"I didn't get a vision," he choked out through his laughter. "You've just got my star sign tattooed on you." He fell to pieces, roaring with laughter as he pointed at the tattoo and my jaw dropped.
"You fucking what?!" I lunged at him, shoving him off of the desk and landing on top of him on the floor. He continued to laugh while I punched him and my rage soon gave way to amusement as I fell apart too.
"You asshole, I'll make a feathery fucking hat out of your ass," I growled, the threat only half-hearted.
Gabriel abruptly stopped laughing and I pushed myself up to look at him, finding his eyes had unfocused and his expression was blank.
"By the stars," he gasped as he jolted out of it. "I've seen her before. I know where she is."
"What?" I stilled.
"Mariella," he announced, pushing me off him and helping me up. He stumbled a little and my thoughts crashed into one another as I held him up.
"Where?!" I snarled, my heart in my throat, my head spinning. Fuck fuck shit fuck.
"I'll take you there. I have stardust. But, oh fuck wait-" His eyes went blank again and I growled impatiently. He blinked out of it, a frown pulling at his brow. "You're not going to like this-"
"What?" I snapped.
"We need Dante to come with us."
"Fuck no," I growled.
"He's the only way to get to her. He'll help, I've seen it. Any other way and we'll trip the magical detections. She'll run and we'll never find her again. Dante has to break them."
I stalked back and forth in front of him, aware that we were wasting time with this knowledge in my grasp. But he was telling me straight and I couldn't pass up this opportunity. If Inferno had to come then fucking fine.
I let my anti-venom run into my blood, encouraging my Order gifts to take back over and within seconds, the haze lifted from my mind, the alcohol no longer affecting me. My teeth sharpened to points and I grabbed Gabriel's arm, sinking them into his flesh before he could object. He hissed in surprise and I bathed in his pain for a moment as his blood danced over my tongue, then I released him and he took a long breath, running a hand through his hair.
"Oh shit," he breathed as he sobered up, looking to the tattoo I'd branded on myself because of him. "Oh shit..." He glanced up to meet my gaze. "Oh-"
"Shit?" I finished for him. "We need to go." I shoved him toward the window and he started climbing out.
Before I followed, I headed to the far wall and reached through the bricks into the secret compartment there which I’d covered with a powerful concealment spell. I grabbed a blade I kept there wrapped in a leather sheath and leaned down to strap it against my lower leg. It had cost a fortune to acquire it, but Mariella had carved up my body with one similar. And I had vowed to myself countless times to offer her the same courtesy. Sun steel was one of the most valuable materials in Solaria, and amongst the few things that could scar a Fae. Just like my venom could.
I climbed out of the window, finding Gabriel giving me a curious look which I didn't answer. Campus was quiet and dark so I wasn't too concerned about being seen with this asshole, but I pulled my hood up all the same and cast a thick shadow around us as Gabriel led us to wherever the fuck Inferno was. I wanted to refuse to let him come, the idea making my skin prickle. And who knew why the fuck he'd agreed in Gabriel's vision anyway, but if the only way to get to Mariella included him then I had to suck it up.
I was going to let Big Bird do the talking and try to focus on what mattered most. Because my heart was already thumping to a hungry beat as vengeance called to me like music on the breeze. It was the only music I'd given my attention to in the longest time, the beat thumping through me incessantly, begging me to find her, destroy her. And at last, I might finally sate the monster in me who craved her blood, her screams, her death.
We made it to the boathouse on the shore of the lake and Gabriel began to lead me inside, but I felt a magical barrier stopping us from advancing.
“Dante, let us in!” Gabriel called and a second later the barrier dropped and I headed in with him.
Everflames in little jars sat around the space and I stopped walking as I saw Elise and Dante sitting upright in a boat together which was bobbing in the water, a blanket pooling in their laps. They obviously weren't in the middle of fucking at least, but the sight of them together set off the rattle in my chest.
