were raised with the weakness of their kind burrowing into your soul. You reek of their powerlessness, their pathetic, pointless existence, and the only claim you have is the watery blood of the Vega line in your veins. But your father’s power does not run true in you, his merger with a half-breed whore is clear proof of that.”
“Don’t you dare speak about my mother like that,” I snapped.
“I will speak of trash as it deserves to be spoken of. Your father’s failings allowed fate to collude in my favour. Me. A man of true worth. The dominion of purity and real power is clear for all to see now, and the world will watch you fall, the shroud finally falling from their eyes as you are revealed to them for the pathetic creature you are in your final moments.”
He raised his hand and air magic wrapped around me, binding my arms to my sides as he lifted me above him and lit a fire beneath me that licked my bare feet. I had no magic and no way to escape. Orion shouted out to me through his gag, his fear for me pulling at my heartstrings. I didn’t want him to watch me die, to see me as some weak, almost mortal creature being snuffed from this world without ever being given the chance to fight. But what could I do?
I swallowed my screams for as long as I could, but as the flames rose higher, climbing my legs and tasting my flesh, they ripped free of my lungs, filling the whole room, and echoing back to me from every surface.
Orion fought desperately to get to me, but for every shadow bind he broke through, Lavinia cast another in its place.
Lionel slid his Atlas from his pocket, tossing it to Lavinia who caught it out of the air and did a twirl. “Record this for the press. Let them see what their king does to traitors, let them see that I am far greater than any Phoenix who ever lived.”
“All they’ll see is a coward who can’t face me with my true power intact,” I spat as I swallowed back my screams. “I’m cursed by your queen; she’s the one who has made it even possible for you to face me!”
Lionel sneered, the fire burning hotter at my feet and making more screams pitch from chest.
Orion struggled furiously against Lavinia’s shadow tethers, roaring against his gag in desperation. My heart broke for him, and I wished I could have one last, peaceful moment with him in this life, but it looked like the stars were done with us, our story speeding towards a violent conclusion.
Before the flames could climb any higher, Lionel whipped his hand sideways and I was launched through the air, slamming onto the tiled floor and skidding across it, my head hitting the throne.
Pain exploded through my skull and my vision swum from the impact. The scent of burnt skin filled my nose and I struggled to get up as the Shadow Beast kept me subdued, Lavinia’s shadows running so deep that I couldn’t find any power of my own to latch onto. If I could only dig it out…
“I’ve waited so very long for this moment,” Lionel growled as he closed in on me, a keen buzz of excitement in his voice. “You and your sister have been an irritation for far too long. And now you are going to be the first to be crushed by a power far superior to you.”
“Have Lavinia release me from the beast,” I demanded once again. “Then we will find out who is truly more powerful.”
“Quiet.” His boot impacted with my ribs, and I gasped, having hardly a second to recover before he did it again and again. Bone cracked under the sheer strength of his strikes, and I bit down on my tongue, trying not to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much pain I was in. But the maddened delight in his eyes told me he knew, and he was nearly salivating over it.
With every kick, something shifted in me, power crackling in the deepest regions of my bones. It was there for a fleeting second, and I grabbed onto it, trying to pull it from the grip of the Shadow Beast, clenching my teeth with the effort.
Give it back to me!
With a furious, determined wrench inside me, something gave way and magic tore into my veins. I sent it spiralling out of me before the Shadow Beast could get close to it again, casting every drop of it from my body in an explosion of power. The Element of air blasted from me in a storm, and Lionel was thrown across the room with a yell of shock that made hope flutter in my chest.
I twisted my fingers, hurriedly casting shards of deadly ice blades beneath him as he fell. I could finish this, make it quick and bloody even though he deserved far more than that in death. But at least he would be gone.
He caught himself with a gust of his own air power at the last second, the spikes pressing lightly to his back. I forced them to grow with a surge of hatred cleaving my chest open, but he whipped himself away from them on a breeze that planted him on his feet, a wall of fire billowing out from him and consuming my ice.
I shoved myself upright, hands raised as I ripped more magic from the Shadow Beast’s hold, but the little I gained wouldn’t mould into what I wanted, my hold on it slippery and faltering despite my desperate need for its cooperation.
