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His breath was on my ear, two strong arms banding my waist and chest, squeezing me close. “But it’s my turn now, Una. I think I’ve waited long enough.”
Chapter 43
GOLL
Black.Black. Black.
My mind and body flooded with darkness. Wrath was no longer an emotion. It was a living, breathing spirit guide that had fully taken hold of me with an iron fist and scalding flame. It burned through my blood, filling me with grotesque, satisfying images of Ferryn being torn apart, limb by limb. There was no death good enough for him, no torture painful enough that would satisfy my all-consuming need to end him.
It wasn’t simply that he’d betrayed me as his king or his kin, or that he’d killed his brother, or that he’d defied the gods by taking what was not his, for Una had been ordained by Vix himself as mine. She’d swam in the black lake, survived, and given herself to me. I’d chosen her before all of my people. Vix had blessed our union with a child. Ferryn had defied the gods by taking her from me.
And yet, it wasn’t any of those things that stirred the deadly desire blazing through my entire being, my enflamed soul, to killhim. It was the fact that he’d caused her one moment of fear, one instance of pain.
It was unforgivable. For that, he would not live much longer in this world.
Drak soared close to the earth, speeding through the sky like a falling star. Windolek was within sight.
But it was the flashes of Una’s mind, what was happening to her, that had me blinded with black rage. She’d managed to run and hide, but he’d caught her.
Another flash. He had her pressed to a wall, her cheek against rough stone, the outside of the stables, his hands trying to both hold her and pull up her chemise while she struggled.
I roared my fury. Drak felt my anguish and roared with me, beating his great wings to fly faster over the long field to the castle.
My mate screamed and reached back, clawing her nails across his face. He gripped her arm and jerked her around then slapped her cheek, knocking her to the ground. Then he was on her.
A guttural whimper escaped my throat, my entire body humming with malice and terror.
There was no redemption for Ferryn now. No words he could say that would prevent his death. Not even the gods could stop what was coming to my half-brother.
The shock of the reality that Meck and Ferryn weren’t my cousins but my brothers had given me pause for only a moment as Meck confessed it to me with his dying breath. Guilt of what my father had undoubtedly done to sire them on my aunt—through coercion or brute force—was unforgivable.
They should’ve told me long ago. This entire night while I’d searched for Una and Ferryn, I’d tried to imagine what Ferryn was thinking, perhaps to right some wrong my father had done.But thesecondFerryn put his hands on Una in violence, blood did not matter. Nothing mattered but her safety—and his death.
Wights surrounded the castle and filled the inner yard. Drak swooped down right outside the gate, landing and crushing several wights, the creatures screeching beneath his giant clawed feet. He flapped his wings, sending more spiraling backward. I leaped off his back, storming for the gates of Windolek.
More leaped toward Drak, but he reared up onto his hind legs, wings beating the air. As he came down, he spewed red-hot dragon fire, incinerating every wight in his radius as I rushed forward.
The corpses of shadow fae crowded toward me, gnashing their teeth and stretching out clawed hands. I raised my arms to my sides, the surge of feyfire filling my body, my flesh, my blood. It enveloped me entirely, flooding my soul with the burning fire of the gods. A righteous knowing invaded my mind; I was no longer a fae or a king, but an extension of their will, their wrath.
Ferryn had wronged them. Not as much as he’d wronged me. Still, they filled me with their power. Vix was here and present, walking with me, seeing through my eyes, guiding my fury. His power vibrated with strength and violence.
A wall of flames stretched out the sides of my body like giant wings, slicing outward like a blade, cutting across the land, speeding farther and farther until the fire extended beyond the walls of Windolek. As I marched forward, the flames moved with me, edging closer to the enemy, eating them and incinerating them with fire as hot as Solzkin’s true heart.
Wights gibbered and screamed, igniting and burning to ash where they had stood seconds before. One lunged for me, claws swinging toward my face.
“No.” The calm word left my lips, exploding him into cinders and dust.
I marched faster toward the gate, my wall of feyfire devouring creatures as I went. The bars of the gate were bent with scratches like teeth or claw marks. Regular wights didn’t have that strength.
Ducking through, my wings of flame diminished to my sides, but lashed out like a whip to any wight who dared attack me. I didn’t even need to give the command. The fire protected me as if it had a will of its own. The wights crept slowly, moving in a circle around me, hesitant.
They weren’t completely mindless creatures. They wanted to survive like any other living thing. Though they had no souls, there was life in them. Until their master was dead. Which would be very soon.
I stalked through the bailey at a quick clip. “Ferryn!” I bellowed on a growl.
A Meer-wolf wight stepped out of the shadows of the stables with Ferryn at his side. He held Una in front of him, his arms holding her captive against him.
My heart left my body at the sight of her—the skin of her arms and legs scraped, her cheek bruised, her chemise torn down the middle to her waist, her eyes wild with fear and defiance and hope. The evidence of her claws streaked Ferryn’s face where she’d fought him.
