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Claire shut down the bond instead. She needed to focus and she didn’t want them to distract her or try to talk her out of this. She knew she was one of the few people on this battlefield who could take Henry Storm one on one when he was hyped up on Fortis like this. And she would be lying if she said that a small part of this wasn’t personal.
What she had told the Alpha just a few hours earlier had been true. She didn’t want to take a life. That was true right up until the Fae warrior’s head rolled to a stop at her feet. She could not in good conscience let this man live to cause more bloodshed.
Henry Storm turned slowly to face her, his reluctance in every inch of his body.
“Scared to face someone who’s your match?” Claire taunted lightly. She didn’t usually trash-talk but she would use every edge she could get to make him sloppy and open to a mistake.
Henry Storm didn’t answer at first. He just assessed her, standing unnaturally still.
“I think she would have looked like you,” he said finally. His tone was the complete opposite of what Claire had expected. Instead of responding to her taunting, he delivered those words with a deep sadness. Claire didn’t need to be an empath to feel that.
She frowned. “Who would have?”
“My daughter. Had she been born. I think she would have looked like you.” Claire’s eyes widened in shock. Of course, his pregnant Fourth. His unborn daughter.
“But I didn’t get the chance to see her grow up,” Henry continued, “The war stole her from me. The Elves did. And worse, they didn’t steal her or my mate with honor on the battlefield but your people condemned them to die a slow death of a disease that your plants could have cured.”
Claire’s eyes widened as she put the pieces together. “You blame the Elves for shutting down trade,” she said. “But you forget it was Vanya and Roland, the very men you work for, that started that series of events by forgiving the witch that murdered the Elven trader. They started this. They cut off the trade first.”
“I’m well aware the men I work with are not without sin but you don't know what it’s like to lose your whole world like I did.” It was clear that the man standing before her was consumed by grief, it practically oozed out of him. But instead of carrying that grief, he had allowed it to consume him, sparking only irrational thoughts it seemed. Like he had been the only one to suffer from this war.
Claire narrowed her eyes as anger welled up in her. Then she committed a cardinal sin on the battlefield. She let anger rule her actions and lunged towards Henry Storm forcing him to lift his sword.
“I don’t know what it’s like?” she said through gritted teeth, delivering a series of quick blows, her anger driving her. “You murdered my mother. Hunted her through the Forest and murdered her. I saw her death!”
She swiped at his side, a shallow cut blooming red under her quick blows. He grunted in pain and lunged forward at her, going on the offensive. She didn’t let that deter her, continuing her verbal attack even as she blocked his blows. “And then because of her actions, you cost me my only other living parent. I grew up alone because your actions cost me my world before I even knew what that meant!”
How dare he say that she didn’t know what it was like. All her life, she had dreamed of a family. And she had both found and lost one in the last year. Parents who she had believed abandoned her actually loved her so deeply they sacrificed everything to keep her safe. And this man had the audacity to believe he was the only one who had suffered because of the Great War?
He parried her blow away and attacked again as he spoke. His movements were faster than anything she had ever faced but she threw open the door to her magic center, allowing it to fill every cell of her body and aid her speed. Instead of the ‘otherness’ her magic had felt like a few weeks ago, it was like being hugged by a familiar friend. Her magic sank through every cell, amplifying her senses as she matched Henry’s pace. She let it go, trusting it implicitly to keep her safe.
“My mate’s death was preventable! So was my child’s!”
“As was my parents! How are you so blind to Vanya and Roland’s interference that you would betray the Realm in this way?” she said, ducking under his sword and lashing out with her dagger. She sliced a gash in his thigh. She didn’t understand his reasoning.
“I never meant it to go this far.” His quiet words had Claire faltering and she scrambled to recover.
“What do you mean?” she asked, twirling away to regain her balance. And give herself a break. Hyped on Fortis, he was one of the most fearsome warriors she had ever seen. And even though she had learned from one of the best, she wasn’t a battle-tested warrior. That had never been her strength.
“All I needed was the herbs from the Elves. My mate was half Elf so I had a key into the Elven Forest and access to some Fortis to amplify my magic to mirror hers and get me through the gate. But then the war happened and we were forced to abandon her to serve the Council. She died when my Triad and I were called to serve. Vanya and Roland had been providing select Triads with Fortis for the duration of the war to amplify their abilities. I got addicted. When she died, my Triad brothers went with her but the Realm cursed me into remaining. They preyed on that.”
“So you’re just going to blame others for the blood you’ve shed?” Claire spat. She understood the desperation to save one’s family but he had gone too far with his actions. Instead of healing his pain he had lashed out with it.
“All I had was my dark magic addiction, fueled by the Fortis and thoughts of revenge. On everyone.”
“You were going to doublecross the Council,” Claire realized, blocking his blow as she came to the realization.
“They didn’t deserve to live any more than the Elves did. The Fae would have protected the Elves with their last breath due to the alliance between them so they had to go too.”
“Why work with the Council after the Great War though?”
Henry Storm just looked at her.
“You knew what they were planning,” Claire guessed. “Or an inkling of it. When did you realize they were building an ultimate weapon?”
“Your first day of classes at the Academy,” Henry Storm said. “Before that, the ultimate weapon was a pipe dream. But when the Council realized that the child of Winona and Erick had come of age, they began planning in earnest. They had collected as many powerful ingredients as they could. They just needed a great amount of magic to fuse them together.”
“You knew it was me from the get go?”
