Maray’s breath caught. She wanted him to close the gap. She would do it herself. Too many times had she denied herself what she had known all along. That he was right for her. Just right.
The sound of crackling flames made Maray jump. And as quickly as the sensation had gripped her, it was gone, her mind able to focus on the source of the sound.
Jemin cursed beside her, and she turned just in time to see a familiar shape emerge from the flames, which hadn’t been there a moment before.
“So, what exactly did you think was going to happen, Princess?” Gan Krai said by the way of greeting.
His question was as unexpected as his sudden appearance. Then again, Maray could have thought that he might return. And even as a projection, he couldn’t harm her—physically—but he could do horrible things to her mind just by threatening the ones she loved. And he knew it. Maray could tell by the way he stared at her, then at Jemin, and back at her, that he knew. “That he would kiss you? That the broken monster would overcome his inner conflict and declare his love?”
But a snarl interrupted him before he could set foot out of the flames. And a laugh. A dark laugh. And only when she felt Jemin’s gaze on her did she realize that it had been her.
“My love and who I declare it to are none of your business,” he told Gan Krai coldly.
It was there in his posture, in his eyes, that he’d claimed Maray, and it had given him a new strength, a new determination. And there, inside Maray’s chest, a flicker of defiance burst into flame.
“Go to hell!” she yelled at the warlock, rage breaking through. Too long he had been hiding, scheming in the darkness, manipulating her people, her ancestors, her family, the ones she loved.
But Gan Krai chuckled, his white hair floating from his projection as if he was walking on clouds. “Manners, Princess. Manners.” He measured her expression for a moment, apparently completely unconcerned with Jemin who was shaking into his Yutu form. “Or should I remind you that it is I who holds the power to destroy your people?” He chuckled again, a deadly sound this time. “Or have you forgotten what is happening outside those palace walls? Has your desire for the shifter distracted you so much that you’d rather pretend there is no problem?” Maray’s blood was boiling. “Or is it that you have given up?”
And Maray’s blood went silent. He didn’t know. Gan Krai didn’t know. He hadn’t noticed the others sneaking into his hideout. She sent a quick thank you to whoever was watching over this world and stepped forward, suddenly having a mission of her own.
Beside her, Jemin growled, his head lowered to the height of her shoulder—this time in an aggressive crouch, coiled to leap at the projection, even if he’d sail right through it. But he didn’t stop Maray, sensing what her intention was.
If she could distract Gan Krai long enough to give the others a chance to rescue Corey…
“So, what about that proposal?” she asked bluntly to the effect of a wince from Jemin.
Gan Krai pulled his lips into a curve that looked almost civil. “You are reconsidering?”
“No,” Maray clarified. “But I want to know why you think I would be such a great choice for you.” Her words surprised herself. She wasn’t the blunt debater. Her nature was diplomatic. That was what her parents—especially her father—had brought her up to be. And yet, as danger stared at her in the face with crimson eyes, daring was what she felt was the right way to go. Not hiding from the monster but challenging the monster.
Gan Krai locked his hands behind his back and casually strolled forward until he stood less than a foot from Maray. She stood her ground. And with a fleshless finger, he reached out and stroked across her cheek, pushing Jemin into a wild howl. But what was Jemin to do to a projection? Gan Krai was as safe as they were. So Maray let it happen, the warlock’s finger on her cheek, then on her jaw, until he stopped under her chin, leaving nothing more than a trail of ice on her skin. “If it were for your beauty alone,” he whispered, “You’d be a prize worth pushing lands into misery.”
Maray shuddered at his words more than at his phantom touch.
“But even if you were ugly as a toad, it would be worth it.”
Maray swallowed a lump in her throat and stepped out of his touch, closer to Jemin, who glanced at her with a pained expression. She turned back to Gan Krai if only to avoid Jemin’s gaze.
