by Chloe Jacobs
He frowned. “How do you propose to put yourself in such danger?”
She glanced over his shoulder. “I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.”
He turned around in time to see Leila and Byron bearing down on them, flanked by the icy Dryden and a retinue of faerie warriors.
Isaac roared and engaged Dryden before the faerie could raise his bow. Greta urged Wyatt and Ray to get the boys behind her. “Keep them far back,” she said. “I’m going to let the faeries come at me.”
“Screw that,” Wyatt snapped.
Siona glanced at her in shock. “Danem, the king would never—”
“Isaac won’t let me be hurt too badly,” she assured them. “But he understands that the demon needs to see the threat as real.”
Reluctantly, Wyatt nodded at Ray and they all retreated. Byron and Leila stopped in front of Greta and Siona. “You will finish what you started,” Byron demanded with a desperate look in his eyes. “The queen cannot be allowed to exit the catacomb.”
“Come over here and make me,” she said with a grin.
He did just that, socking her in the face so hard her head snapped back.
Shit. That hurt.
Byron pulled his sword this time and came at her again. Siona tossed her one, too, and she dodged. She didn’t need to get stabbed to feel like she was in danger. She was in danger.
“Wyatt, get out of here with the boys,” she called back to him, worried. There was a distinct and very real possibility that this could go very wrong.
He settled at her side. She glanced back in shock. Ray and Sloane had positioned themselves in front of the younger boys, a thick wall of rock at their backs. So far, they were being left alone.
She snapped the gold chain from her neck and thrust it at Wyatt. “Go.”
“Forget it.”
“I’m not saying this is it,” she yelled, blocking Byron. “But you’re going to get back home to North Dakota and give this to your sister when you see her again.”
His shoulder bumped against hers as he took on one of the faerie warriors, the chain still dangling from his fingers. “Greta, I’m not—”
“No, don’t say something ridiculous like you aren’t going anywhere without me. If you get the chance, you go. Do you understand?” She threw him a hard look. “You cannot become like me,” she said, breathing heavily with exertion.
He finally stuffed the chain in his pocket. “Don’t you want me to give it to your parents?”
“God, no,” she laughed. “It’s probably better if my parents never find out what happened to me.”
Isaac dumped Dryden’s body, but Greta noticed that the faerie warrior was still breathing. She took a deep breath and locked gazes with Isaac. His expression was grim, but she felt his strength and confidence flowing through their bond. He would never let her say good-bye.
She dropped her sword and faced Byron. Isaac gritted his teeth but didn’t move. The creak of the mausoleum doors snagged her attention, and she saw the faerie queen’s hands slipping between the crack. Those skeletal white fingers gave her the shivers.
Byron could easily have run her through with his blade, but she was betting that he wouldn’t risk it. If she died, the magick inside her would be useless.
He hit her again, and Greta went down. Isaac wasn’t going to stand for more. She saw him leap for the faerie prince. She gazed at them through blurry vision. Her skin tingled with heat.
“Siona!” she cried. Siona clenched her jaw and came closer. They clasped hands tightly and faced the stone mausoleum together, but she sensed the surge of magick hurtling outward.
She tried to ignore everything that was going on around them. For weeks, Agramon had been busy setting hooks into every part of her, and now she methodically went to each one of them and pulled until she screamed. She tore them out of her heart, out of her head, out of her soul…and she shoved it all outward just as the mausoleum swung all the way open and a tall, emaciated figure with long white hair emerged.
A massive thundercloud of oily, writhing darkness poured out her mouth, her ears, her eyes, and Siona helped her send it hurtling toward the faerie queen like a wrecking ball.
The queen stopped in shock and surprise, but as it hit her she laughed and spread her arms wide, welcoming it in. Her gaunt features started to fill out immediately, the wrinkles in her skin smoothing out. Soon her skin was glowing and healthy looking. Her brittle white hair turned lush and black, her lips reddened, her eyes glowed. She was sucking in the portal magick like a balm, looking more and more like her daughter by the second.
Could they have made a mistake? Would Siona falter now? Her mouth was set, her expression tight, and she was mumbling under her breath. It was impossible to hear above the sounds of the battle raging around them, but Greta could read Siona’s lips.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
Greta mumbled the same thing and squeezed her hand tighter. Together they kept pushing, funneling all the darkness outward until a giant cyclone twisted around the faerie, trapping her within it. As Greta’s arms lifted, she watched the queen’s gleeful grin twist into a grimace of pain and her eyes widen. She must have realized that the barrage wasn’t going to stop, and now she was being overwhelmed with more power than she could safely absorb.
Suddenly, the demon rebelled, blinding her with immediate, epic pain. She lifted her hands against the mental walls dropping down on all sides of her psyche. They moved in like the walls of a booby-trapped tunnel, tighter and tighter until she couldn’t move, the air was thin, and the light was all gone.
This was it. She’d failed.
The faerie queen had regained her strength and would lay waste to Isaac’s kingdom before moving on to all the others. Even worse, the demon was making his move. He was squeezing her out so that he could rise again. And this time he wouldn’t be confined within the depths of a mountain. He would be free to terrorize countless worlds.
