Dark Alpha's Fury, page 23
Gemma nodded. “I completely agree.”
As soon as they touched her, Eilish clicked her silver finger rings and teleported them to the island. Thankfully, Shara was still there.
“That was quick,” the Fae said.
Esther shrugged. “It was Dublin.”
“You didn’t look for Aisling?” Shara asked.
Eilish shook her head and eyed the other doorways. “It was pointless. If Aisling had chosen that door, she would be with the Reapers battling Lena, and Ulrik would’ve alerted me.”
“Ah. Good point.” Shara glanced at the doors. “One in seven chances now.”
Eilish looked between Gemma and Esther. “One of you want to pick this time?”
“Not really,” Esther said.
Gemma walked around the stones that designated the doorways. She stopped in front of the doorway opposite the one they had taken. “This one.”
“That one, it is.” Eilish gave Shara a pointed look.
The Fae nodded somberly. “I know what to do. Just be careful.”
“Remember,” Esther said as the four of them gathered before the door. “No magic.”
Eilish took a deep breath and stepped through the doorway.
“Impossible,” Lena said, her voice breaking as she gawked.
Xaneth ignored her words and advanced on her. Instead of meeting him head-on as she had before, she lurched backward, her feet tangling as she kept her hands on the wall as if to hold herself up. Then, she spun and ran.
Xaneth paused, surprised she was fleeing. “You can’t run from me, Lena.”
He had her scent. There was nowhere she could hide on the realm that he wouldn’t find her now. Xaneth followed her, though he didn’t run. She was going in the opposite direction of the exit, which meant she had nowhere to go.
Xaneth followed the reek of her wickedness. He found her with her back against a wall, facing and watching him warily. He studied her in confusion. While there had been a trace of fear before, she shook with it now. Why had she run from him now and not before?
“You don’t know, do you?” she asked in a shaky voice.
He quirked a brow. “What is it you don’t think I know?”
“What you are.”
That brought him up short. A part of Xaneth, the old part, the one that had longed for a family and revenge against Usaeil, yearned to discover what Lena knew. But the new part of Xaneth couldn’t care less.
He grinned slowly. “Your time is up. Nothing you do or say will stop what’s coming.”
“You’ll never fit into the Fae world,” she said hurriedly. “Not now.”
Not now. Those words went through him like sharp needles of ice. Aisling’s face filled his mind. He’d known. All along, he’d known the truth. But it was Lena’s words that made it real, tangible.
He didn’t know what the Dark saw, and it didn’t matter. The beast wasn’t within him anymore. He was the monster. Xaneth couldn’t reverse anything now if he wanted. And he didn’t want to. Lena had to be stopped. The Fae Others had to be ended, once and for all. He would do that. From the very beginning, he’d recognized that the responsibility fell to him.
Lena blinked, disbelief making her jaw go slack. “You’re going to give up everything. Just to kill me?”
“I’ve always questioned why I wasn’t killed with the rest of my family. Now, I know. For this moment.”
Lena shook her head. “This isn’t possible. It can’t be. You can’t be,” she stated, her voice pitched higher as panic took her.
“But I am.”
Heat consumed Xaneth. It was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. It didn’t hurt, didn’t sting. It felt good. Right. He’d found his quarry. And he was about to seize what he’d been sent to secure—her life.
“Nay!” Lena screamed and attempted to dash to the side.
Xaneth watched it all in slow motion. He caught her around the neck as he had when he’d teleported them to the maze. But the fire dancing along his skin caught his attention. Lena flailed wildly to get free, but he held her easily. The flames on his arm moved toward her, seeking. She screamed and clawed at him, but he felt nothing, heard nothing.
The instant the blaze touched her skin, it engulfed her. He perceived her skin burning and the agony on her face, but he was utterly unmoved by it. She had taken countless lives for power, and the fire burned the ill-gotten magic out of her.
