“Stand back, my universe,” he said, spearing Violence with a snarling glare as he poured a storm of misery and death through the hole I’d gnawed in the magic. It cracked, spiderweb fissures moving across the dark, oily surface before it collapsed. The second it fell, Misery grabbed Pain, binding him in tendrils of shadow as my sweet mate shivered and flinched, his eyes squeezed shut.
The shield had muffled our bond; I realised it when adelugeof suffering slammed into my soul, turning my brittle ice into something sharp and strong, as deadly as any weapon.
And my rage was vast enough to eclipse my fear of Violence.
“Time to get the hell out of here,” Miz said tightly, both arms around Pain.
But I wasn’t leaving until Violence was dead for what he’d done.
I didn’t allow myself time to second think. I bared my teeth and leapt at the throne, claws out.
CHAPTER 46
DEATH
Everything in me wrenched me backward, screaming at me to turn around, to protect my wife, to get to her side. But her father was surrounded by Stalkers, Cruelty had her unsettling eyes fixed on him, and he was unprotected.
With a growl of frustration, I threw myself into shadow-stained air, appearing beside him in time to watch the Stalkers grab his arms, restraining him instead of killing him. I grabbed the head of one, ripped his head off his neck, and ignored the sharp prick of my conscience. They were innocents, like Virgil, like my little bride, but I didn’t have time to spare them. Too much hung in the balance, and we needed to be away from this place as quickly as possible.
I’d make sure they had a pleasant afterlife with everything they could wish for. If they ever arrived in the domain at all. Nightmare’s victims never reached me, instead swallowed down her greedy gullet to transmute into power in her poisonous stomach.
“Fuck,” Tor snarled, joining me in a rush, every muscle on his body bulging, hands curled into fists. He grabbed two Stalkers and sent them sprawling across the chessboard, reaching for Cat’s dad at the same time Cruelty burst into magic and darkness, appearing close enough that the unhinged gleam of her eyes was all too clear. “She made me leave her side.”
I wanted to search for Cat,neededto check she was okay, but Cruelty stepped forward with a bright smile, a knife of gleaming silver in her hand. Its hand was a furl of petals, the handle etched all over with thorns as sharp as the blade itself, the cruel price of a beautiful rose. I snapped my hand out to knock it away, but she was faster, and horror stuck me like a lightning bolt, turning my breaths electric and sharp. I reached Hugo Wallison, grasping his arm, pouring a wealth of shadow through his skin into his soul and prepared to fight with all my strength to keep him tethered to life.
But he wasn’t bleeding from a mortal wound. He wasn’t injured at all, other than the bruises slowly forming handprints where he’d been grabbed.
“Kill me,” Cruelty said in a breathless rush. I snapped my stare to her, frowning at the bright shine of her blue eyes, the smile on her face, encouraging, coaxing. “You can do it. Just one little stab, and it’ll all be okay.” Her smile widened into a grin. “Then I’ll live happily ever after as a mortal, just like you. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
Cat’s dad didn’t reply, didn’t move at all except to curl his fingers around the knife. Shit. I waved my hand in front of his face, to no reaction. Neglect wouldn’t have done this to him, so this was the work of the siblings.
“Whatever you have done,” I said, forcing my voice into something resembling calm, even as inside I thrashed with rage, “undo it, Cruelty. We’ll find another way to spare you of this role.”
Her stare was rife with hope when she met mine, dimples biting into her cheeks and making her look uncomfortably young. Unsettlingly mortal. Perhaps that was why she insisted on wearing the lace wedding gown every day; she clung to the mortality she lost eons ago. Craved it, as if being human again would bandage her tortured soul.
I understood the weight being a death god settled upon shoulders, understood how it could bow a spine until its ache turned to agony. But I would never condone the manipulation and murder she’d resorted to in her quest to ease its crushing heft.
“Kill me,” she breathed, her eyes locked with Cat’s dad. “Go on, you have my permission.”
Hugo’s expression didn’t shift. He was as blank as the students we’d been surrounded by this week, cast under her spell. How the fuck was she doing that? I wasDeathand even I couldn’t take control of someone’s mind, turn them into a living ghost, without some residue of magic clinging to them. But her control was without flaw, without a single sign or trace. It was more than simple cruelty, more than death magic. And I couldn’t fight something I’d never seen before.
“Don’t give her what she wants,” Tor snapped, trying to take the rose dagger from Hugo’s hand and failing when the man’s knuckles whitened, his grip unbreakable. “This is impossible,” Tor spat, fighting to pry Hugo’s fingers apart. “This isbullshit.I’m a god. Why can’t I disarm him?”
“Because he was a god, too,” Cruelty said, her smile not slipping. “That’s why you can kill me, isn’t that good? Go on now, do it quickly.”
A solid weight knocked me from behind and I snarled, lashing out with a stream of thrashing darkness. Tor’s deep, throaty growl told me he’d wrapped himself in the cloak and cowl of death as I had. The Stalker that had bulldozed me nowdropped to the ground as I rained down every bit of rage upon him. I didn’t have the time to crush his spirit into dust, but I dropped him and the two others who neared to the ground, buying me enough time to turn back to Hugh—
His hand jerked forward, burying the rose dagger’s blade between Cruelty’s ribs. Her beaming grin settled into something softer, mellowed by relief and peace, even as Hugh pulled the sharp blade free, darkened blood dripping from the tip.
“Thank you,” Cruelty breathed, with an almost pious gratitude. She closed her eyes, and Tor and I exchanged an uneasy glance, throwing off any Stalkers that approached until we were surrounded by a half-moon pile of them.
I waited for Cruelty’s body to join them, but she didn’t even waver while she stood. The peace darkened to lethal rage in a second, her eyes flying open, lit by a wrath so severe that I grabbed Tor, Hugh, and pulled them both away.
“Why isn’t it working?” She spun and screeched, “Violence! What have you done to sabotage my second life?”
Violence might have replied, but Orwell Ford took that moment to appear—finally—and every Stalker on the board ground to a halt when he yelled, “Stop. All of you, stop.”
Even the ones splayed across the board or halfway to their feet stopped wriggling, as if his command ran even deeper than Cruelty’s eerie magic.