No! She’d brought the goblin king back from being Lost, damn it. She could do this.
Because of you I will never truly be Lost. You can always call me back. Just like she made Isaac stronger, he made her stronger, too. And she could not…could not…lose this fight.
Not when she’d finally realized how rare and special what they’d started together was. No king and queen anywhere were going to be as good together as they would be. She was finally going to prove that not only was she good enough for Isaac and good enough to stay in Mylena, she was good enough to rule Mylena.
Greta sucked in a breath and felt for the source of the pain. It was deep inside where her lifeline lived. She grabbed hold of the last thread of black magick still hooked in her, like a sticky tentacle wrapped around her ankle dragging her down into the dark, cold depths…and she pulled.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Consciousness returned in a rush of heat and screams, but she didn’t have to wonder who’d caught her when she fell. She’d know that possessive touch anywhere.
An agitated Isaac snarled and snapped at Wyatt, who was bruised and shaking, brandishing Greta’s own sword—where had he found it?—like he was ready to run the goblin king through to get to her.
Funny enough, if she had to choose which one of them looked closer to the edge, she was more worried about Wyatt.
She tried to lift her hand and play referee, but all the relevant muscles protested. It made her stop and take stock. Agramon? Was the demon gone?
“We have a problem,” Isaac said. He squeezed a little too hard, making her cough and groan, but he got her attention.
Her heart leaped, and she twisted in his arms. “Oh, crap.”
The demon had left Greta, all right. She didn’t have to search inside herself to know for sure…because all she had to do was look into the eyes of the malevolent creature glaring both ice and fire down on them from the doors of the faerie queen’s tomb.
Siona stood guard, facing off against her very own mother. Greta hadn’t counted on that.<
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She couldn’t let her stand alone. She found reserves of strength in the deepest parts of herself, places Agramon hadn’t been able to reach, and pushed herself to her feet.
Isaac and Wyatt flanked the two of them with the boys huddled behind, and they stood against a fearsome faerie demon with so much power it sparked from her fingertips and turned her eyes cloudy with black smoke.
She shuddered as Agramon grinned at her through Queen Minetta’s fine-boned features. Was any part of the crazy faerie queen still alive, or had he succeeded in doing to her what he’d tried to do to Greta?
“I’ve tread on your soul, human, and left my name carved on it,” she said with a grin that made Greta feel soiled and violated.
But it wasn’t Queen Minetta. It was the same taunting, insolent voice that had promised she would give her life to fuel a demon’s portal. The same voice that had set up twelve helpless human boys in a circle and laughed as they bled from every opening and started tumbling to the stone floor like dominoes. “Even in your very imminent death, you’ll never be rid of me.”
Fury the likes of which she’d never known rushed in. Yes, she was human. There was nothing special about her. She had no magick. She was not immortal. She should have died in this world years ago. She should have been hunted down and cast in irons.
But she’d survived. In fact, she’d thrived. Because being human was to be strong, even when the odds were against you. It was to stand tall, even when everyone else fled. It was to be brave, even when fear knew your very name.
This guy might know her name…but he didn’t see her. He couldn’t tame her. He’d never own her.
As if she’d choreographed it for weeks, Greta snatched her sword from Wyatt’s hand and lunged for Queen Minetta/Agramon with all the confidence, skill, and agility she’d learned in four years of training with Luke. Four years of hunting the biggest, baddest creatures that Mylena could sic on her. She went straight for the long slash across the neck.
Agramon reacted, but Greta had already played this out a bunch of times in her head, and at least two of her four or five scenarios resulted in her sending the faerie queen’s head—that looked so much like Siona—sailing through the air before the demon was able to roast her with black magick.
“No!” Siona cried out, hurtling forward to put herself between them.
Horrified, Greta pulled back a split second before cutting Siona.
She missed her chance. Agramon gathered his magick. In the hands of the queen, it was less like a cloud and more like a thousand pitch-black, writhing snakes bursting forth from her fingertips and arching through the air right at Greta.
Siona raised her arms and closed her eyes, and the snakes dispersed like smoke.
Wyatt jumped in and dragged Siona aside. Isaac roared and tried to protect Greta, but she wouldn’t give up.
She lifted her sword again. The demon inside Siona’s mother screamed with rage and tried again. Thrown off balance, this time Siona couldn’t completely neutralize the next attack and the squiggly serpents, instead of dispersing, morphed into a black void right in front of them all.
It was too late to pull back this time. Greta’s momentum carried her right into the portal.
And when she spun back around…
Mylena was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Five
She stuffed her knuckles in her mouth and bit down hard to stifle her scream, twisting around wildly. She looked for a door, a window, a sliver or a crack…any way out, but it was already gone! It was too dark to see anything, and she was stuck here, alone.
“No,” she sobbed, collapsing to the ground and curling into a tight ball. “Please, no.” She couldn’t be trapped in the dark void alone. Not again.
The nothingness between worlds. The place where nightmares lived, became flesh, and stalked her memories until she had none left, until she was nothing but a shell for the fear and the doubt.
Greta.
