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She’d done that. She’d been of service. She’d helped.
She’d also opened a door, crossing from spectator to participant. She doubted she’d be able to shut that door.
As the Guardsman dropped her by the Guildhall, she turned once more to watch him levitate and shoot into the air. She hadn’t wanted this, but here she was, in Bergisson, having just fed a mastyr vampire and she’d never felt better in her life.
She had no idea what the future held, but Shreveport somehow seemed like a faraway place and definitely a world apart.
*** *** ***
Ethan’s renewed strength sent shockwaves down both sides of the Guard’s joint shield, which resulted in a series of whoops.
Like music to Ethan’s ears.
He’d never felt more alive, more powerful.
Beams of energy flew from the tips of his fingers in lightning flashes, stronger and more lethal than ever before. Many of the pairs began to drop where they stood, and after a few minutes more, the Invictus line began to retreat in stages.
The Guardsman to his right gave a heavy groan. He’d taken a blade to his upper chest, high enough to have escaped lungs or heart. Ethan retaliated, and sent a strong stream of power straight for the offending wraith’s right eye. The wraith screamed as he fell from levitated flight, his body hitting the earth with a thud and twitching. His mate, a female troll dropped to the earth as well, her eyes rolling in her head.
Ethan saw her shudder and thought she might have murmured, ‘I’m free’ as she died, but couldn’t be certain.
He continued battling, his strength never wavering, a phenomenal circumstance alone given the acute suffering of the past several weeks. Had his body somehow known that his blood rose existed out there, had been calling to her all this time?
He caught one last glimpse of the traitor, Ry, his eyes narrowed and hard as he met and held Ethan’s gaze. The promise of vengeance radiated from Ry’s expression, the set of his jaw, and the reddening of his dark eyes. He moved fast, and soon disappeared beyond the canopy of the beech-wood.
A horn sounded in the distance, a sound Ethan had never heard before. The Invictus had, however. Those remaining wraith-pairs, at least fifty in number, and as if trained to respond instantly, turned and shot back into the depths of the woodland, leaving their dead and wounded behind.
His suspicions that something, or someone, had brought an increased degree of order to the wraith-pair ranks, had just been proved here on the field. Clearly, Ry was involved, but knowing Ry as he did, Ethan doubted that the traitor had achieved this level of organization alone.
So, who were the mastyrs of the Nine Realms really battling in what appeared to be an escalating war against a growing Invictus offensive?
He turned to Finn, stationed beside him, and despite the horror of those lives lost, his second-in-command smiled then pathed, You look a helluva lot better, my friend.
Ethan nodded. To merely say he felt better seemed like so much less than what needed to be said, what should be honored. His blood rose, a woman he’d met just over twenty-four hours ago, had crossed to the frontlines of a battlefield and fed him, not only saving his life but providing Ethan with enough added power to alter and undoubtedly shorten the duration of the fairground battle.
It’s over, was all he could think to say. His gaze drifted to the wraith-corpses, to their mates of varying species who’d been harnessed to a wraith against his or her will. Yes, there were women on the field, even less able than the men to have withstood a wraith subjugation.
He went to the troll he’d observed fall and murmur something, but when he reached her, she was gone. Sometimes the separation occurring from the death of the wraith set in motion the demise of the mate. The troll was very thin and covered in bruises. Around her neck was a locket.
He opened it and saw the pictures of a boy and girl, the smiling photos taken at elementary school. But the pictures looked old, which meant the woman had been bound to a wraith for a long time.
He picked her up in his arms and held her. He didn’t care about the why of this tragedy, only that it still existed in his realm and he wanted this kind of enslavement to end.
Many of those fae with healing gifts were already running or engaging in levitated flight to cross the expanse of lawn, that stretch near the Guildhall where soccer was played every weekend through the inter-species league.
His might be a kingdom with a warring enemy, but his people pitched in as dozens, no hundreds of realm-folk came to care for his injured Guardsmen and the wounded among the wraith-pairs.
Finn and another of his Guard, Kyle, went from fallen Invictus pair to the next in order to determine if either wraiths or the mates survived. The wounded wraiths would be taken to a prison hospital as would any mates found to be hostile or beyond reach.
Those mates who had been obviously subjugated against their will and who survived the death of the wraith, were given priority and rushed first to the fae with the greatest healing gifts as well as the realm-surgeons as needed.
Several of his Guard patrolled the edge of the beech-wood to make sure the enemy had truly quit the field. Ethan only had to learn once the hard way that sometimes the retreat was a feint.
The corpses were gathered and taken to various morgues.
When the battlefield saw the last bit of debris hauled away, including the grass washed free of blood and any other battle-related detritus, like pieces of burnt clothing and scattered weapons, only then did Ethan finally levitate into the air and begin a slow progression in the direction of the Guildhall and Samantha.
A single thought of Samantha, however, put his heart in high gear. Having taken her blood had changed everything and now that the battle was over, his body seemed lit up and ready just for her.
He took deep breaths because what he needed from her now had nothing to do with a deep draw at her neck. But Goddess help him, how could he ask even more of her?
*** *** ***
Samantha wanted to go home, back to Shreveport.
This was all too much.
She stood in the shadows of the Guildhall, having watched the last of the fae healers, the physicians, and the support volunteers depart the field so that now only Ethan and his Guard remained.
And Ethan moved slowly in her direction.
She felt him coming for her like a slow-moving ocean wave, something she couldn’t stop even if she’d wanted to.
She’d fed Ethan and he’d battled his enemy, maybe even saving the day, or the night, so to speak. But this wasn’t her fight or her war. She was human, too, not just fae, not just a blood rose. Why should this be her fate?
