He shook me off and spun around. “Let’s go.”
Relief speared through me. All it would take was one more arrow dipped in dragon’s bane for me to lose my whole world. The fear I already had propelled me forward. I took out the dagger I’d stored at Rhys’ insistence and used it to take down two humans who crossed my path, as we traversed the entry hall and fought our way back to Rhys’s side.
By the time we made it, Rhys and his guards had cornered most of the humans by the front doors. What they didn’t have in power, they made up for in numbers, swarming the front steps like ants. Alaric and some others herded the few stragglers back to the group. We were winning, I realized. We would win.
Rhys was in a half-shift, using his armored scales to block the slashing knives and knock away arrows with inhuman reflexes. He used the wicked points of his claws to slash and maim any human stupid enough to get too close. We fought by his side, defending his back as the humans tried to rush his vulnerable spots. As he’d been instructed, Alaric directed the castle guards to block the humans in and start pressing them toward the exit.
Then, just as we nearly had them right where we wanted them, a shout came from the back of the knot of humans. They’d spotted something in the distance. Something that made them crow and cheer. One by one, they ran—away from us and toward the newcomers.
The castle guards looked at each other, then at Rhys, in confusion. Even Alaric’s face was ravaged with concern. The fact that the humans were cheering outside of the castle made ice ball up in my stomach.I’d never hated the mortals before that moment. I’d never wanted to kill when all I’d ever done was heal, but I felt rage licking at my insides.
Rhys came to my side and the guards followed closely behind. Alaric kept his place by Rhys’s other side and we all began to move toward the sound of cheers. Whatever it was—it couldn’t be good.
At first the brilliant white from the moon was blinding and I winced, holding a hand up. Then, as my eyes adjusted to the light, I realized what—or rather who—was waiting just outside the castle.
I would recognize the colors they flew anywhere. But it wasn’t the flags they flew that made the bottom drop out of my stomach. It was the man posed on the first horse of the line.
A man who shared my features.
Who raised me.
The man I’d always trusted.
Mybrother.
I took a few stuttering steps forward before Rhys saw what I was doing and jerked me back, his claws digging into my stomach in his haste.
I fought him, not completely understanding what was going on.
“Calm,” he said. “Don’t do anything rash.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked Gideon. My brain couldn’t comprehend it. Had he come to save me from Rhys? Had he come because father had died? Something about that niggled at my brain, but I couldn’t place it.
All I knew without a doubt was that he shouldn’t be here. He should be in Aurelia, with our people. A part of me knew that he wouldn’t leave the capital unless there was a good reason. The only reason he’d come here, with a contingent of soldiers, was for war, but that didn’t make sense in my brain.
Gideon wouldn’t go to war with the man he demanded I mate. He couldn’t.
But when he spoke, it wasn’t to me.
“Stand down,” Gideon said to Rhys in that commanding way of his. “Stand down and no one has to get hurt.”
The humans scowled and yelled, but Gideon quieted them with a murderous look.
“Careful, Darkmoore,” Rhys said, his voice as threatening as a thunderclap. “We’re not in the capital anymore. You have no power here.”
“Really?” Gideon said, though he didn’t seem worried by Rhys’s thinly veiled warning.
At a jerk of his head, more humans exploded from the castle. Wherein Slainehad they come from? For the first time panic threatened to overwhelm me, and the small amount of bravado I’d conjured shrank inside me. The humans surround us with spear-tipped lances held at the throat of every Dragon-Clan guard.
The threat against the people who would willingly lay their lives down for me allowed me to find my voice. “Gideon, what are you doing here? Tell them to back off.”
But he didn’t answer me. Instead, he jerked his head again, and two humans with sickeningly gleeful smiles that made my stomach turn moved toward me, one of them jangling a chain with each step. Rhys made to stop them, but the human with the spear pointed at his neck pressed dangerously close.
“No!” I screamed and threw myself in between my husband and certain death. “No,” I repeated through gritted teeth. “I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t hurt him.”
Gideon finally looked at me. “You’ll do whatever I want, regardless,Sister.”
At his nod, the two humans forced me to my knees in front of Rhys, who stood with barely restrained fury. His scales flashed, his eyes shifted from my beloved blue to blinding with startling swiftness, and all the while smoke unfurled from his nose. Each time he swallowed, his throat bobbed against the tip of the spear and I died a little inside.
