by Sam Cheever
“What are we dealing with, Gerch?”
He glanced at me and then turned back to Dialle, addressing his response to him.
Okay, so he was really pissed at me. That was all right, I told myself. I’d done the right thing. He’d just have to deal with it.
“Fallen and Rigeur combined forces and stormed the castle. The court started mending itself late last night and the mood among the rebels turned decidedly sour. I sent fifty men here to warn the angels and guard the dungeons. I stayed behind and watched. As soon as I realized they were coming after you I brought the rest of your men.”
Dialle looked around at the carnage. “How long has the fighting been going on?”
“A couple of hours. We tried to keep them outside but they breeched the main floors fairly quickly. They’ve pushed us steadily downward.”
I frowned, not liking the sound of that. “What about the angels? Even in force the royals shouldn’t have been able to breech them so easily.”
Gerch finally slid his gaze my way. “They brought dark angels with them.”
“Frunk me.” I looked at Dialle. Of course, it made sense. Anything the dark ones could do to unbalance power in the court would benefit them. The royals probably had no idea why the powerful ones would want to ally with them. “They’re making a play for the court.”
Dialle nodded. “Fallen’s a fool.” He turned to Gerch. “Our only hope is to convince Fallen and Rigeur that they’re being used. If we can pull the court together and provide a unified front we might have a chance against the dark ones.”
Gerch nodded. “Back to the court then?”
“Yes.” Dialle held out his hand. “Astra, with me.”
I shook my head. If we were going up against the dark ones I needed more juice. “I have to recharge.”
“Recharge what?”
Gerch threw me a disgusted look. “You haven’t told him?”
Guilty heat suffused my face. “I’ve been a little busy, devil.”
He shook his head and bowed. “I’ll give you a minute.” Gerch took his men to guard the stairs leading to the dungeon, leaving me to explain the unexplainable to Dialle.
“What’s going on, Astra?”
“We don’t really have the time—”
“Tell me.”
I didn’t like the look on his face. It reminded me that he was still fragile. He could revert to the state I’d found him in last night at the smallest provocation.
And this was no small provocation. It was my loss of power that had set him on the road to madness.
“I’m not exactly healed.”
“You have power again.”
“Yes. But it’s kind of borrowed.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned down at me. “That doesn’t make any sense. You can’t borrow magic.”
“Apparently I can. When Crisanne magic-raped me, she took my power but it left behind a vacuum. When I went up to the cumulous castle they ran some tests and we discovered the vacuum retained some memory of my magic.”
“What does that mean exactly?”
“It means my body remembers how to hold magic and will temporarily hold onto borrowed energy but…”
“But?”
I expelled a sigh. “But I can no longer make energy, only store it. I have to get it from others.”
He stared at me for a long moment, his dark eyes swirling with color. I read fear in his handsome features, along with anger. “So you’re telling me that I’m destined to succumb to madness after all.”
“No.” I grabbed his arm and he jerked away. “We’re still trying to fix the problem.”
Dialle shook his head, turning away. “I’m going to attempt to reason with my court. I’m not sure how I’m going to talk them into giving the court back to a broken king, but I have to try.”
I started after him. “I’m coming with you.”
“No!” He turned to me, angry colors swirling in his eyes. He briefly closed them, obviously fighting deep emotion. When he spoke again, his voice was soft and husky with regret. “Astra, as much as I wish it, I realize now that you cannot be my queen. I…” His voice broke and he had to swallow hard. “I can’t descend to that kind of madness again, Astra. I know in my heart I will not return if I do. And if I reach those depths again I know I’ll kill you. I can’t live with that. I’m sorry.”
Tears blurred my vision as he turned and walked away from me. I sagged against the wall as dizziness assailed me. I tried to straighten, tried to retain some semblance of dignity under his crushing declaration, but I just couldn’t. “Dialle.” His name emerged from my lips as a sob. “Please don’t go.”
He didn’t stop. He didn’t even slow. He turned the corner and he was just…gone.