“Lavinia!” Lionel barked. “Get hold of her this instant.”
“Of course, my King,” Lavinia purred, stepping forward and stirring a maelstrom into the shadows housed within my body. “Feed.”
A scream poured from me as the Shadow Beast started devouring my magic away, its teeth ripping me apart from the inside out.
I retreated around the throne as fast as I could move, dropping down behind it and clasping my chest in agony. The curse fell upon me deeper than ever, and blackness was all I could see. I tried to fight back but the strength of it was unimaginable.
I had to get a grip. This was my chance to finish the monsters in this room, and I couldn’t let it pass me by. Please stars, give me one more fucking chance, if nothing else.
I wasn’t sure if I was going crazy from the dark power that had me in its grip, but I felt something shift where my arm was braced against the back of the throne, and my hand slid into a small, hidden alcove. My fingers fell on cold, engraved metal and I turned it over in my palm, realising it was a small knife, hidden there for who knew how long by some stranger whose choice may just have become my salvation. The handle was made of two silver wings wrapping around a crimson garnet gemstone.
I quickly tightened my grasp, pulling it close to my body just as Lionel rounded the throne, looking down at me in disgust.
My limbs were heavy, and I felt horribly, undeniably mortal as the Shadow Beast finished its feast and I was left panting beneath the stare of the false king.
“Is it done?” he asked Lavinia without taking his eyes from me.
“She will not fight back again,” she promised.
“UnFae asshole,” I rasped.
“There is no shame in wielding another’s power as my own.” Lionel reached down, his fingers knotting in my hair and yanking so that I was forced to look up at him.
I kept the knife hidden against the inside of my wrist as he leaned over me, sensing the air shield that sat tight against his skin and would block any physical attack I made.
“If you’re so big and powerful, then why have you still got a shield up against me? I’m just a mortal in the grip of your shadow bitch, right? You must be really fucking scared of me if you can’t even let your defences down now,” I mocked him and his grip on my hair tightened as he cracked my skull back against the throne with blinding strength, making my vision spin and my ears ring.
“You’re less than mortal; you’re nothing.” He shoved me to the floor, forcing my cheek to grind against the tiles, his weight pressing down through his shoulders. He leaned close, whispering cruel words into my ear. “Your mother was a foreign whore, and your father was a weak-minded Fae who was only great because of me. And I killed them both. I watched the strength fade from their limbs, their magic drained by the Nymphs I brought to their door. I was always the true power in this palace, and now the world knows it too. I will crush you as I crushed them, and then I will hunt down your sister and eradicate the last of the Vega line.”
I cried out at the pain bursting through my cheek, fire flaring under his palm and the colossal weight of him bearing down on my skull.
“That’s enough, Daddy,” Lavinia called. “You’ve had your fun.”
She cast whips of shadow towards us as if to hold him back, but Lionel threw up a wall of air around him, her dark power stopped in its tracks. His eyes flashed jade green with his Dragon, and he bared his teeth, releasing the shield of air that sat against his skin with a smirk. “I am afraid of nothing. Least of all a powerless girl with no fight left in her.”
“I’d rather be a powerless girl than a lonely man in an empty palace. I fought this war for a future I could share with everyone I loved. If you win, you’ll have nothing and no one. Even if I die, there’ll be people waiting for me in the afterlife, but who do you have?”
“I do not need anyone when I have all the power and gold in the world,” he taunted like he was so damn fortunate and I was nothing but an ignorant child.
“You’re a void because you’ve never felt love,” I hissed.
“I do not need love,” he scoffed. “Catalina learned the cost of love when she offered it to some royalist scum. And the two of them paid the ultimate price when I ripped them from this world in blood and glory.”
Pain splintered through my chest at his words, to know that he had killed them in battle. “You’re a fool to scoff at love. It’s the only thing that can fill the void in you. You try to fill that space with all the riches and control you can possess, but it will never be enough. Only family is capable of that. And you cast yours aside. I love your sons, and I love Catalina; they’re the greatest treasures you ever had, and you lost them. Thank the stars you did, because they escaped the monster who tried to bend them to his will. They cut out all the pieces of you that were left in them too. They’re free of you now. Dead or alive. They’re fucking free. And you can never take that away from them. So live your hollow life, and enjoy your hollow death. At least wherever I end up, there’ll be warm arms waiting to greet me.”