"What the fuck?" Dante growled as Elise looked between me and Gabriel. Her gaze settled on me and she pushed to her feet, jumping lithely out of the boat.
"What's wrong?" she asked seriously, obviously catching on to the fact that I wouldn't be standing within the same breathing space as Inferno if I didn't have a damn good reason.
"I've seen Mariella," Gabriel told her then looked to Dante. "And I've seen that we need you to reach her."
My fists clenched tightly as I forced myself to look at him. Dante fucking Oscura. Gabriel had said we needed him, that he’d help. But why would he help me? Even if he had banished Mariella, that didn't mean he was going to let me kill her. But Gabriel hadn't said a word about Inferno coming with us willingly, so if I had to drag him there half dead and begging for mercy then so fucking be it.
Dante climbed out of the boat to stand beside Elise, his bare chest telling me exactly where their meeting in this little fire-lit fucking love shack had been leading.
Elise gripped Dante's arm before he could say a word, giving him an intent look. "You'll go, won't you? Ryder deserves that. No matter what’s between you two personally."
Dante's face was calm, but a deadly creature lurked beneath it. He was contemplating this scenario, working out every angle to see the best way to play it. I knew that because it was how I worked. How you had to work when you were responsible for a lot of people. His actions tonight could affect them all, and as they were family to him too, it meant he would protect them before anyone else. That was where we differed. I calculated my moves with a cold indifference. His were clouded by emotion.
"It's the only way?" Dante asked Gabriel, not looking at me as thunder grumbled somewhere in the sky. Gabriel nodded and Inferno released a long breath. "Then let's go."
"Just like that?" I snarled, my instincts telling me not to trust this piece of shit.
Inferno's eyes met mine and he nodded once. "Il sangue è dovuto. Ti aiuterò a ripagare questo debito perché è giusto. Non c'è un motivo più importante di quello.”
"What does that mean?" I growled.
"It means I'll help," he said firmly.
"Then let's go," Gabriel said, taking a pouch of stardust from his pocket.
Dante frowned at it. "Where did you get that?"
"I bought it." Gabriel shrugged and Dante's eyes remained narrowed.
Elise strode toward me, reaching out to lay her palm over my heart where the mark she’d branded on me lived. "I promised I'd be at your side when you killed her, Ryder. If you want me there, I will be. I want to see her hurt for you. I want to see the look in her eyes when she sees the man you've become. The beast she should never have laid a hand on, and who marked her death the day she did."
I pushed a lock of hair behind her ear, focusing on nothing else but her in that moment. My light, my girl. I'd been so clouded by the need to run to Mariella and rip her from this world, that I hadn't realised how important it was that Elise went with me. She grounded me, made me hope for a future that wasn't endlessly dark. And after tonight, maybe that future would shine even brighter than before. "I couldn't do it without you, baby."
She smiled sadly, threading her fingers between mine as we turned to Gabriel. "Ready?" he asked.
I nodded, my heart turning to coal, my veins running black with hate. Tonight, I would be Mariella's nightmare, the creature she had no doubt feared would come back for her one day. Her final hour was counting down, the stars were shining on me tonight and it was her time to be thrown into the dark.
Gabriel tossed the stardust over us and we were pulled away into an expanse of glittering galaxies which spr
ead out for an eternity in every direction. But no world mattered more than this one tonight. I sensed the stars were leaning closer, watching, eager to see what I'd do. And I wondered if they were as bloodthirsty and vengeful as I was.
My feet hit tarmac and I tugged Elise closer as I gazed around at our surroundings. We were in a motel parking lot beside a pick-up truck, the place quiet apart from a few toads croaking in the long grass on the verge between here and the road. Faeflies buzzed around the porchlights which illuminated a long row of rooms bordering the lot.
Gabriel looked to Dante with a frown, his breath fogging before him the cool air. "There's a detection spell at the border of the porch. Only Oscuras can walk through it undetected, but that means you can also get close enough to break it."