Chapter Eleven
Dumped!
Amid agony and loss, young miss is cast aside,
Her heart has just been tossed, to save her hero’s hide.
I didn’t even know I was falling until my knees cracked against the floor. Pain shot up my legs and I barely noticed. I closed my eyes, trying to breathe past the agony searing my chest. Hard hands grabbed my shoulders, dragging me upward. I opened my eyes, hoping Dialle had returned. I looked up into a velvet-black gaze filled with sorrow.
Hot tears slipped down my cheeks, dripping off my chin. “Emo. He left me. Oh god, he threw me away.”
My friend pulled me against his chest, murmuring nonsense words that were meant to comfort. They pinged uselessly off the dense armor of my pain. Nothing could pierce that armor. Nothing could touch the icy hole in my chest.
Emo lifted me into his arms and I wilted against him, allowing him to carry me up the stairs. I didn’t know where he was taking me. Didn’t care. I only wanted to curl into the fetal position and die.
He laid me on my bed and stretched out next to me, wrapping his long body around mine. I shuddered against him, numb with horror. I felt so empty. So cold.
Emo yanked a blanket up to cover me and kissed my forehead. “Just let it go, Astra. Get it all out.”
But I couldn’t let it go…because it would consume me in a flash flame of sheer agony. I shook my head, grabbing Emo’s hand and clutching it as I shivered until my teeth clacked together. Locking my muscles against the need to cry, I forced the tears back.
Emo placed a hand on my face. “Sleep, Astra. Rest. When you wake up it will be over.”
Drowsiness slipped over me, softening the muscles I’d braced against the pain. My mind went muzzy with fatigue. “What did you…” The words trailed away, lost on a cloud of black oblivion. And I started to drift.
The bed dipped and Emo’s heat left me. Something niggled. My mind struggled against the imperative of sleep. There was something I needed to do. Something important.
Something having to do with Dialle.
Sleep beckoned me with velvet arms. I sighed, sinking into the mattress. My thoughts scattered and I lost the nugget of my concern…felt it drift away…then a single thought pulsed through the enticing waves of nothingness. Where was Emo going?
Shit! I dragged myself back toward consciousness. Terror clutching urgent fingers around my heart. I shoved at the mattress, forcing myself into a sitting position. I panted against a wave of dizziness and then dragged the covers back. Emo must have put me under some kind of sleep spell.
My feet touched the floor. Slayer, I need you.
Astra? What’s wrong?
I’m in my room. I need your help.
The air thickened in front of me and Slayer was standing there. He took one look at me and frowned. “You look like hell. What happened?”
I shook my head and stood, grabbing his arm as my head swam. “It doesn’t matter. I need you to take me to the Royal Court. I think Emo’s gone after Dialle.”
Slayer frowned. “Why?”
“That doesn’t mat—”
“I’m not taking you anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.”
“Dammit, Slayer! We don’t have
time.”
He crossed strong arms over his chest. “I have all the time in the world.”
I muttered a few choice expletives. “Dialle dumped me.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. And I think Emo has gone to tell him what he thinks about that.”
“That’s not gonna go well.”
“No. And they’re both…delicate…right now. A killing rage is not exactly conducive to holding onto the light.”
“Not to mention one of them is going to get killed.”
My heart pounded with fear. I loved them both. If either one of them… I shook my head. I couldn’t think about that. “So now you understand the urgency?”
“Yeah. We’ll need reinforcements. The court is a bloodbath right now. Major internal battles going on. Dialle’s men are trying to fight off the royals who want to take his throne and their guards. Royal Fallen put a call out to the dark world and he’s got an army of nasties at his back. The last I heard Dialle was barely holding on.”
I wrung my hands, my gaze darting around the room in a panic. “Frunk. And me without my powers.”
Slayer held his hands out, palms up and a sword shimmered into them. “You still have the best sword skills of anybody I know…except for me of course.” He grinned and I couldn’t help smiling back. I grabbed the sword. Checking my boots, I discovered Emo hadn’t stripped me of my weapons store. Good.
