Poison and Potions: a Limited Edition Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Collection

by Erin Hayes

  She stumbled to the broken rune and lined up the markings. She needed to be close to death for this to work, and she’d accomplished that. Now she needed to invite a new life source to take over.

  Closing her eyes, Adira recalled the rest of the Origin spell.

  “Přijímám dar Othala čarodějnice,” she said. I accept the gift of the Othala witch. “Přijímám dar Othala čarodějnice.”

  Her chants continued while she grimaced in effort to block out the screams and commotion of the Sector. If the gods, or whoever was in charge of honoring this magic, granted her this gift, she would restore the Othala bloodline to it’s original potency.

  Starting with herself.

  “Opravit!” she commanded forcefully to the stone. A sliver of the crack repaired, but it wasn’t enough.

  She couldn’t sit up any longer. The pain, the darkness, the spinning. It was all too much. She curled up against the pain, the runestone still in her hands.

  “Opravit!” she said again. Repair. Another small piece mended.

  “Op-Opra—!” Her lips weren’t working. Her vision had blurred so much she couldn’t make out the symbol on the stone anymore. “Opravit,” she finally managed. More of a whisper this time. “Opravit...”

  The stone was mending. She could feel it. But she needed to stay alive long enough for it to complete. Then she could use her magic to reverse the effects of the potion.

  Tears stung her eyes and she mumbled more fervently, Opravit, opravit, opravit.”

  Even if this worked, too many Ravagers had made it to the inside. The only way Alec would be able to defeat that many of them would be if he used the sundial charm she’d given him.

  “Alec!” she called out blindly, hoping her voice had enough strength to carry over the battle cries. “Alec! You need—”

  You need to use the sundial.

  The thought finished in her mind instead of through her lips as she fell into a motionless state, somewhere between life and death.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Adira.

  Alec’s head whipped around, his panicked gaze searching for her. She’d called for him. She needed him.

  Another Ravager lunged for him, but he swept his sword through the air, decapitating it as he stormed toward where he’d just heard Adira’s voice.

  The warm splatter of Ravager blood across his face didn’t slow him. His rage burned hotter than the beasts’ blood ever could. But that did not stop the beasts. They swiped at him as he wove through the battlefield, scraping fresh wounds into his back and arms.

  Two stepped into his path, and again he sought to dodge around them, keenly focused on getting to Adira and dealing with them later. This time, there was no escape. One bit into his shoulder, the other pulled at his arm.

  There was a time this would be an impossible situation. A death sentence. But he would not die while Adira needed him. He ducked low and charged to the side, the Ravager rolling over his back and knocking the other down with it. Alec pivoted, sweeping his sword to come down on the fanged beasts.

  He was closer now, but Adira’s cries had stopped. He hurried his step, but as the outskirts came into view, his step faltered. Just before the line of trees that surrounded the city, the border had mended. Most of the beasts nearby had already made it inside of the Sector, leaving the outskirts practically bare, but that wouldn’t last. More would come.

  Nowhere was safe anymore.

  Stepping over the body of another dead Ravager, he was nearly knocked over by a woman running past him. Her shrieks shattered through his core, stopping him in his tracks. He didn’t want to look. So much so that his body resisted as his gaze crawled over to where the woman had run.

  The pain of her cries—he knew them. He knew that pain for it had haunted him all of his life. He swallowed, steeling himself against what he saw next. The woman, in her torn skin and bloodied clothes, stumbled toward a single, child-sized shoe. Her body collapsed, and she shrieks turned to wailing that reverberated through his chest.

  Alec bit his lip, looking back to the border. It was restored. Which meant hope was restored. But hope couldn’t erase what was happening around him. He needed Adira, and Adira needed him.

  He stormed toward the circular runestone that had once been the market’s dispensary. That was where he’d seen her last. The ground there was glowing, though that glow faded the farther into the Sector it led.

  Dead Ravager bodies lied in piles on the shimmering ground. Whatever magic had soaked into the earth here had killed them, taking out at least half of the Ravagers that had infiltrated their borders.

  He followed the magic to its source.

  It was the movement of her hair he saw first. The tendrils of brown curling and twisting in the wind, reflecting hues of gold in the rays of the dying sunlight. The way her hair moved when they trained together, the way her hair moved in the throws of passion.

  But that was the only thing about her that moved.

  As his mind filtered in her lifeless body, her curled fingers and her still hands, his pace throttled to a run.

  Reaching her, he dropped to his knees and pulled her body up into his lap, shaking her. “Adira!”

  Her body didn’t fight his touch. Didn’t stiffen or react.

  “Adira!”

  His throat closed in. His mind tried to block out the truth. Block out what he had known before he’d even reached her.

  This couldn’t be happening. They couldn’t have gone through all this for her to die.

  He shook her again. His shaking hands searched for a pulse. His ear rested against her chest, straining to hear a heartbeat over the battle cries. Wishing so hard to feel her chest rise with a breath that he would have given anything to have even imagined it.

  But the truth burned in his eyes, and a darkness swirled inside of him. First in his gut, but then upward, outward. An explosion of anger that sparked inside his veins and blackened his mind until nothing existed but the desire to kill.