“Then, let’s be grateful I am not ugly as a toad. That means others might deem me worthy of the same thing.” Her own words hurt because she knew they were true. Others would give their lives for her and go to war for her. It had already begun the second Gan Krai had started ambushing her people. And the shifter at her side, the one who had claimed her, the one who should be her lover and her friend would give up all of it just so he could spearhead an attack. She had brought war upon Allinan by her mere existence. Even if it had been Rhia’s bargain, it was Maray who was alive now—and she who had to pay for it.
An amused sound came from Gan Krai’s direction, making Maray’s hair stand on her neck. And she knew he understood her warning.
“So why are you doing it,” Maray asked, forcing her eyes back on Gan Krai’s handsome face, teasing to buy Heck and Seri and the others time. “Why can’t you let me and Allinan be in peace?”
She studied him as he dug for a response. It was true. He was incredibly good looking had it not been for those eyes—those crimson, cold eyes. Two fiery portals right into hell. “Only my wife gets to ask such questions.” He chuckled, eyes cunning as he bore right into her gaze. “And since you won’t do me the honor—” He fake-pouted, and his ivory cheeks glowed with firelight. An image worthy of nightmares.
With another deep breath, Maray pushed herself over the edge and held that demonic glare, forcing a calm expression onto her own features. Sara was going to help her with the council. Jemin was there beside her, and Heck and the others were on their way to rescue Corey. She had nothing to fear. At least not from the projection. And so she found her mother’s daughter within herself and let her lips curve upward. “You are a bastard. A small, power-hungry piece of vermin.” Her dagger pulsated in response as she lay her hand on the hilt, ready to threaten an image made of air and magic.
She eyed Gan Krai, ignoring Jemin’s growls and pacing as she drew the dagger.
Gan Krai barked a laugh. “You really don’t get that you can’t hurt me through this projection.”
But Maray knew. She relied on it.
“Why don’t you come fight me? Just me. Instead of shedding innocent lives, diverting your attention from the one thing you want—me.” She flashed her teeth, Jemin probably doing the same beside her, judging by his snarls. But she didn’t dare look. Her eyes were on Gan Krai, her enemy, as if she saw him for the very first time. “Fight me, coward. Fight me like a man.”
Gan Krai’s laughter turned into icy silence. The deadly type of calm that lays in the eye of a tornado. Maray raised her dagger, power surging through her. “Oh, we will have our dance, Princess. Sooner or later. But until then—” Gan Krai indicated a bow and turned on his heel before Maray had a chance to thrust her weapon into the illusion.
“You hold no power here!” she roared after him. “This is my castle, my fireplace, my Allinan, and you have no place here.”
Gan Krai vanished, and all he left behind were dying flames and emptiness.
“He could come back any time,” Jemin pointed out, having shifted back into his human form and making Maray jump as he laid a hand onto her arm. She blew out a breath and nodded.
The castle was safe, and it wasn’t. If Gan Krai could walk in any time he wanted, just by a mere projection, no conversation, no moment was safe.
“We might need to consider I relocate to somewhere less…” She searched for words. “…exposed.”
Jemin nodded and rubbed her upper arm gently and urgently as if in his mind, he was already herding her out the door. “Say the word, and I’ll take you there.”
“Pen’s.” It was easy. There was no o
ther place she felt safer than at Pen’s cabin.
Before Maray could worry about details, Jemin was roaming the room, pulling out clothes and stuffing them in a bag. He paused as he reached her underwear drawer and turned to her, a mischievous smile playing on his lips despite the concern that hadn’t left his face. “Really?” He fished out something midnight blue and lacy, looking as devious as a boy taken by teenage-hormones and not one bit an Allinan soldier.
Maray crossed the room in two strides and tore her panties out of his grasp, hiding a blush. “Yes. Jemin. Really.” She flung the item on top of some sweaters into the bag and took it from him. “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen a girl’s panties.” Offense was the best defense. And since Gan Krai, she was on a roll.
