by Laney McMann
I coughed, clearing my throat, not only from the released pressure against my trachea, but from the emotion clogging it up, making it hard for me to speak. Justice had heard my thoughts. How in the hell? Still staring, he took a step back, away from me, and glanced toward Sam, a questioning glance on his expression. Sam grinned with a quick shrug.
"MacKenzie, I asked you a question," my father repeated. "Is this act not punishable by death?"
"Yes." I tore my stare from Justice and Sam to face the King. "Attacking the one you swore to serve is punishable by death. As is threatening." Just ask Ryan.
Elethan smiled. "Well, then, please." He made a flourishing motion with his hand. "Show us what you are capable of. Let us be done with those who are not loyal to the one they serve."
I steeled my posture, unsure how to proceed. "Justice didn't swear to serve me, he owes me no allegiance. He's broken no oath."
The King's brow furrowed. "He is your angel as are all the angels. An oath has been broken."
I shook my head, eyeing him, not wanting to say anything more, but I knew if I didn't, the King would have Justice killed. "Justice ..." I let out a breath. "Justice is loyal to Layla." I glanced at Sam, who gave a curt nod in agreement. "He's broken no oath by attacking me. He's only proven his worth to the one he serves today. He's proven his worth to her for over millennia."
Elethan's eyes widened, and he bowed his head, shoulders slackening before he straightened himself with an intake of breath. "Very well, I see you have withheld information from me, valuable information as it were." He motioned toward the guards closest to Justice. "Take him."
I didn't even think before my hands opened. A blast of air swept through the massive room, surrounding Justice within a vortex, holding the guards away from him.
Justice grinned, gaze on me.
Clasping my hands into fists, I realized what I'd done, but not quickly enough.
Shit.
The King's jaw tightened.
"I ..." No words came.
"You—you are protecting him!" Elethan's face turned blood red. "Take them all to the cells," he commanded. "Samuel, too. Then bring me the girl. I do not care what condition she is in as long as she is still breathing."
"No—" The castle rocked, shuddered, loose stones falling to the ground.
My father turned on me. "You deceived me. You will fight the girl," he seethed. "Or you will watch your friends die before you, and the girl will suffer a slow and painful death—her entire Realm along with her." He motioned toward the double doors in the entry way. I followed his gaze. Blood drained from my face, leaving me ice cold.
Two guards held Layla, meaty hands wrapped her throat. Her feet struggled to find their footing, inches off the stone floor.
Justice broke through the vortex and took off, speeding toward Layla in a blur of black wings. Sam was behind him just as fast, hurling guards into the stone walls like struck bowling pins.
"Fight the guards off, any of you," Elethan yelled. "And they will snap her neck."
Sam stopped where he was.
Justice held his ground, hands up in surrender. "Let her go. You can have me. I caused this, just let Layla go."
A guard wrenched Justice's raised arms behind his back with enough force to break them. Layla kicked out, squirming, her wide-eyed gaze toward Justice, but he didn't try to go to her or move any closer. Neither did I.
"You have been toying with me, Son," my father said. "I wondered. Someone as strong as yourself ... perhaps the poison administered to your veins would not meld. I knew it was a possibility, but you seemed to take to it and quickly as well. I had hope, but it seems that hope has faded. You are indeed a Tuatha Dé, as you told me. These ... fallen angels—gargoyles, are your friends, not your servants as they should be, and this girl, coerced or not, holds your heart."
Layla's eyes widened further, and as I allowed myself to truly stare at her—in her face for the first time in days. The color of her eyes threw me. One green, one light blue. Two different people residing in one body. The Morrigan hadn't lied. Layla and Teine—the first Teine. The one who'd died forever ago. I averted my gaze without responding to my father—I couldn't say anything to him. Couldn't deny the way I felt or lie to Layla's face, again. I glanced away from her as quickly as the motion betrayed my true want.
"Take the girl to the arena," my father ordered. "MacKenzie as well. The Battle begins now." Elethan turned toward me. "You will fight, or I will kill her. You or me—that is your choice. Either way, the girl dies." He marched across the room, black robes billowing behind him. "Gather all of my son's angels from the cells," he ordered.