Isaac, where are you? She hiccuped, fingernails digging into her palms. She used the small pain to ground her. Was she dreaming?
Come into the light and find me.
The light? What light? “Stop freaking out and breathe,” she muttered, planting her hand in the dirt floor and—
Wait a minute. Dirt floor?
Her fingers curled, testing the gritty, dusty stuff, letting it coat her skin. Dirt? It felt real.
She slowly stood. Her hands trembled as she reached out, and her knuckles scraped across sharp rock. Was she in a cave?
A shaky laugh escaped her lips as she took another step and kicked something in the dirt with a clang and a clunk. Her sword.
There was nothing in the void. Certainly not dirt, caves, and her sword. So where was she?
She took a deeper look into the darkness and realized it wasn’t so complete as she’d first thought. There was a sliver of light. She slowly walked toward it, her senses picking up on other things as she got closer. Like the musty, damp feel of the air, and the smell of pine and decaying plant matter making her nose itch and her eyes water as she breathed it in.
Allergies. There were no allergies in the void.
There were only allergies in…
At the mouth of the cave, she blinked. The sun was low in the sky, almost below the tree line. One sun. One big golden sun. And trees with wide green leaves that created a shaded canopy overhead.
The faeries had promised to send her back to the human world if she helped them. Had they planned to send her back either way?
No. Not just her. Anyone who could stop them. Which meant that maybe she wasn’t alone.
Her heart hammered as she peered across the tiny clearing in front of the cave. Isaac leaned a shoulder against a tree a few feet away with his arms crossed, looking as big and infuriating as ever. His hair stuck straight up, and his clothes were torn all to hell. There was a long scratch on his neck.
He looked amazing.
She ran when he straightened and took a step toward her and laughed as she leaped into his open arms and threw her legs around his waist.
His big hands wrapped around her, holding her up, and he ducked his head to kiss her like a shipwrecked man kissing solid ground after washing up on shore. She was just as desperate, needing to know he was real, that this was all real.
“Isaac.” Her lips moved against his. She curled her hand around his neck and gazed into his arresting amethyst eyes. It felt real. “This isn’t a dream, right?”
“Not a dream.” He kissed her again but let her legs slide down to the ground until she stood plastered against him from the knees to shoulders. “But we certainly aren’t in Mylena anymore,” he said with a sharp hint of concern. “Defiant, reckless human. What have you done now?”
That familiar scowl made her want to laugh with joy. She could handle that. She could handle anything but the savage snarl that contained none of the sarcasm and arrogance she’d come to crave so much.
“Me? Why is it always my fault when something happens?”
“Because trouble is your middle name.” His arms tightened as if he was afraid of letting her go. She felt the same. She didn’t dare loosen her grip.
“Actually, it’s Matilda, but I’ve always hated that, so we can go with Trouble if you want.”
“Always you make jokes.”
She sobered at that. “No, Isaac. The moment you went Lost…there was nothing funny about that. You scared the hell out of me.”
He caressed her cheek like she might disappear. “I was Lost in the moons completely. I felt nothing but the thrill of the chase and the taste of blood in my mouth as I brought down prey. I ran and ran, and then the pull of the moons spurred me even faster. I wanted nothing but their sighs rippling through me like the wind, telling me that I belonged with them. I was filled with the power of the earth, even as I crushed it beneath my every step.”
His thumb tipped her chin up until she met his gaze through a blurry layer of moisture. “Why are you crying?” He sounded confused.
She bit her lip, angry that she couldn’t control her stupid emotions. “You make it sound as if you didn’t want to come back, as if you found a freedom in being Lost that was better than anything you had before.” She could almost understand it. All the responsibilities of being the goblin king would have meant nothing. “No more weighty responsibilities as the goblin king. No more disappointment. Just freedom.”
“In a way, you’re right. A part of me didn’t want anything but the Great Mother’s embrace and the glow of her daughters’ regard. I was more at peace than I have ever been…except when I’m with you.”
She gasped and blinked up at him. “Really?”
“I didn’t feel Lost…until I heard my name. You are the only one who says my name. You were the tie that couldn’t be broken, the one thread binding me to that other life. I felt it holding me back, although it was gentle, like the fragile silk of a Theridian spider.” He drew a line down her arm as if tracing that spider’s web onto her. “At first it made me angry,” he said. “When I tugged against it, I expected it to snap easily enough. But it stretched instead of breaking.”
“I felt it, too,” she whispered.
He frowned. “But then you were gone again. The moons had their own demands and I couldn’t do anything but heed them. I set off once more to run and kill and howl, but after a while I heard your voice calling me again. At first it was only a whisper, and I continued to ignore it, but you wouldn’t give up. You kept searching for me, and something in me kept letting you find me.”
“You wouldn’t have let me go if it was the other way around.” She curved her hand around his neck. “I had to try.”
“When you touched me, I remembered.” He twisted her hair around his fist. “These silly braids, and the way your nose and cheeks get bright red spots of pink in the cold. I remembered how you cock your hip and cross your arms when I’m in for an argument.” A fire burned in his eyes as he gazed down into her face, far from crazed or wild, but just as intense.