Jemin laughed, but a flash of unease crossed his face as he turned too slowly to not be deliberate. And it dawned on Maray that it had to be the exact opposite. He’d been with Seri. Everything she knew about their history pointed in that direction. With Corey. And thinking back to her very first encounter with Heck, where Jemin had left her in his room under Heck’s surveillance—Heck had indicated that he was used to cleaning out Jemin’s bedroom—
A sudden knot formed in her stomach, making her crave space more than anything. “I’ll get my toiletries.”
Jemin didn’t follow her to the bathroom as she snatched the basics from the shelves and placed them on top of her underwear.
“Are you ready?” Jemin’s voice sounded through the half-open door, a new layer of worry weaving into his words.
Corey
“I will do anything to protect the Alliance,” Corey heard herself say. It was the one-millionth time, or maybe two.
Beside her, Oliver’s voice droned the same sentence as if answering a question she was trying to ask but couldn’t remember.
“I will do anything to protect the Alliance.”
Why again was she here? How had she gotten here? Somewhere, deep inside her memory, there was a bright light that didn’t let her fall into the dark pit that opened up inside her brain.
“I will do anything to protect the Alliance.”
Oliver had mentioned something earlier. Something about a queen…
“I will do anything to protect the Alliance.”
And Feris? Where was Feris? Hadn’t he spoken about leaving? Going somewhere…
“I will do anything to protect the Alliance.”
Corey raised her eyes enough to let her glance sweep the back of the room. Between the splinters of wood, over twenty young women and men were kneeling, repeating the same sentence.
“I will do anything to protect the Alliance.”
Who were they? The red-eyed master had said ‘brothers and sisters’. Something stirred inside her chest. She didn’t have brothers or sisters. She was adopted. Why again was she here?
“I will do anything to protect the Alliance.”
Her gaze flickered to the front, where a hooded man was marching from wall to wall. He wasn’t familiar, but his uniform… Hadn’t she seen that type of uniform before?
The man stopped, his glare hitting Corey as if he was wielding a whip, and she snapped her gaze back to the front of the room.
“I will do anything to protect the Alliance.” Her words came out delayed from the rest of them, a murmur rather than a proclamation.
Beside her, Oliver twitched, acknowledging what it meant to not fall in line. Corey knew, too. The cold-eyed man at the front of the room would not only use his gaze this time but unleash his fury on her physically.
She ducked and braced herself for the pain, and it came… almost exactly at that same moment.
Oliver winced as she tumbled to the floor, struck by an invisible fist, her jaw grunting under the impact. But he didn’t dare turn and help her up. Nor did the others.
Something in the dark depths of Corey’s mind screamed at the wrongness of it but was quickly silenced as the man in uniform pulled her back to her knees with the same invisible force, bringing back memories of stories she had been told years and years ago. Stories of a wicked breed of demons who resided in the other world.
“I will do anything to protect the Alliance.”
A crash and a blinding light as it flashed through the room brought Corey back to the present.
“Stay where you are,” the man bellowed and dissolved into smoke under his uniform, his body no longer tangible but a deadly conglomerate of particles.
Corey obeyed, too frightened of what the invisible hand may do if she didn’t. But the light. And the sound…
Then they stumbled in. Master Feris followed by people she thought she should know but couldn’t remember, swords raised over their heads or before their chests. Two teeth-baring Yutu, one with ginger fur, one with fur black as night, and behind them…
Something in Corey broke as she laid eyes on the young soldier with the horrified eyes. She was drawn to those eyes as if they were holding her lost memories. As if they were all she would ever need to get out of that haze. “Corey.” He mouthed her name as if she was supposed to know him.
Who was he? Who were they?
The smoke made a sound like mice running on glass shreds, and Corey knew that whoever those strangers were, their time had run out.
Like dust mites, the demon whirled forward, attacking the party on the threshold without warning. And as they prepared to defend, none of them stood a chance. Their swords sliced right through the smoke like what it really was—smoke. Not flesh or bones.