“Okay, let’s find my sister and the angels. We’ll just have to even up the odds a little.”
I started toward the door and Slayer grabbed my arm. “Have you considered what you’ll do if Dialle refuses your help?”
I frowned. “He’s not my boyfriend anymore but that doesn’t make him stupid.”
“He threw you away, Astra. That makes him pretty stupid in my mind.”
Tears burned in my eyes. Just when I thought Slayer was a complete ass he went and said something so utterly sweet it took my breath away. “Thanks. I needed that.” On an impulse, I leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. Slayer turned his head and captured my lips in an energetic kiss.
I pulled away, laughing. “There you are. I thought I’d lost Slayer the ass.”
His grin widened. “I never left.”
We found Darma, Myra and my father in the kitchen. There were bodies everywhere, bleeding and mangled. My sister and the two angels were moving among them, healing as many as they could.
Gerch sat at the table, holding one arm and frowning. I was surprised to see him. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d left with Dialle.”
“Dialle left?”
I glanced at Darma. “Yeah. He went to try to hold the court.” I figured the less I said about what happened between Dialle and me the better.
Gerch’s beady, black gaze found mine, but he held his tongue. “Dialle told me to keep an eye on you.”
I blinked, strangely touched by Dialle’s consideration. Though the cynic in me wondered if Gerch stayed behind on his own. He and I had forged a tight relationship over the last several months and his loyalties had grown to encompass me as well as Dialle. I glanced at his arm, which looked as if it had been chewed by a gargoyle. “You need to get healed. We’re going to the court to help Dialle.”
It was his turn to look surprised. He blinked and stood, wobbling a little before he could stop himself. I reached over and touched his arm, pushing him back into the chair. “Darma.”
My sister glared at me but she put her hands on the devil warrior and a healing light suddenly bathed his arm. He closed his eyes, his broad jaw tightening against the pain.
When she was finished he sagged in the chair. I left him to recover as best he could and headed for my aunt Myra. “Hey, angel. I need you to charge my battery. I’m going to help Dialle fight off Fallen and his band of uglies.”
She turned so abruptly that her glossy, blonde hair whipped around her head, falling in soft curls over her slim shoulders. Her clear, blue gaze slid my way, hostile and assessing. “You’re not going alone.”
I smiled. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
She motioned toward a nearby chair. “Sit. I’ll get to you as soon as I can.”
My father left a newly healed devil soldier, one of Dialle’s judging by the black uniform decorated on the chest and shoulders with heavy silver braid, and came over to see me. He’d shed his angelic persona to work with the wounded. My aunt had too. Otherwise it would have been battle of the wings in the kitchen, which was a large room but not big enough to accommodate the massive wings of a Seraphim and an Archangel. James Phelps wore a pair of well-worn jeans and a soft shirt that had probably been a pristine white when he’d donned it, but was now covered in blood. His thick, blond hair was mussed and stuck up endearingly at the top, as if he’d run his hands through it several times. He smiled down at me, tucking a finger under my chin to lift my gaze to his. “How are you, child?”
I considered lying, but he was too powerful an angel, he’d know the moment the lie left my lips. I shrugged. “I’ve been better.”
“You pulled Dialle into the light?”
“For now.” My gaze held his, the meaning of my words throbbing on the air between us. Tears burned, threatening to spill, and I brushed them quickly away, glancing toward Gerch.
My father touched my nose with a fingertip, as he’d done a thousand times since I was a child. “All will be as it should be, Astra.”
I sighed, sniffing. “Yeah, that’s not real comforting right now, Father.”
Myra hustled up and grabbed my hand. “Let’s do this. Things worsen at the court.”
I felt the first tentacles of her magic as it slid through me. “How do you know?”
“I…” My aunt’s head came up, her gaze slid to mine. “Astra—”
Pain speared my chest and I gasped, doubling over. I felt as if I’d been run through with a sword. Looking down, I saw no blood, no holes in my clothing.