  As his gaze lifted from the lifeless body of the only woman he had ever loved, it came to rest on the Regent under fierce attack of a Ravager.

  Not just any Ravager. The Ravager. Something about it’s mannerisms were too familiar. The way it held the Regent’s body. He’d seen those exact movements before. His nightmare had replayed it in his sleep every night since he was a child.

  Alec charged the Ravager, leaving the safety of the shimmering earth that had killed the others. Blinded by rage, he sliced his sword through the air, aiming for the sickly gray skin of the Ravager’s neck.

  But the beast ducked.

  Alec swung again, with far less finesse. This time, the Ravager twisted, pulling the Regent into the path of Alec’s attack.

  Alec stumbled back. The Ravager was using the Regent as a shield. His heart stuttered. That didn’t make sense. That required something more than mindless blood lust. The Ravager’s actions were calculated. Planned.

  Lungs squeezing out painful breaths, Alec ground his teeth together and lunged again. He dove into the ground, rolling and coming up behind the Ravager, ready to slice into beast.

  The Ravager’s body contorted, hissing as it snapped its fangs at Alec. The movements were slowing, though. The Regent must have been doing something. Using the last of his magic.

  Alec swept in on the opportunity, hooking his arm around the top of the Ravager’s head to hold it steady against his own shoulder as he sliced through its neck.

  The beast dropped with a thud. Its blood flowed down the sword’s handle onto Alec’s hands and wrists, but the moment was empty of any sense of victory.

  His breaths heaved as he stared down out the body. It wouldn’t bring his sister back. It wouldn’t bring Adira back. But damned if that thing got to live in a world it had taken Alec’s loved ones from.

  “Thank you,” Dvorak said from the ground by his feet.

  Alec turned his scowling face to the Regent. “Don’t thank me.”

  Dvorak reached out his
hand. “It’s all right. We’ll make it right. Together.”

  Alec shook his head. “I will make it right. And they,” he said, pointing his sword toward the city, “will decide your fate.”

  Grabbing the Regent by the back of his collar, Alec yanked him to his feet, then chained Dvorak’s hands behind his back and pushed him toward the Sector.

  His comrades had taken out many of the Ravagers, and the Ravagers had taken out many of them. But the death scene before him lacked any ability to move him. Everything was dull. Every step empty. Every goal mindless.

  Adira had made him think he deserved to be loved, and he’d allowed himself to believe he was safe to love another. But he’d been wrong. Death still followed him. Death still took everything he dared to care about. He might as well have killed her himself.

  Now that she was gone, what did that leave him with? What he’d had before? That’d been a lie. His sense of duty had belonged to people who cared about no one but themselves. His loyalty had belonged to a man who intentionally mislead his people.

  But Adira had sacrificed for this Sector, and damned if Alec was going to let that be in vain. He would save them. For her. He would give them back their hope. Give them back a life where they could sleep at night without fear of Ravagers attacking. A life without the sobs of children echoing through the streets.

  He would give them what Adira had died to give them. What she wanted for them. And that meant handling the piece of shit Regent the right way. As much as he wanted to, he could not kill the leader of their Sector—he needed the Sector to decide the Regent’s time was up. Otherwise, there would be anarchy and riots when what they needed was a revolution.

  With that in mind, Alec marched Dvorak to one of the runestone lamps and secured him there before assessing the situation. To one of the guards, he shouted over his shoulder, “Protect him.”

  If the Sector was going to survive, the guards needed to get organized, so Alec assisted in killing more of the Ravagers nearby, then instructed the two closest guards to start evacuating people into the castle.

  No one questioned him.

  Once he had instructed his comrades, he and those fighting with him focused on eliminating the remaining Ravagers.

  “Not one more of our own dies!” Alec ordered, stabbing his sword into another Ravager. “Chase them to the borders!”

  Adira had done most of the work when her magic had seeped into the ground along the outskirts, but there were still more than a dozen Ravagers loose in the marketplace, and who knew how many had infiltrated deeper into the city, into people’s homes and into the forests. It would take days to fully restore their safety.

  Constantine fought by Alec’s side in silence. When a Ravager bit into Constantine’s leg, Alec decapitated the beast, even if that meant another Ravager taking a chunk out of his own leg. When Alec was outnumbered, Constantine threw his ax, spinning it through the air until the blade sunk into chest of another Ravager, leaving himself weaponless until Alec could return it to him.

  Alec used himself as bait to draw as many of the Ravagers to the outskirts as he could, but they didn’t wait for the ground there to kill them. Constantine attacked from behind, taking them out while they were in a weakened state.

  No wound hurt as deeply as the loss of Adira. No kill avenged her death. No amount of blood made Alec feel alive again.

  By time night had fallen, Alec’s searches for more beasts to kill began to turn up empty.

  A hand came to rest on his shoulder. “It’s over,” the voice said. “Let’s go home.”

  Alec swallowed, staring out over the Sector. There was no home anymore. Home was about who you were with. And now he was alone

  “The people of the Sector need to stay under the protection of the guard until we are certain every last beast has been put down once and for all.”