Finally, she stopped moving. But she wasn’t dead. Xaneth still felt life within her. Her head lolled to the side, and her lids lifted so she could look at him. Her charred lips moved. He could have discerned what she said if he wanted, but he didn’t care. He had done his duty.
He contemplated leaving her in the maze for a decade or two in her current condition. That would make him feel better. Yet Xaneth wouldn’t. He had to finish things.
“For all your conniving and preparation, you never planned for me,” he told her.
Her eyes went wide with fear right before he snapped her neck.
Xaneth didn’t move until all that was left of Lena was ash. He released a sigh of relief. A glance down at his body showed that fire still danced along every part of him. It was a beautiful red-orange with occasional green and blue tips. He didn’t know how it had started or if it would stop. He loved the feeling of it moving across his skin. It was like the softest caress, tinged with warmth and unimaginable power.
He looked once more at the ash that had once been Lena and turned on his heel. As he made his way through the maze to the exit, his mind locked on the one thing that mattered now—Aisling. Dread filled him. Xaneth started running. The walls passed in a blur, the red arrows mere dots that flashed as he ran. He scaled the wall to the exit with barely a thought, then busted through the door above and launched himself onto the isle.
“Easy, Xaneth.”
His head snapped to the side at the male voice to find faces he recognized. It took a moment for the names to register in his mind. Cael, Erith, Eoghan, Balladyn, Rhona, and even Ulrik and three other Dragon Kings. Xaneth shifted his gaze to the eight doorways now. Lena must have added the others. And there was only one reason for that.
“Lena?” Cael asked.
Xaneth ground his teeth together. He was tired of speaking about her. He needed to find Aisling. “Dead.”
“Eilish, Gemma, Darcy, and Esther went to find Aisling,” Ulrik told him.
Xaneth noted the Dragon King’s stony expression for the first time. He was worried about his mate. As he should be. Lena’s traps were horrendous.
“That one leads to Dublin,” Balladyn said, pointing to the door to Xaneth’s left.
Ulrik jerked his chin to the doorway to Xaneth’s right. “My mate went through there. So, that’s where I’m headed.”
“Nay.” The word was out of Xaneth’s mouth before he knew why. His gaze swung to Erith. “Leave. All of you.”
“We’re here to help,” Death said.
“No one is going to tell me no’ to go after my mate,” Ulrik stated angrily.
The three Kings behind him nodded in agreement, their expressions daring him to say anything. Xaneth turned to the doorway to Dublin. Tearing down a Fae doorway made by another was notoriously difficult. Xaneth stuck his arm through and fisted his hand. Then he turned his fist upward. There was a loud crack. He yanked back his arm right before the entire door collapsed.
“Fek me,” Eoghan murmured. “How is that possible?”
Xaneth glanced toward the door the Druids had used. He turned to it and put his hand on the outside of it. Xaneth felt the magic it took to create the doorway rushing beneath his palms, something that had never happened before. Then again, he was no longer a Fae. The man had become the monster.
Ulrik said something behind him, but Xaneth didn’t pay attention. Hopefully, the others would keep the Kings out of his way. Xaneth closed his eyes and let the flames move from him to the doorway. There was a jolt when his fire merged with the magic of the door. It might have felt good except that Lena’s lingering stench remained.
Xaneth set his jaw and stepped one foot through. He turned to the side and leaned across the threshold to peer into the other side. He instantly recognized the sound of water dripping and the dark walls of the maze. Movement caught his attention. He turned his head and saw three bodies rushing toward him.
Eilish was the first to get to him. Her smile was shaky as she greeted him. He saw the way her eyes lingered on the flames. Xaneth focused on the fire, willing it to vanish. To his surprise, it listened. Smoke wafted around him while the tips of his fingers glowed like embers.
“We’re very happy to see you,” Eilish said.
He pulled her back through to the isle, and Esther, Darcy, and Gemma followed. Once they were safe, Xaneth backed out and demolished the door.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ulrik and Eilish embracing. Emotion caught in Xaneth’s throat as he thought of Aisling. There wasn’t time to think about what she would do when she saw him. He had to find her first. Xaneth made his way to the next doorway when Cael stepped in front of him.