Oliver flinched again. This time as if something inside of him was breaking apart—breaking free. He darted to his feet, reaching to his side, and grabbed thin air where he had been expecting a sword. He cursed.
While the two Yutu and the other soldiers had spread through the room, their eyes wearily assessing the kneeling crowd as they tried to narrow in on the smoke, which was now hovering at the front of the room again, the soldier with the compelling eyes hesitated long enough before stepping in that he didn’t realize the invisible hand, which was curling around him, made his sword move forward, dangerously close to the ginger Yutu.
“Watch out!” one of the intruders called. His face twisted, and the others winced as the beast leaped aside and the blade missed its flank by inches.
Corey’s heartbeat accelerated as if deep down a part of her was anxious for the Yutu—as if she knew the Yutu. And as she stared at the soldier who was struggling to get out of the invisible grasp, she knew she had been right. The demon’s hand had been leading his sword, not the soldier himself.
The only reason Corey knew it was the demon’s invisible hand was because she recognized that look of horror from her ‘brothers and sisters’ when that same hand grabbed them and made them hurt each other if they didn’t obey commands.
And right in the middle of the room, Oliver was standing, surrounded by the attackers, as was Corey, and the others. But none of them showed fear except for Oliver, who seemed to have broken free of the demon’s command.
He glanced down at her, something in his face different, rebellious. Was he out of his mind? The demon would hurt him…
“Help me,” he whispered to the side as the smoke meandered through the room, searching for his next target.
From the corner of her eye, she noticed a bronze skinned boy with a black ponytail inch closer. Her stomach lurched as she debated whether or not to alert the smoke. But the decision was driven by the desperation in Oliver’s eyes. He hadn’t asked her for help but the boy who was sneaking closer. He wanted to get out of there. And something in Corey’s guts told her he was right.
The demon hadn’t reacted to Oliver’s disobedience, his focus held by the growling Yutu that were now circling him as if they could catch him with a snap of their razor-sharp teeth. They were fools to believe they could. Nothing but magic—pure and strong magic—could defeat a demon like that, she remembered, and the haze in her mind lifted just a bit. Enough to know that she wasn’t here by free will. Her eyes darted up at Oliver who w
as anxiously staring at the approaching soldier then considering the too-short distance between him and the demon.
Out. They needed to get out of there. And take as many of the others as they could with them.
Corey turned and found the boys and girls on the floor with vacant expressions as if their minds weren’t their own. As if they weren’t truly there.
The clash of steel against steel ripped through her ears, and she was on her feet, too. Her hand not searching for a sword, the way Oliver had, but searching for something deep inside of her that Gan Krai had told her no longer belonged to her—her magic.
She gave a tiny nod to Oliver, ignoring the dance of the intruders with the smoke, and raised her hand in front of her, readying herself to strike.
But who?
Who should she strike? The boy who was now almost beside her with his chocolate eyes hopeful for whatever reason? Or the beasts that were keeping the smoke busy? Or the soldier on the threshold, who seemed to be frozen to the spot, terrified of using his weapon out of fear it would be led toward his companions?
Or was the enemy something else? Was the demon the enemy?
Corey hadn’t thought about that for a long time, almost as if someone had switched off her critical thinking. All she knew was that she was a weapon for the Master to wield. And her magic belonged to him.
But did it? Did it really? She tested the pooling heat in her palms against the dry air and watched a mirage dance on her open hand, and she knew then that she had been lied to. Her magic was still her own. At her disposal. Not his. Gan Krai’s. Who was Gan Krai again?
She shook confusion from her mind when the haze threatened to return with a light touch of smoke as it glided across the room.
She had to…
It burst out of her. A wave of magic. Uncontrolled and brutal as if it aimed to eradicate everything within reach. From the corner of her eye, she saw someone hitting the floor. There were screams and the shattering noise of wood and glass raining down on them. Shards landed in her hair and in her open palms.
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