“Joran?” Everyone stilled as Torin’s power filled the room.
“Tone it down, Guardian. There are no enemies here,” Dominic warned.
“He was my fiancé. I needed to cement my throne, and he was the King of the Dark Court, the Unseelie.”
“And he hurt you?”
Silva rolled her eyes. “Dude, I’m awesome. No one hurts me.” The fear and pain in her eyes told a different story.
“It didn’t work out, okay? I realized he was grade-A douche material, and I broke off the engagement. Hashtag, I didn’t let him put a ring on it. Hashtag, single ladies unite. But by then ... Asherah was gone and my kingdom was in ruins. In that time, I was taken and my magic was locked down.” Silva sucked in a breath, her startled eyes jumping to Nanshe. “Skuld.”
Nanshe smiled serenely. She couldn’t speak, but she had found a way to answer.
Asherah released a rather unladylike cry. “And she then made me believe my sister had left me behind to be taken. That anger, loss, abandonment ...”
Torin sighed. “It would create a Fury with the right setting. But there is the added measure of insanity brought about by pain.”
Asherah gaped at Torin. “You know how to make a Fury?”
Torin looked around the room and nodded. Stepping back from the table, he held out his arms. “Care for your women.”
It was the only warning they got. His runes blazed gold, brighter than the sun. Power, pure and undiluted, swelled into the room. Carlo grabbed for Nanshe, dragging her to his chest and backing against the wall to get as far from Torin as possible.
“What the hell are you doing?” Romano roared.
“Playing Lite-Brite, Romano,” Adonis replied dryly.
“Oh, good one,” Carlo tossed out.
“Fifty bucks says he blows his filament prematurely,” Dominic added.
“Twenty-five says he flips a fuse long before showtime,” Arturo countered.
“Are you serious?” Heath looked at all of them with shock and confusion on his face. “What the fuck is funny about this?”
Heath obviously didn’t get it. Perhaps it was a wolf thing, but they couldn’t show fear. They were unable to react normally. To be a wolf was to face any danger with teeth and claws, or sharp wit. They had to. Their mates were here, their other halves, and they couldn’t risk not being clear-headed.
“I take a thousand points from Rosemary’s Baby if either of you are right. That means she doesn’t have free hits at Carlo’s balls for like a month,” Silva quipped.
The Fae Queen got it, though Carlo would have to ask later how points were attached to his balls. When he looked over, Silva’s smile was vicious, a challenge to the fear probably swirling in all of them.
Torin’s body elongated, going gray with a deathly pallor, but Carlo swallowed a scream when he saw Torin’s face. It wasChaos, twisted and shifting his bones and razor-sharp teeth.
It was rage. Agony. Terror.
Everything wrapped into one and contained in a package of pure destruction.
“A Fury,” Asherah whispered, but every wolf in the room heard her.
Just that fast it was gone, and Torin fell to his knees with a ragged breath. “Not nearly as powerful, or at full force.”
“Youwere a Fury?!” Silva’s screech echoed in the room.
“Yes. Once.”
Silva’s eyes nearly bugged out of their sockets. “How the hell are you still alive and not crazy?”
“Because of the runes,” the Guardian answered.