Cells?
"Then line the Guard up along the Tuatha Dé gates. We are going in."
"No!" My hands opened, dust and debris kicked up, the entire castle swayed. The remaining guards converged on me, wrenching my arms back.
"I gave you a chance!" My father whipped around. "You betrayed me. Continue to fight my guard and the girl will die here! All of her people will pay the price for your treachery. Take him." He disappeared within the bowels of the Keep.
16
LAYLA
The second I laid eyes on Max, I went into some sort of shock. None of my senses were working correctly. I couldn't fight or think. The real Max—without any guises, black hood, bruises covering his face and neck, or hollowed dark eyes—stood across from me, and I knew I'd been lied to. Instantly remembered the words that had played inside my head when I'd been unconscious in the Otherworld's Infirmary.
'No matter what happens, Lay,' he'd told me. 'Never stop believing in me.'
Hearing Max's words repeating in my head, I couldn't understand what anyone else was saying in the massive room, and I didn't care. My gaze was glued on him. Even with the Fomorian guards gripping my neck, I didn't care. They could strangle me. Choke me out. At least I knew the truth. Max wasn't one of them. Never had been. Justice had been right. I was both relieved and furious. He'd kissed Ana. Kissed her, as himself, as Max. My blood boiled at the memory of his head tipping back to meet her mouth, his lips brushing over her painted pink ones.
I saw red.
Heat puddled down my arms, under the surface of my palms, the itch of feathers crawled across my shoulder blades. The whole deal was a charade. He'd had pretended to have gone over to the Shadows, and I didn't know why. Why he was willing to face off with me in a battle to one of our deaths ... It made no sense, and I tried to focus on that—the reason he'd done it, knowing there had to be a good reason. But my consciousness was fading, the iron grip of the Fomore guard clenching my throat, my feet dangling off the ground. My focus wouldn't hold on anything rational, and only the heat traveling through my veins kept me conscious. All I could concentrate on, and see, were Max's eyes, flicking to mine every few seconds, his hand gripping the dagger slung at his hip, knuckles white. His words from days before rattled in my head—him telling me it was over. The same dark tendrils I'd seen the night before, when he'd killed Ryan, climbed his neck, the underside of his jaw—his Oghams. They were fighting for him, helping him.
I didn't understand why he'd trapped me in the Underworld, allowed me, lured me, to walk into hell willingly because of a lie. I'd rather have told my grandmother to set up the Tuatha Dé Guard and let the Fomorians attack the Otherworld than to stand across from Max in the Shadow Realm preparing to fight. My grandmother could have sounded the alarms the second I'd read that infuriating letter from King Elethan. My vision slipped, blurring Max's face, thoughts fading.
They'd taken Cara and Benny, I remembered in a daze. Forced me to come into the Underworld, and Max knew that, too. Had to have known it. I forced my eyes to stay open. Max's posture was stiff, and I only saw desperation in his grey eyes. I wanted to scream at him, force him to explain what the hell he thought he was doing, but all my faculties were slowing down, being thrown into the background. Thoughts that weren't my own clouded my mind, and just as I'd feared, that fast, I wasn't in control anymore.
/>
She was.
Teine.
17
MAX
Before the day was through, I would kill my father, that son of a bitch. With the sheer rage coursing through my veins, the fuel I knew was mixed with poison, I had every reason to take the Morrigan out in the process. Screw Elethan, screw the Crone and her bullshit deal. I would handle all of it on my own, my way, my terms. My only concern was the look in Layla's eyes at the castle—or the look in Teine's eye. The blue one was so cold and cruel. I could swear the girl sharing Layla's body hated me, and I was almost positive the nightmare I'd had of Teine attacking me in the arena the night before, asking me how I wanted to die and telling me she'd seen what I'd done ... was real. Which meant way too many things. Like Teine saw me with Ana, but Layla didn't, I guessed, and whatever Teine saw, she believed. The issue was that I didn't remember what actually happened with Ana.