“The stars will offer me a golden throne among them when I leave this world,” he snarled.
“I’d choose love over any throne,” I breathed, the pressure in my head causing me unbearable agony.
“And that is why I rule the world and you do not.”
“One kingdom, not the world,” I reminded him, and a bellow of anger left him.
He took his hand from my face, lifting it up and curling it into a fist as he readied to drive it down against my skull, fire coating his knuckles and the power of air swirling around it too. I knew I wouldn’t survive the attack, the finality of my death gleaming in his eyes as clear as day.
Orion was crying out to me through the gag, his love and fear for me crashing through the air, lending me the strength I needed for my final act.
Despite the pain ricocheting through my body, I managed to move. And I had to move fast. I twisted up onto my knees, launching myself at Lionel with a yell of purest hatred spilling from my lips.
The blade was ready in my hand, destined for his eye, one true, furious stab enough to finish him if I drove it deep enough.
Lionel reared back in alarm and my aim was thrown off, the blade sinking into the fleshy meat of his throat instead. Shock crossed his features and I drove the blade deeper, pressing all of my strength into it and carving it through skin and cartilage in a bid to cut some vital artery.
His magic blasted into me, a ferocious wind sending me flying towards the back of the room, where I hit the floor hard and skidded across it in a tangle of limbs.
I slammed into the wall and a snap sounded, all of my pain stolen away as a terrible numbness flowed along my spine.
“Blue!” Orion yelled through his gag, breaking through his binds only to be snared by fresh ones once again.
I tried to get up but found I couldn’t move, paralysed by my injures. I was just able to lift my head to look at Lionel, finding him on his knees by the throne as he ripped the knife from his neck and began to heal the bloody wound.
Failure sank deep into my chest, and I cursed him, the stars, and the Shadow Beast that kept my magic subdued.
“Are you well, my King?” Lavinia cooed as Lionel choked on his own blood, working frantically to fix the damage I’d done.
When he got to his feet, the knife was gripped in his hand, blood staining his shirt red, splashes of it dripping everywhere as he strode towards me with a Dragon’s growl in his chest.
Lavinia rushed up behind him, her shadows still tearing at his air shield as she tried to get closer to him.
“Enough – she is mine. You cannot kill her,” she commanded, but he wasn’t listening.
I looked to Orion, wanting him to be the last thing I saw as the monster came for me. The hurt in his eyes made me bleed inside as he fought his restraints and couldn’t get free.
“I love you,” I mouthed, the words not finding their way past my lips, and he shook his head in utter refusal of the goodbye I was offering.
Lionel grabbed my hair, wrenching me upright and holding me to his chest while pressing the knife to my throat. “I’ll place your head on a spike on the palace wall for all to see,” he whispered in my ear. “Now scream for me until you cannot scream anymore.”
The blade slit my skin and I couldn’t even struggle, the damage he’d caused too much for a mortal body to recover from. It was over, and now he was going to make a vicious, bloody spectacle of my death.
I tried to be brave in the face of the unimaginable pain I was about to endure, thinking of my sister and how desperately I wanted to see her face again one last time, of Gabriel and all the days that had been stolen from us, which we’d never be able to make up for now. I thought of Seth and the friendship we’d found together against all odds, the white Wolf who had made me a part of his pack, of Caleb and Max who had drawn me into their circle of safety, of Xavier, Sofia and Tyler who had created light within the dark, and of all those who had been taken from us too soon. Geraldine, Diego…Darius. I hoped to see them when the Veil parted and let me step beyond it.
Finally, my thoughts fell on Lance Orion. The fierce, protective keeper of my heart. I had known the furthest depths of love with him, I’d experienced devotion unlike anything I had ever imagined before, and we had protected each other for as long as we could.
My only comfort was in knowing that my family would one day find me in whatever form I took outside this life, because they were a part of my soul.
My twin was my other half.
My brother my wings of guidance.
My mate my soul-bound love.
I could let go of this world, so long as I knew we would all be together again one day. I just wished it could have been in this life, not the next.