  “Alec,” Constantine said softly, “you know that will take time.”

  “I do,” Alec said, slowly leveling his gaze at Constantine. “And you will be the one to oversee that it is so.”

  “Me, brother?” Constantine’s eyebrows knitted together. “But you—”

  “I’m leaving,” Alec said quietly. “You will be head of the guard.”

  “Leaving?”

  “The city has been haunted by fear long enough. It’s time for real change.”

  “How?”

  Alec turned to face the border once more. “Staying on the outside,” he said. “Getting rid of the Ravagers once and for all.”

  Constantine narrowed his eyes, his lips pressing together in a grim line. “Suicide.”

  Alec sheathed his sword. “I don’t care.”

  He shouldered past his comrade and headed toward the outskirts, but Constantine grabbed his arm and spun him back. “It’s the Doomed Queen, isn’t it? What happened to her?”

  Alec gritted his teeth, glaring at his comrade for making him say it aloud. “Fate.”

  “So now you’re going to get yourself killed? Do you really think that is what she would have wanted?”

  He spread his arms out to the destruction all around them. “I know she wouldn’t have wanted this.”

  “What about the Regent?”

  “After a fair trial, I’m sure he’ll be joining me,” Alec said. “Please see to that.”

  Then he turned and headed off into the Ravager Lands.

  Alone.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Dead Ravager bodies marred the earth in every direction with their rancid, decaying flesh and blood. The night air stung Adira’s lungs, but her skin was numb from the cold.

  This is what comes after the end?

  Was she cursed to walk the world unseen, stuck here, forced to watch the outcome of her failure? They may have defeated the Ravagers and restored the border, but without her, would everything simply go back to the way it had been before?

  She floated to her feet and braced herself to look farther into the Sector.

  Too many dead. The Sector Marketplace was littered with bodies. Her magic had been too little, too late.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and bit back a sob, then opened her eyes again to take a second look. As much as it pained her, she would need to look in the face of every dead body, because she could not spend her eternal afterlife not knowing that Alec was okay.

  He had to be okay.

  She glanced down at the shimmering earth. Her magic hadn’t extended very far beyond the border. That was it? All of that for…this?

  Steeling herself, she marched forward into the quiet Marketplace. Some had to have survived. There weren’t enough bodies to account for the entire Sector. But somehow, that brought her little comfort, especially since they were no where to be seen.

  Unless she just couldn’t see them. Maybe that was part of death. The way no one could see her spirit gliding through the afterlife, perhaps she could not see their souls still inhabiting the living bodies on Othala.

  She sucked in a breath and held it, then crept between the bodies, forcing herself to inspect face after face of fallen citizen, saying a silent prayer for each of them as she passed.

  Each time Alec’s eyes did not stare back at her, the tightness in her chest eased, and the guilt stabbing into her heart deepened. His life was but one. He would never be so selfish as to put one life above all others.

  But she couldn’t help how she felt. All that mattered, even in death, was Alec.

  When she had checked every body, she turned her back and strolled along the border. The Ravagers couldn’t touch her anymore. But nor could she touch them. If Alec was alive, though, he would protect the people.

  She just wished she could see him one last time.

  The stroll along the border led her to where the Regent had imprisoned the male witches. Their bodies, still trapped in the rune cells, now all lied sprawled in the frostbitten grass.

  After breaking the rune cell with her sundial, Adira kneeled beside one of them and swept hair from his forehead.

&nbs
p; The male witch sputtered and coughed. Then his eyes blinked open. “Adira?”

  Her fingers came to her lips, and she leaned back. “Jedrick? You’re alive.”

  He nodded weakly. “Alive, but weak. These runes are draining.”

  “But if you’re alive…” Adira shook her head. “You can see me.”

  The male witch’s brow furrowed. “Of course I can see you, Adira. You’re standing right in front of me.”

  “I’m alive,” she whispered. “I’m alive. Alec is alive, and I’m alive.” She glanced around, the moment slamming into her with renewed energy. “And you’re alive!” She pulled him to his feet. “Come on. We need to get everyone back to the castle.”

  “But the Regent—”

  She shook her head. “I think I took care of that. Let’s go, quickly. The Ravagers are repopulating the area, so it’s best we go now.”

  Jedrick obliged, but then paused. “How long have you been out here, Adira?”

  “A few hours. Why?”

  “What about the Ravagers that survived on the outskirts. They didn’t see you?”

  She moved to the next rune cell and used her sundial charm to open it and release another witch. “Looks like I might have done something right after all,” she said over her shoulder. “Now come on. Help me.”

  The pair roused the other witches, and Adira shared enough of her magical energy with them to give them the strength to make it back to the castle. When they knocked on the castle doors, the male witches in a small crowd behind her, a familiar guard answered.

  Constantine stared at her, unspeaking, his still expression slowly coming to life. “A…Adira?” His eyebrows pulled together. “Everyone thought you were…dead.”

  “Myself included.” She swept into the castle and glanced around. “Where’s Alec?”

  Constantine scratched the back of his head. “Adira—”

  A small body slammed into her, tiny arms wrapping around her waist. “Adira! I knew you’d make it!”