Would Teine clue Layla in? Did it even work like that with split souls? Were they communicating with each other?
"Max?"
Another issue: Elethan would come after Layla if I didn't attack her, sorry bastard. There was no way someone that twisted could truly be related to me. Maybe I should take his sorry ass out first. The Morrigan was another problem. I said I'd agree to 'rule with her' because she had the power to kill Layla from within, but with Elethan in the mix of the Battle, changing all the rules, I was going to have to take the risk. Either I tried to destroy the Morrigan by attacking Layla, like I'd originally planned, or the King would kill Layla, or try to—I had no intention of letting him get anywhere near her.
There was also the fact that Teine was likely to come after me with all the power of a true Fire Goddess.
The Otherworld was an entirely different issue. They were my family, and I couldn't forget the fact that I'd told Layla it was over between us—kissed Ana to make my point clear like an asshole. Oh, my god, what is wrong with me? She probably hated me, and if that was the case —
"Max!"
"What?" I glanced to the side.
"What? Are you deaf?" Sam's eyes reminded me of Robin's eggs, they were so blue. "They're calling your name. You have to go." He nudged me forward, out of the steel-barred cell containing the two of us on the edge of the makeshift coliseum, and into the blinding sunlight of the palatial arena.
Snow fell, blanketing the field in white, and my eyes stung in the bright light. Spread across the barren wasteland, stands rose sharply in a vertical ascent surrounding the arena on all sides. Fences wrapped in barbed wire. Just like my nightmare.
Layla stepped onto the field from the opposite end of the pitch, dressed in solid black— one green eye, one blue, shining across the expanse, and just like the dream, and as I'd seen her enter the Shadow Realm gates two days before, everything about her was wrong. Off. A sneer played on her perfect lips, and her saunter reminded me of Ana, cruel and calculating.
Not Layla. Not the person I'd seen in the castle minutes before.
Teine.
I stepped forward, snow and dirt mixing to slush under my boots, and I stood facing my 'opponent' on the far end of the fighting pit. Teine reminded me of a ninja in her all black jumpsuit and boots, blonde hair whipping in the sudden wind. I wanted to go to her, run to her, but the eyes of the Fomorian people were all around us, my father's somewhere among them, watching from the stands. Surely waiting for me to make the first move. The first mistake.
The rules of the Battle reverberated overhead as jeers and screams grew throughout the packed stands.
Only the opponents may engage in battle.
A fight to the death.
No one may interfere.
The entire scene was eerily familiar, the same I'd seen in the nightmare.
I scanned the stands and the outlying area of the arena, but Justice was nowhere to be seen. I wasn't surprised, only concerned where he might be, what the guards had done to him. Our names called out: Teine, Fire Born of the Tuatha Dé Danaan. Screams flooded the pitch. My name rang out second: MacKenzie, Fire Born of the Fomorian. My stomach lurched at my name being linked to the monsters who'd hunted Layla all her life—who'd killed her father, the only real father figure I'd ever known. My hands opened and closed—my blood pressure rising. Teine's posture steeled across from me, jaw locked, her mismatched glare unwavering.
"Did you make your decision, my love?" Her regal, clipped voice rang in my thoughts and threw me. "Have you decided how you want to die?"
Breath racing, I took another step forward, and gazed at the girl I loved more than my own life, wondering where she was—trapped within her own body with her former self, someone she didn't know. The idea made me sick. "If you don't mind, I'd prefer to talk to Layla." My voice came out steady, controlled.
Teine's cruel smile widened, warping Layla's beautiful face, and something flashed in her hand. "So she can forgive you?"
"So I can explain." I held my ground, eyeing the knife in her grasp.
"She was right. You are not worthy to wear his face. The true MacCoinnich would never have been unfaithful. Never would have dragged his love into the likes of this hell." Teine took a step forward, the knife rotating on her palm as if of its own free will.
"Who's 'she'? Because you sound a lot like the Morrigan." I recognized the blade. It was similar to the one Elethan had used when he'd stabbed me through the chest, cracking my ribcage open, and filling my veins with poison. The blade that created the Fomorian Coat of Arms on my neck. The same brand that was on Teine's neck, only smaller. I had seen it correctly the night before.
