Leaving us with nowhere to run.
Fuck.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-ONE
AURIC
Nora Warriors.
Everywhere.
I felt their wings on the wind, their feathers a threat to my senses, the call one I used to know so well, but no longer felt compelled to oblige.
Because they were coming for us.
For my mates.
Several of them ran into the hallway, bursting through windows, and landing with snarls.
My stomach twisted.
Because I recognized their faces.
These were my men… warriors I used to command.
One stepped forward from the rest and raised a glowing sword blessed by Sefid himself. “Traitor!” he snarled.
I recognized him.
Olaf.
“If I’m a traitor, then why are my wings white, Olaf?” I shot back, ignoring how my head pounded with every word.
I knew that the Fall was a lie, just like everything else myKinghad told me—but I wasn’t going to make my men see the truth that easily.
They’re not your men anymore,I thought darkly when they charged, completely ignoring my attempt to talk them down.
Novak glanced at me, his feathers spiked with their deadly razors.
He could mow them down, but he was waiting for my move.
It was a show of respect that I appreciated, but we needed to protect Layla right now.
Protect our friends.
“Kill,”I said, giving Novak the direct order he needed to act.
Novak blurred, his lethality terrifying now that he had truly grown in his powers.
The Kiss of the Gods.
That was what King Vasilios had called it, the reason for Novak’s “Fall,” and the gift that made him even more deadly than he’d already been under my command.
He cut through the Nora warriors without mercy, sending blood streaking across the ceiling, the walls, and the floors, and covering him head-to-toe. Then he threw me a sword.
And a dagger.
Both of them having been stripped off my former warriors.