“Move,” Xaneth replied, his gaze locked on Cael’s purple eyes.
Cael calmly said, “Let us help.”
“If you won’t allow us to go with you, then let us stay here in case you need something,” Eoghan suggested.
Ulrik walked up with Eilish. “We’re staying to help.”
Xaneth lowered his eyes to the ground before looking at Death.
“Tell us what you need,” Erith said.
Gemma hurried forward. “We found Aisling’s clothes and boots.”
Xaneth frowned at the news, his heart clutching painfully. There was only one reason Lena would take Aisling’s clothes—to make her suffer.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Xaneth lost hope with each entrance he went through without finding Aisling. He stepped away from the next door as it vanished. That made five destroyed in all. His heart was heavy as he turned to the remaining three. So much time had passed as he searched. He hadn’t entered the previous doorways alone, and he had to admit that he was thankful for that.
Even if he hadn’t wanted his friends to remain.
There was no way he could’ve conducted the search that quickly on his own. Still, the search was taking a toll on all of them. One of the last doorways had brought them to Big Ben in London. The other two had been more of Lena’s prisons. The first, a desert with an unending sandstorm that would’ve blinded them to returning had it not been for those who still stood half in the doorway. Xaneth had used a rope around his waist to get back to the door after he’d searched long and hard for Aisling.
The last doorway had led them to the middle of some vast ocean with an enormous monster with seemingly endless tentacles that tried to yank them down into the dark depths. They had fought their way free without magic, but it had cost them precious time—time that Aisling didn’t have.
Xaneth shoved his wet hair from his face and glanced at his friends. They were as winded and exhausted as he was, but he wasn’t going to stop until he’d located Aisling. He’d promised he would find her, and he wasn’t going back on that. No matter how long it took.
What no one mentioned was what would happen if they couldn’t locate her. Xaneth might have demolished the doorways, but he could rebuild them to continue his search if he had to. Just one more fact that he knew without any way of explaining it. He looked to where the doorways had stood. Aisling was smart. She wouldn’t have ventured far from a door had she walked into the desert prison or the ocean. And if she had remained near the door, why hadn’t she walked back through?
Those questions ran through his mind in a continual loop with only one answer: She wasn’t in those places.
Xaneth clung to that thought like a lifeline. He shook the water from his face and turned to the next door. The others got into position behind him. After the argument about who would go through the doors first, no one had tried to take that position from him. He swallowed as he looked at the purple doorway.
Please, let Aisling be there.
He held onto the sides of the entrance and poked his head through to look. The sight that greeted him left him speechless. Night drenched an abandoned metropolis, the crumbling ruins stretching before him as he stood high above it. There was no moon and very few stars in the inky sky, but he didn’t need light to spot the mass of wraithlike specters swirling over the city.
They were bluish white in color with a defined upper body that trailed to a billowy gown. He saw their arms and long, spindling fingers. He made out different faces and their long hair, where the ends trailed off into mist. But they moved quick as lightning. At the moment, their focus seemed to be on one location in the city as they funneled toward it, some diving before returning to the sky and doing it all over again.
One of the specters noticed him and came his way, its black eyes bright with excitement. It opened its mouth and let out a deafening scream that called others to it. Xaneth watched the being race toward him eagerly. Then he smelled them. Evil. Pure malevolence. Heat instantly suffused him as flames erupted along his body. The apparition jerked back in terror and quickly floated away. Others followed suit when they caught sight of him.
Xaneth ducked back through the doorway and turned to his friends. “I go in alone.”
“What is it?” Eoghan asked.
Xaneth described what he had seen. “They’re afraid of me. I have to go alone.”
“After what we’ve experienced so far, I don’t think that’s wise,” Erith said.