"My Auntie Macha has been good to me," Teine said. "She brought me back. Back to him, and now I see that she was right. You are but a shadow of who he was. Someone without honor. Now I will rejoin you with him and allow the true Fire Born Prince to emerge from your depths."
What did she just say?
My words tumbled over in my head. "Your aunt is using you to keep herself alive. I doubt you or Layla will survive when all is said and done. I'm trying to stop that." I wasn't positive the Morrigan was feeding off them, but it made the most sense. "And if it's all the same, you're nothing like Layla, either."
Her expression faltered slightly, from angry to cautious. "I am not weak. You are right about that."
"Neither is Layla. She's also not cruel. I came here into this hell to save Benny. I stayed here to save Layla's life. Did you know that? Does she? Or are you controlling everything she does?"
"I am saving her—saving both of us." Feathers rose through her shoulder blades, beautiful black plumage rose up around her throat like a queenly ruff, and the cheers of the crowd grew, seeming to fuel the anger in her stare, prod her on. Crows swarmed overhead out of nothing—thousands of them, cawing and screaming, black wings clouding the grey skies. "You haven't answered me, my love. How do you want to die?"
If I'd have known it would end like this, I would have kept my distance from the start.
18
LAYLA
Voices played in my head, Max's and Teine's, and I tried to intervene, to tell Teine to shut up, stop talking. Every word that slipped out of her thoughts and off my lips was worse than the last. She was speaking for me, for the two of us, taking control of my will.
At the other end of the track, Max walked closer, charcoal robes sweeping the ground, several swords strapped across his back. He reminded me of Justice. Max had no need of swords. He was a weapon all on his own, just like I was. The sight finally managed to shut off Teine's voice, emotion flooding through me, as Max's gaze seared into mine. Anger rose into my throat at the sight of Ana standing in the stands behind him. She grinned, and I shifted my glare away, finding it almost impossible to breathe. Maybe what Teine had been saying wasn't so wrong.
The closer I walked toward the center of the field nearer to him, the hotter I became.
He kissed her.
Her.
"He did a lot more than that," Teine's voice said in my thoughts.
The sound of crows abov
e grew to a deafening pitch—the scene before me something I couldn't take in. The Demon dagger was clutched in my fist. I had no idea how it had gotten in my hand. Teine's hand, I reminded myself. Teine running the show, not me.
As I came toward the center of the desolate field, my gaze seared into Max's unwavering eyes. He tricked me. Lied to me. Lured me here.
Voices rattled inside my head, arguing, screaming. One voice I knew well. I had heard it too many times over the last few weeks. The voice that laughed the day we were attacked at Max's house by the Sluagh. The voice that laughed when I'd fallen from the sky, seen Max dead and broken on the beach, crows lining the shore like militant soldiers, darkened gardenias lining his body in the sand, wide grey eyes staring blindly. "One will kill the other," the voice had said. "Say goodbye to your beloved."
The Morrigan.
The same raucous laughter reared up, inundating my thoughts with visions of the Leanaan Sidhe in Max's arms, lying in his bed. Max holding her, kissing her. His hands on her bare thighs, her long hair curtaining his face.
"You see?" The Morrigan said in my head. "This is what the one who claims to love only you has done. Open your eyes and see the truth."
I was seeing what Teine had seen, the monster she believed Max was. "No, that's not him, wasn't him. He's on my side still. I saw him protect Justice in the castle only minutes ago. He isn't one of the Shadows, only wants me to think he is."
"That was him, you foolish girl. Look at his eyes. They tell you all there is to know. Fight."
The arguing of the two voices in my head started again, and visions of Max kissing Ana flashed, his hands traveling up her bare legs as she straddled his lap. Max covered in blood. Ana kissing the injury, his lips. Crimson flooded my sight, overwhelming everything else, bleeding like drops of ink into my periphery, tainting Max's face—the only face I'd dreamed of for so long. I squeezed my eyes closed. "He's my best friend. He wouldn't do that. He loves me."