I waited for death, but death didn’t come. It took three eternal beats of silence for me to realise Lavinia had broken down Lionel’s air shield and his arms were made rigid by the power of the shadows, holding him back as the knife hovered against my neck.
“Release me!” Lionel bellowed and the whole palace shook from the ferocity of the noise.
“You cannot have her death while she is bound to the curse. I have deals to uphold,” Lavinia growled. “You had your playtime with her, now you must let her go. If you need a kill, there are still rebels in the amphitheatre dungeon.”
“I am your ruler,” Lionel snarled, his arms shaking as they clung to me, fighting the intensity of her power, but he couldn’t get free. “You will release me this instant.”
“I will do as I please.” Lavinia flicked a finger, a coil of shadow plucking the knife from Lionel’s hand and relieving me of the pressure against my neck.
It was drawn to her side, and she bound it in place there, caressing the weapon as she claimed it for herself.
Lionel was forced to release me, his huge body dragged away from me by the shadows and without him holding me up, I crumpled to the floor again as broken as an old doll. I tasted blood in my mouth, but I didn’t care because it only reminded me that I was still here, impossibly alive.
I turned my head enough to watch Lionel be dragged towards the throne room doors, curses spilling from his lips as he battled Lavinia’s power but he couldn’t get free. “Unhand me!”
Lavinia drifted after him, weaving left and right through the air. “You still owe me an Acrux heir, my King, have you forgotten that?”
A tense pause passed and when Lionel spoke again, it was with an inflection of fear I had never heard in his voice before. “No, I have not forgotten. There is little time for such…pleasures these days.”
She pressed him back against the arching wooden doors, tracing a finger under his chin.
“You never play with me anymore,” she said with a pout. “You don’t look at me the way he looks at her.”
“Who looks at who? What are you talking about?” Lionel demanded, though there was an undeniable quaver in his voice that made my heart race. Holy shit, was the asshole Dragon afraid of Lavinia?
“The Vampire and his Vega,” she spat, fury lining her words. “If you love me, then why do you not touch me anymore?”
“We are at war, Lavinia,” his voice softened to something sickeningly placating, his muscles bulging against the shadow restraints around his arms. “There has not been time. Now, why don’t you have some fun with our prisoners while I check to see that Stella is on her way here? She can make a new rift within these walls, somewhere the rebels will never reach, something to strengthen you again.”
Silence stretched for a moment before Lavinia replied, the air bound with a tension so thick that I could taste it. Their allegiance was not the thing of unbreakable dominion which Lionel had been trying so hard to pretend it was. Their hunger for power was the only true thing binding them to one another along with Lavinia’s insistent desire to claim what had been promised to her so very long ago. An Acrux king, and an all-powerful Heir.
But what would happen if she lost faith in those desires? What might happen if she opened her eyes to the way Lionel was using her for his own good? I may have hated the shadow bitch, but there was one thing about her which could just be the key to taking that bastard down, because as insane and awful as she was, she held more power than him. She could win if they were ever pitted against one another, and if there was some way to get her to do so, then all the better for us. One less psychotic tyrant for us to take down ourselves.
“Very well,” she agreed finally, but I could tell she wasn’t entirely placated by his words, some lingering disquiet rooted within her.
“Opening a rift takes time, remember?” Lionel added and there was something so sickeningly sweet about his tone as he worked to soothe her, a mask slipping over his features which made me wonder if he had manipulated our father in much the same way. “You will have to be patient.”
“I can be patient, Daddy.” Lavinia floated up to kiss Lionel on the lips, his relief a palpable thing as she gave in to the lure of his words, but then she opened the doors and tossed him through them like a sack of shit before slamming them shut in his face and locking them tight.
I tried to move, my muscles trembling as Orion called to me in terror through his gag. I opened my mouth to assure him I was alive, but I was finding it harder and harder to do anything at all. My heart was slowing to a dull thud and as I stared at my mate, the world grew dimmer. Had he just witnessed what I had? Would he be able to find a way to use that to help win this war? Because as a seeping coldness crept through my body like a dark tide, I began to think that perhaps I hadn’t avoided death after all.
The love I held for that man blazed through the centre of my being, hotter than the deepest regions of the sun.
I would love him here and now, tomorrow and always. Wherever I went, wherever the stars took me, that love would never die. Even if I did.
