AllFreeNovel
Share Us
UseReckoning—let go of Nova. But the portals might close. The kids would be sitting ducks.
Okay, magic then.
He widened the release valve on his mana. The portals flared brightly until he split the flow and directed half through his arm. Conjured water cascaded from his hand straight down the beast’s open throat. The wyrm choked on the torrent. With a twist of Leaf’s free hand, he turned the stream into ice, expanding the substance and shooting shards into its flesh from the inside. The wyrm convulsed, bloated, then exploded from the pressure. Monster bile and blubber sprayed into the night.
Screams and shouts joined the splats.
Someone cried out. Leaf checked over his shoulder, but it wasn’t the teens who were still safe behind the portal, or his mate who was shielded by his body, clinging to his hand. He met her wide-eyed gaze. “You hurt?”
She shook her head.
His jaw set and he let go of her hand. After making sure nothing else came through the wyrm’s hole in the ground, he sent the teens through the portals to Helianthus City and then closed them. Most of the soldiers were through now. When the buzzing ozone subsided, he said to Nova, “I guess that was Maebh’s last straw.”
“It’s time to meet her, isn’t it?”
He gave a grim nod, tugging her close, unable to staunch the helplessness swimming to the surface of his control. He’d promised Nova he would remain calm, but Maebh calling him out like this wasn’t good, for that was surely what had happened. The wyrm came straight for him.
Her war was about vengeance. She somehow managed to inspire loyalty—or it was just terror that kept her people fighting for her.
And who had controlled the wyrm? He frowned at the thought. The taint affected everyone, even Maebh. She was either lucky, or she’d found a way to harness mana. Or perhaps she’d spent this past decade training the beast the old way—by scent and pain. Maybe a little of all because the army managed to remain hidden.
Everyone on this campus could be dead by dawn.
Jasper would leave his son and mate. Haze, the same. Clarke and Rush still hoped to reunite with their daughter in Crystal City. The stark reality of Leaf’s failings had come to a head—here, tonight. But he couldn’t go there. Couldn’t wrap his mind around that dark place filled with what-ifs and maybes. All he could do was trust that the Well had a purpose, and he was part of it.
Aleksandra’s letter reminded him to keep the faith. It didn’t fail him before. It wouldn’t now.
So it all came down to Maebh unmaking herself.
Leaf bent his head and pressed his lips against Nova’s. Behind his closed eyelids, one of her memories played out. She kissed him, but not him. It was Jackson Crimson, sick and puffy eared in a luxurious bed. His fingers gripped hers, unwilling to let go as she pulled away. His words “I’ll find you” echoed in her mind as she walked down a carpeted hallway, choking on her emotions.
Leaf opened his eyes and pulled back. If she was thinking of the day she lost him, then she was more than afraid. Or she was preparing herself to fight? During an apocalypse her brother created, she had walked into unknown danger to find Crimson medicine. His chest constricted against his slowing heart, making the beating pained.
She’d better not be thinking about doing something silly now.
Her glowing freckles flickered, and a tear broke free from her eyes. He smudged his thumb across her cheekbone, clearing the path for them to shine again.
“Freckles,” he murmured and swiped his thumb again. An idea struck him. “You can push memories into my mind.”
Confusion tightened her brows. “What are you getting at,Papi?”
“What if you can push that memory into Maebh’s mind?” he asked. “She might not have believed it if Aleksandra told her about their daughter, but if she saw the memory for herself, perhaps she’d believe.”
If Maebh wasn’t too insane to care. But as he’d explained before, obsession had a single point of origin. Losing her child was the reason for the Unseelie Queen’s insanity. Depending on how far she stood from the Order gates, Nova could reach her from the battlements. This could all be over before anyone else got hurt.
“I could try. You might need to help me.” Nova’s brows lifted in the middle. “But she’ll only believe if she sees me in the flesh, too. Then she’ll recognize me as the woman in the memory.”
“You’re right.”Well-dammit.That meant he had to bring Nova with him into danger. Worse, they had to get close enough for Maebh to lay eyes on Nova’s face.
Unlike Aleksandra, who seemed to have lost memories that meant so much to her, Maebh held onto them like a vice. This move was a long shot, but the only one they had.
“We have to try.” He squeezed Nova’s hand. “But I won’t force you into danger.”
Her jaw set, and her eyes hardened. “I won’t sweep my brother’s mistakes under the rug. I ignored them for too long. And this child is my family, right? I can’t abandon her to this fate.”
“She’s definitely not a child anymore. Cloud thinks she’s as cruel and demented as her father.”
“And you?”