"Guess she expected me to come back and welcome her into the Clan again one day," Inferno said hollowly. "And I guess her stupidity has equalled her death now." He strode away without looking at me and I tried to ignore the tugging of my chest, the gratitude lining my fucking stomach as he made it to the porch and started breaking the spell.
When Dante had severed it, he beckoned us over and we moved casually across the lot, looking like a group of Fae hoping for a bed for the night as I slung my arm over Elise's shoulders and kept a disinterested expression on my face. But inside was a storm that could have rivalled the one living in Inferno's flesh. And it was about to be unleashed.
I cast a silencing bubble around us and Gabriel took the lead as we caught Dante. We walked beneath the porch together, passing door after door as flashes of my past made my rage escalate.
She’d manipulated me, tortured me, fucked me. She’d made me think I was nothing, had made me obey her, bow to her. She was the reason I lived between pain and lust, the reason those words were branded on my knuckles, the reason I was fundamentally broken at my core. All because of her. I’d been moulded into this vicious creature, but I was finally breaking free of the construct she'd built around my mind. Elise had been the catalyst for that and I loved her more deeply for it every day. I was remembering who I was and discovering who I could be all at once. I was learning what parts of me were real and which were a result of Mariella.
Gabriel stopped walking and raised his palms, a heavy white glow emitting from them for a moment. "There are powerful concealment spells a few feet from here. We need everyone to break them.”
Me and Elise moved to stand beside him, raising our hands as we wielded the energy in our veins to try and break the force somewhere ahead of us. Dante appeared beside me, lifting his hands too as he helped and I glanced at him out the corner of my eyes, wondering why he was really doing this. It didn't benefit him in any way that I could understand. But I wasn't about to complain, not when I could practically scent Mariella's blood on the air.
A ripping noise sounded and my power pushed through some barrier ahead of us before crashing into another one. Within a few more moments, our combined power tore it all down and a door appeared that I hadn't noticed before; the porch light was out above it and the spells had been hiding it in the dark. Number seventy seven. My destiny called to me beyond it.
"She's all yours," Gabriel said darkly. "I'll keep watch."
"Me too," Dante said, his eyes crackling with electricity. "Spero che questo ti renda libero, serpente." He walked away and though I didn't know what he'd said, I felt the power of the words down to my core, simmering there.
"I'll be with you if you want me in that room, Ryder." Elise lifted her chin with strength burning from the depths of her eyes. "I want to see her pay."
A chill rippled down my spine and I pulled her close, kissing her like I was saying goodbye forever. And maybe I was, because when I entered that room, I would change. I'd be rid of my demons for good. And maybe then I'd be able to become a Fae worthy of Elise's affection.
I didn't need to say a word, my answer already given as I towed Elise up to the door. I unlocked it silently with a wooden pick I created in my palm and pushed it wide. Mariella was sitting at a table across the room beyond the bed. Everything was floral patterned and clashing, but it was about to be redecorated in red.
She was eating her dinner, her dark hair hanging down her back over the sweatshirt she wore. It angered me that she'd lived here in peace while the crimes of her past went unpunished. But it satisfied me to know she'd been afraid too, forced to cower here in this shitty motel room. I must have haunted her in her sleep, her death lurking in her eyes whenever her mind conjured me. She must have known that I'd find her eventually.
I flicked my fingers fast and vines snapped around her, dragging her to the floor. As a scream exploded from her lips, I pushed my silencing bubble out around the whole room. I forced her hands together and wrapped them so tight that she couldn't cast a single drop of water magic in her defence. I continued to bind her until she was immobilised and a sweet satisfaction blazed through me. She writhed on the floor and I strode forward, staring down at her with a twisted smile on my lips.
"R-Ryder," she spluttered, terror etched into her scarred face, burned by my venom when I’d shifted for the very first time.
I crouched down as she wriggled before me at my mercy, taking the sun steel dagger from the holster around my lower leg and holding it up so she could see it. "You told me once that I was nothing," I hissed, the urge to shift eating at me as I gazed down at my enemy. This witch who'd cursed my life. "I'm here to show you that I am everything, Mariella. Because I am your death."
