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“You mean leave you here alone?” The vampire didn’t hesitate. He simply shook his head. “Not a chance.”
It was the answer he’d expected. He didn’t want any member of the Zhang clan to put their lives at risk for him, but there was no way he was moving forward without Yichen attached to his side. And where Yichen went, the rest of his clan followed.
Of course, all the vampires, witches, and shifters had a vested interest in removing the fae horde from their realm. Technically, so did the humans, but now that Rei was looking at the battlefield, he found himself relieved that Aiden Varik had been unable to strike a deal with the humans. Rafe had wiped the memory of the human leader and their secret remained safe…for now. Probably not for much longer if his father continued on this path.
Turning his head toward Yichen, he winked at his lover. “Then I guess we head down there and stir up some trouble.”
“Thank fuck!” Moon grumbled as he shoved his phone into his back pocket. “Sky has been bitching for the last twenty minutes. Apparently the graveyard he raised is full of revolutionary war soldiers and such. They’re restless as hell and don’t want to listen to him anymore.”
Rei lifted an eyebrow in question at Yichen, who lifted a shoulder. “I get the impression the older the skeleton, the more stubborn and cranky they are. They don’t like to obey the necromancer once they’re out of the ground.”
“Huh.” That was something he’d never expected to learn. Good lesson. Don’t piss off necromancers and old skeletons. “Tell Sky he can set his army loose on the fae. We’ll just try to stay out of their way.”
“We’re sticking to the plan?” Xiao Dan inquired.
His answer remained trapped in Rei’s throat for a moment until he finally managed to grunt an affirmative along with giving a short nod. They’d worked out an attack plan with the Variks and Moon’s coven before leaving the clan house. “Just remind everyone to be on the lookout for Trin and Aire.” He hadn’t lost all hope of his half brother showing up to help get rid of King Ash.
But then, he also believed there was an equally good chance that Trin and his army would appear to stop him from killing the king.
“Just remember to keep your distance and aim for anyone protecting the king. We need the road cleared for us,” Yichen added.
Rei offered him a weak smile. Us. He’d expected that. Yiyi was not going to leave his side, for better or worse.
A scream tore through the forest and Rei’s head jerked up to see a horde of several hundred corpses and skeletons rushing toward the forest in a variety of different speeds. Elves and pixies popped out of the trees to meet the dead, who were armed with nothing more than their own bones and a magical will to destroy the fae. Yeah, Sky’s army of the dead was going to provide a nice distraction for them.
With a quiet laugh, Rei signaled for the others to begin their own assault. It was the only advantage they could cobble together in this fight. Even if King Ash wasn’t bringing an entire army, they would still be outnumbered.
As he rushed forward, he drew the two short swords strapped to his back. Yichen remained glued to his weaker left side, prepared to offer him protection and support as he needed it. With every step into the woods, the tingle of magic grew thicker in the air so that Rei could taste it coating his tongue and caressing his skin. A restlessness was building just under their feet, as if the forest were biding its time, waiting to lash out and steal the ground it had lost to the humans.
Not this time.
Four elves fell to his blade before a cry finally went up, blowing away the last of their surprise. Everyone knew they were there now.
From there, Rei could only shut his mind off and fight. Hot blood splashed across his face and soaked into his skin as he sliced through one elf after another. Occasionally he would glimpse a familiar face—someone he’d seen in the castle back in the fae realm, someone he’d trained with when he was young—but it didn’t stop the swing of his blade. Each of them had been given the same chance as he to walk away from the king’s madness, and they’d chosen to stay. He couldn’t permit himself to feel remorse over the loss.
Arrows choked the air as the fae attempted to cut down the vampires. However, the trees grew too closely together, and the vampires were far too fast to be lost to arrows. Screams and cries of pain echoed through the night along with the clash of steel. The rich scent of blood teased Rei’s nose as it soaked into the soil. His people were dying, and their energy was returning to the earth. Trees and plants around them grew more restless.
“Sleep, my friends. You need to sleep and ignore the feeble creatures fighting close to you,” Rei murmured. He placed one hand on the bark of a particularly large and old oak tree after he’d dispatched an elf who’d attempted to remove his head.
“What’s wrong?” Yichen demanded. His words were nearly lost to a pant as he attempted to catch his breath.
“The spell they started to cast. It’s growing more powerful rather than dissipating as I thought it would.”
“Maybe we haven’t reached the king’s dedicated spellcasters yet. Maybe they’re still working the spell.”
Rei shook his head. “I know them on sight! I’ve killed four personally.” He didn’t mean to snap at his lover, but panic was unfurling in his chest with each passing second. This was all wrong. Even if he didn’t entirely understand the inner workings of the spell that was being cast, he could feel the magic building. It was like one of Yichen’s water balloons that was stretching and stretching under the weight of the water pouring in. Soon, there would be no containing it.
“We need to find the king now,” he whispered before setting off at a brisk run through the woods, not even checking to see if Yichen was still at his side. He wanted to order the rest of the vampires to pull back, to stop killing, but it was already too late for that. Besides, if they didn’t continue, there was no way he’d reach his father.
Even if he did stop the flow of fae blood into the earth, that didn’t mean his father wouldn’t order the slaughter of his own kind to finally push the spell over the edge.
This was a trap, but it wasn’t the one he’d been expecting.
The farther they traveled, the softer the sounds of the fighting grew until they were nearly drowned out by the rush of the river pounding away at its banks in the dark. Firelight flickered ahead of them, drawing them in until Rei at last spotted his father pacing a large circle dotted at the eight cardinal points with spellcasters.
King Ash’s appearance had not improved since their last encounter. The stout man had continued to wither, growing thinner and paler. Shadows circled his sunken eyes and settled in the depths of the hollows of his cheeks. His missing right hand was still replaced with a silver fake hand, but there was no longer a dagger in its grip. The metal hand was as empty as the man wearing it.
He wore a sword on his right side as well as a dagger at his waist, ready to be wielded by his left hand.