He held her gaze. “I think Aisling is there. If these things fear me, they’ll stay away. I have to get to her quickly. And before you argue that you could hold your own, remember that Aisling is a Reaper. I have no way of knowing if she’s injured. She’s far from the doorway.”
“Why did she travel so far?” Balladyn asked.
Xaneth thought of that drop. “The doorway is suspended high above the city.”
“Surely, she used her magic to get down,” Ulrik said.
Erith shook her head. “Not after the maze.”
“I know she didn’t,” Xaneth said and then told them what had happened after he and Aisling had first come to the tiny isle and she wouldn’t use her magic.
Cael glanced at the door. “She could be injured.”
“Exactly. I have to go for her now,” Xaneth stated.
Eoghan held up the rope from before. “If you won’t let us come with you, we can stand at the door. Give a couple of hard tugs, and we can pull you and Aisling up.”
Xaneth raked a hand through his wet hair to get it out of his eyes. “I’ll be back as quickly as I can.”
“You have ten minutes before we come after you,” Balladyn warned.
Xaneth nodded and faced the doorway. He whispered Aisling’s name in his head before stepping through. He teetered on the edge as he attempted to gauge the distance. Then he jumped. The wind whipped around him as he plummeted. He held his arms out at his sides and kept his gaze focused on the ground as it rose to meet him.
He didn’t use any magic to slow his descent. Xaneth landed with both knees bent and his hands on the ground. Dust billowed around him from his impact on the cobblestones. He slowly rose and looked upward. He couldn’t see the sky clearly for the number of specters above him. He did make out the door and the rope his friends had tossed through that now dangled near him.
Xaneth turned to where the spirits converged and ran toward them. Many of the apparitions dove his way, but they quickly rushed back when they saw him. He tried to grab a couple of them, but they were too far away. He ignored them and wove through the buildings, cutting across roads and racing down narrow alleys.
With every pump of his arms as he ran, came the certainty that time was running out for the woman he loved.
“Aisling!” he shouted as he ran. “Aisssssling!”
She squeezed her eyes closed at the sound of Xaneth’s voice. This wasn’t the first time she’d heard him or the Reapers. But his voice hurt the worst because she had long discovered that no matter how quickly she answered or how fast she ran toward the sound, no one was there. No one had come for her.
Aisling covered her ears and curled into a ball on her side. Thinking about Xaneth, remembering their time together, was too painful. It was better if she forgot him—and her feelings for him. It had been wrong to think that he would be able to find her. There were eight doorways for him to choose from. And that was assuming he hadn’t gotten trapped in one. She should be able to get out of this herself. She was a Reaper, after all.
Or she had been.
Had they forgotten her? Replaced her? She had left them to search for Xaneth. Her team, her family. How could she have so easily walked away from them like that? She squeezed her eyes closed tightly and tried not to think about how much it hurt that she hadn’t been there to witness the Christmas season with them. She had heard all about it, and she had sworn to be there for the next holiday. She wouldn’t, though. Because she was never getting out of this place.
Should she attempt magic to get to the doorway? Did she dare such a thing? Surely, enough time had passed for the battle. She inwardly winced, thinking about not being there for her family. Again. The one thing she was sure of was that Xaneth could and would defeat Lena. Aisling wished she was there to fight alongside him. She could only imagine the battle would be epic. Lena would likely try all kinds of things, but nothing would work against Xaneth. That brought a smile to her lips.
It made her think about the monster Xaneth had spoken about that was inside him. She suspected it would help him take Lena out. No doubt the Reapers were alongside him, as well, and had witnessed everything. Even though Aisling had known using herself as bait would keep her from her family, she didn’t regret the decision. She might not be standing with them on the battlefield, but she had contributed in her way.
If the battle were over, perhaps they thought her dead. She felt halfway there. Hopefully, Lena was already dead. If so, then any magic the Dark used should have faded by now. That meant Aisling could use magic without fear of Lena stealing from her. She could teleport to the doorway and walk through it.