"No!" She wailed as I picked her up, tossing her on the bed as she fought against her binds. Elise watched from the doorway, a cold hatred in her eyes as she stared at Mariella with her upper lip peeled back and her fangs on show.
I tore my shirt from my chest, tossing it aside, ready to coat myself in her blood. I wanted her to see my scars, I wanted her to remember each of them as I branded my own into her flesh.
I climbed up to straddle her, tearing her sweatshirt from her body and slashing the knife across her collar bone. She screamed as it burned and I wrapped my hand around her throat as I forced her down into the mattress, but loosened my grip enough so she could speak. I wanted to know what this whore had to say when she saw me now, no longer a boy but one of the most powerful men in Alestria.
"I always knew you’d come," she choked out, a manic laugh escaping her. “You’re the monster I made. You’re exactly who I wanted you to be.”
“Fuck you,” I spat.
“You prove to them every day why they should destroy every last one of you!”
I smacked her, shoving her face into the sheets as I hissed. “You may have made me a monster, Mariella, but you made me your monster.”
“I’d happily die to keep the war going, to ensure my people survive long enough to win. Felix will gut you all and the Lunar name will be forgotten. There’ll never be another chance for peace.”
“What do you mean another chance?” I growled, wondering if this bitch was spouting nonsense to try and stall her death.
She laughed again, that cold laugh tugging at memories deep inside me. “You’ll never know the truth. And if you’ve come for an apology from me, you’ll have to prise it from my dead flesh.”
I leaned back and stabbed the blade into the side of her thigh, making her scream so loud it nearly busted my ear drums. I fed on her pain, drinking in every last drop as it healed some long broken piece inside my chest.
"You think I want an apology?" I scoffed, leaning close so I was all she could see and the fear in her eyes was euphoric to witness. She may have spoken as if she wasn’t afraid, but the terror in her face was clear. I'd waited so long for this and finally - finally- I had her. "I want to hear you beg and plead just like you had me doing when you first took me. I want to hear my name screamed while you bleed for me, and when it's almost over, I will hear you sob and pray to the stars that they have a place for you amongst them. But I promise you now, there is only darkness and pain waiting for you beyond this life. I will bargain with the stars mys
elf to ensure it."
I slammed the blade deep into her leg once more and she shrieked wildly.
I soon bathed in her screams, her pain, her blood soaking into the bed, painting my skin. I sliced and severed and maimed until she was choking out the apology she swore she’d never give. But it meant nothing to me.
I pointed out each of my scars, made her relive each one she'd carved into me before carving it into her in penance. And when I had her severed tongue in my hand and she was choking on her own blood, I cut her heart from her chest and ended it once and for all.
When I had it in my grip, I used my magic to turn it into dirt and let it trickle from my fist amongst the blood.
I stared down at her, panting and frozen in place as her lifeless eyes still held a sea of pain in them. I was free of her at long last, my binds breaking apart and I sagged forward with the crash of relief that rolled through my chest.
A soft hand pressed to my shoulder a moment later and I turned, finding Elise there with tears in her eyes. She guided me to my feet, gripping my cheeks and staring deeply into my eyes.
"You're free, Ryder," she swore, leaning up and kissing the blood from my lips. "And you’ll never be bound again.”
I growled darkly as I pulled her close, deepening that kiss until I half considered fucking her against the wall bathed in the blood of my enemy. But I wanted to wash this bitch from my flesh, not paint her onto Elise's skin. Once that was done, there was no way in hell she was leaving my sight tonight.
She led me from the motel room and I didn't bother to look back. There was nothing behind me anyway. No one there who mattered. And no one who would ever matter again.
I jolted awake at the sound of the bedroom door slamming and my heart leapt as I lurched upright, finding a pissed off Lion standing over me with a towel wrapped around his waist and his bare chest beaded with water. His golden eyes were alight with fire and he was practically snarling as he glared at me.
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