Page 130 of A Courage of the Chosen

Dorche seize their opportunity and dive toward her, the tip of their swords aimed for her neck.

A wall of light springs between them, darts of it firing out in their direction. One of them shoots clean through the throat of a soldier, tearing through flesh and bone and leaving a hole where his windpipe used to be.

I slide my arm under Rach’s and heft her to her feet. “Up you get.”

“That was too fucking close,” she says, rounding on the next fighter headed our way.

“Yeah. Let’s not do that again,” I grit out as I block an attack with a mist shield before shoving Lumiathar through the soldier’s gut.

Together, we hold our ground. My light comes easily as I summon it, and when it strikes the heart of a Dorche, they only have seconds before there’s nothing left of them. It’s the one thing they don’t have an answer to.

They bleed, but the stench of it reeks of decay as though their power is rotting them from the inside, it’s not dissimilar to the scent that encases the Brollachan. It coats Lumiathar and my hands as we battle.

My men fall one by one, dragged from their saddles and savagely killed. Some of the horses get slaughtered, too, while a few manage to flee the carnage unfolding around them.

Somehow, Callahan and Brodie find their way to our side, and the remaining two of my soldiers join us with bloodied swords and sweaty faces. We’ve definitely evened the odds, but there are twenty or so Dorche still standing.

And Raghnall is closing in.

They part for him, allowing the monster into the circle, where we’re caged by soldiers on all sides. Tavish bides his time as he leans against a tree, like it’s a casual day in the forest.

“Want me to end this?” he asks. My gaze finds him, despite his father creeping closer to me. “All you have to do is pick me.”

“Pick this,” I say out loud and flip him off. It’s juvenile, I know. But look how much I don’t give a shit.

Raghnall pulls my focus back to him then, no more than two feet away from me. “Your rule ends today, pretend queen.”

A talon scrapes down my cheek, and a trickle of blood cascades down onto my neck as the skin opens up.

“Look how pretty you bleed,” Raghnall rumbles. “I could kill you,” he ponders, as those eyes roam my face. “But maybe I’ll keep you instead.”

Tavish pushes up from his relaxed stance braced against the trunk, his eyes fixed on the back of the creature looming over me.

Raghnall summons shadows that are different to the rest. They crawl with an awareness that screams how unnatural they are. Tavish’s mouth goes slack, eyes pointed, and I don’t have time to dissect what his expression might mean.

What happens next is a blur of movement, both too fast and too slow at the same time.

Tavish’s face settles into a grim determination, and he takes a solitary step forward.

Callahan grips my wrist and tugs on me.

Rachel steps out from the side, pushing me hard in the chest toward her brother.

Raghnall skewers a shaft of his power to where I was just stood . . . and precisely where Rach has placed herself.

Brodie surges for her, a protective roar tearing from his chest.

Dorche magic slams into my best friend.

My heart, time, and the world itself slows to a pitiful crawl, as Rach’s watery pale-gray eyes look down at where Raghnall’s corruptive power disappears, a poison seeping into her veins.

Callahan drags me further away, and Brodie bellows into the forest as he desperately tries to get to her.

He’s too late.

She has time to look for him. One single, tender second where she’s still Rachel. Still his.

“Until the end of time, baby,” she mutters.