Jax and Hudson said nothing, but when I finally looked up into their eyes, I saw the same silent tears I felt running downmycheeks, the same silent understanding passing between us.
Elian was a mess in every possible way. A dangerous, reckless, self-destructive, selfish fucking mess who’d bring us all down with him if we let him.
But…
I closed my eyes and took a deep, steadying breath.
He wasourfucking mess. And right now, we needed to get him the hell out of here.
“Let’s go,” I said softly. “Gem can deal with the bodies. We need to go home.”
Wordlessly, Hudson lifted Elian back into his arms, and I rose and leaned into Jax’s waiting embrace, and together the four of us headed out into Amaranth City, leaving the dead behind.
3
KERADOC
Gathered in a grim circle around the table, my most trusted war generals and elite guards stared up at me, their collective breath drawn and held tight, no doubt awaiting my inevitable eruption.
I felt it simmering inside, churning from the depths of my soul and aching for an outlet.
But as deeply as my muscles trembled with the effort of holding back, I couldn’t erupt. The news was too shocking. Too deadly.
The general in charge of the southern outpost held my gaze, his warnings echoing through the cold room like one more illusion cast by the vile goddess herself.
The Dark Goddess Melantha has found a way to reverse the banishment spell and return to Midnight… She’s brought the Army of the Dead…
My hands clenched into fists at my sides, aching to wrap around his throat and choke him for his vicious lies. Perhaps watching the life drain out of those mud-brown eyes would mute the other images seared into my brain—my blood witch on her knees, bared to the night air, thighs spread over her gargoyle’s bearded face. Her head tossed back with careless abandon, the breeze caressing her long hair as her mouth parted on a sweet, decadent moan…
For him. All for him.
My jaw cracked from the pressure of clenching my teeth, the audible pop snapping me back to the present.
War council. Melantha. My general.
I swallowed the rage. I could no more kill him than I could convince myself he’d lied to me. The look in his eyes was too grave, too terror-stricken for his words to be anything other than the truth.
With a wave of my hand I dismissed him, allowing him to take his seat among the others. His relief was palpable.
Myrelief, however, was non-fucking-existent.
“How long?” I asked, my voice stone-cold, hands still fisted at my sides. “How long until she reaches our borders and unleashes her wicked ghouls on my city?”
Squaring his shoulders, the general whose life I’d spared cleared his throat and said, “We’re working with very limited intelligence at this time, given the difficulties of entering the Boiling Glass Sands. Our men at the southern outpost have been working with our dark witch allies to track her movements through spellcraft, but it hasn’t been easy. Melantha is moving quickly, never lingering in one place too long.”
“Is she in her true form? Or has she taken the shape of another?”
“Neither, sir. Our scouts don’t believe Melantha has physically manifested—not fully, anyway. At this point she’s merely an entity—a magickal field, so to speak. But it’s only a matter of time. Every moment she spends on Midnight soil is another moment she’s leeching its magick, channeling it to her own dark ends.”
Bitterness churned in my gut. Stealing magick—that had always been her modus operandi. For a long time, the leaders of the past had let her get away with it too. All part of the deal.
But I wasn’t them. Wasn’thim. And I would be a dead man in the moat before I let her use the magick ofmycity—my fuckingrealmagainst us.
I leaned forward, my fingertips pressed so hard against the table they turned white. “How. Long.”
Clearing his throat again, the general said, “Assuming she’s able to draw enough magick to both manifest and continue working whatever protective spell is allowing her to travel through the Sands, she’ll likely clear the desert in a few weeks—that’sifluck is on our side. Otherwise we’re talking about two weeks, maybe ten days at most.”
“If luck were on our side,” I said, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation. What of her army?”