My father placed a hand on my knee. “What is it, Astra? What’s wrong?”
Darma touched my shoulder, kneeling beside me. “She’s gray and her heart rate has doubled.” She reached to feel my forehead as pain sliced into my throat.
I screamed, jerking to my feet and turned a horrified gaze toward my family. “Dialle’s hurt.”
The three of them shared a shocked look.
I grabbed for Myra, reaching for Gerch with my other hand. “He needs us.”
Myra looked as if she would argue but something in my face apparently made her reconsider. She nodded and I felt the first signs of a shift as a change in the air. I clutched Gerch’s thick hand tightly, both out of fear and to make sure I didn’t lose him in the shift.
Slayer ran into the room as the air started to shimmer. “I need your help!” I shouted.
He nodded and said something that I couldn’t hear. The world fell away, leaving behind only the stark silence and immobility of the space shift. My heart pounded hard in my chest but I couldn’t hear it. My stomach roiled with terror. Outside of my own body, my only sensual awareness was the feel of Myra’s soft hand on my arm, and the pressure of Gerch’s enormous paw clutching my hand.
The first thing I was aware of as my feet felt the ground again was a blood-curdling scream as a royal and two soldiers rushed us, swords drawn. Gerch jumped in front of me and took on the soldiers, his enormous form dancing lightly across the gore-coated floor as he fought both guards. I didn’t have time to admire his style. The royal rushed me with a yell and I barely got my sword up in time to stop his heavy-bladed weapon. The concussion of his strike jarred my shoulder, washing it with pain. My slim blade held his a mere breath from my face, my arm shaking with the effort. “Fallen. Imagine running into you.”
The royal inclined his head in a mockery of a bow. “We’ve been expecting you.”
White light flashed past us, followed by the pain-filled yelps of a couple of gargoyles as they crashed into the far wall, taking several combatants with them. “Astra?” My aunt had grown to fill the hall
way where we stood, her wings brushing the blood-coated stone as she started to glow with power.
“I’m fine. Find Dialle.”
She hesitated only a moment before flashing away.
The tall man standing before me had a cold, black gaze. Thick rings of red rimmed the colored part of his eyes, spinning in dizzying bursts. Wisps of silky black hair had escaped the leather tie at the base of his neck, framing his angular face. His jaw was taut with anger. “It’s good to see you, my queen. It saves me having to come looking for you to kill you.”
“Yeah, good luck with that. I’d think by now you people would realize Dialle and I are hard to kill.”
He infused his sword with power and I flew backward, hitting the wall. I sucked air into my lungs, ignoring the pain shearing down my spine.
Buzzing filled my ears and I shook my head, trying to dispel it.
The air shimmered again and Slayer and Darma appeared. Slayer managed a single step in my direction before the distant buzzing became a cloud of dark fairies.
The two of them were engulfed in the nasty bugs before they had time to react. Slayer sliced the air and spun as shimmering strands of fairy twine slipped around him, tightening until he couldn’t move his sword arm. Darma screeched as hundreds of tiny swords sliced through her skin like razors. Her hands came up and desperate bursts of white energy flew around the space as she tried to fight them off.
Fallen ducked an errant stream and I shoved him, gaining a couple of inches of space that allowed me to slice my sword across one of his arms before he retaliated with a downward stroke that nearly sent me to the floor.
My father appeared behind the royal and Fallen turned his head as the space lit with white energy. The royal was engulfed in white light, his dark eyes widening as his body started to dissolve under my father’s pure energy. His scream continued to throb against my ears as my father turned away, sending a stream of white light into the roiling cloud of bug-sized nasties attacking Darma and Slayer. The dark fairies disappeared with a sizzle and pop.
My sister and the dragon slayer were both bleeding from a dozen cuts and they were entombed in sticky fairy string. Darma shuddered and tugged at the string. I remembered all too well how that felt. “Here, let me help.”