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He chuckles like I’ve amused him, even though he shouldn't have the breath to chuckle.
I grit my teeth and squeeze as hard as I can manage, ignoring the way my body ached from my fight with the shadow beasts, ignoring the fact that the moonstone in his chest seems to give him uncontrollable power. Because this is all I have. This moment. And my two hands.
Behind me, Ann’s glow grows brighter. Lighting our battlefield. Lighting beyond it. Spreading across our lands like the very sun.
But she doesn't seem ready to stop. The glow continues.
Brighter.
And brighter.
The shine is so bright, I can’t look in that direction at all, but I try. Because I need to know she's okay. Because I need to know the brightness isn't because something terrible happened to her. I turn my head, just a little, to see her. And the instant I do, I'm glad. She's exquisite. So beautiful I can’t breathe in the face of her light. “Ann.” I whisper her name, and she looks over at me like I’ve screamed it to her.
“Phantom!” Her voice wavers as she reaches out to me, and her light shifts toward my father from the beasts surrounding her and Rayne.
My father surprises me by jerking me closer, putting my body between him and Ann, and I realize belatedly it's to protect himself from the light. She turns, briefly, to vaporize another shadow beast who made it around Rayne and was coming at them. Then she turns back to me and my father.
My stomach aches for her, to be near her, to see her safely away from this. I want to protect her and shield her from my father and this dark world, but I can't. I have to trust that she can survive without me by her side, at least until I can get back to it. So, I turn back to fight my father, ready to yank him into her light at the smallest sign of weakness, to blast him away, to end him in a way that means he can never hurt her again.
I don’t see the shard in his hand until I feel it pierce my skin, until I hear the shallow scream erupt from my own lungs, until I look down at his hand. The pain is immediate but short and then I feel nothing.
19
Ann
I can’t pullit back in, I can’t aim it or control it, but I can turn it, so that's what I do. I shift my focus so I’m looking at the king until he moves Phantom to stand between us. I would love to annihilate that bastard, to incinerate his ass with my power, but I’m afraid to hurt Phantom. My heart would never survive that. So I let my light fall over the grave trolls and watch as they fade away to ash, and I do the same when the rot monkeys descend on us from the trees. But in truth I'm barely paying attention to them. I'm watching the king and Phantom, waiting for my chance to reach the bastard who hurt my men.
As the rot monkeys seem to realize they have no chance against me and fall back, I slowly move my light toward the king. Phantom looks back at me as I do so, and my heart races. I want him away from that dangerous man. I want him back on earth, safe with me, and I'll do anything in my power to make that happen.
A movement catches my eye. The king’s hand is spindly, thin, and looks brittle, but it’s clawed and reaching inside the black box. I don’t know what’s in there, but I want to scream for Phantom to pay attention, to watch the king. But as I have the thought, the words die.
It’s a shard.
“Phantom!” I scream a second too late, and the king plunges the shard into Phantom’s chest.
The light inside of me dims, fades, and I can’t do more than watch as the king takes Phantom away, disappearing in a puff of darkness.
“No!”
I need the light back. I need to find Phantom. I need to save him.I run from the crowd of shadow beasts left behind, probably filled with the order to kill me, but before I can get to the spot where the king disappeared with Phantom, Onyx grabs me by one arm and Dusk grabs me by the other while Rayne clears a path out of the realm with a sword he’s lifted from one of the trolls who are now crowding into the space, embattled, ready.
Our enemies outnumber us by the hundred and I can’t focus enough to make my light shine again, so I leave, running out behind Rayne as Onyx and Dusk pull me along. I instinctually fight, even though I know that staying behind is foolish, because I have to get back to Phantom. I have to find him!
“Phantom!” I look at Dusk. “He’s there still. Somewhere! Let me go. We have to find him, before it's too late.”
But I'm not fighting them. I just feel overwhelmed by a need to find my mate, and at the same time, there’s the lingering knowledge that if we stay in the shadow realm, we'll die. We can't save Phantom if we're dead, so why does it feel so wrong to leave him behind?
And then we're at the edge of the shadow realm, staring at the dark wall that leads to our world. My men don't hesitate; they drag me through. And a moment later, we're back on earth. But they don't slow. Not yet. When we reach the edge of the trees around the clearing near the Void and realize no one is following us, we stop, although they don’t let me go. Dusk and Onyx keep their fingers curled into my biceps like I'm mad and will dive right back into the shadow realm.
Which, to be fair, I just might. My head knows what's smart, but my heart is pulling me back, commanding me to return for the man I love.
“Let me go!” I yank and struggle, but these aren’t mortal men. These are hulks who have muscles on top of their muscles and they’re using them to hold me. My struggle does little more than wears me out.
“Please!” The terror is real. I shift to look at Rayne. “Goddammit! Make them let me go!”
He cocks his head and considers me. “So you can run back in there? So the king can take you? So you can die?” His lips purse and he looks at me, eyes dark, expression hard. “No.”
It’s a flat answer, one he has no right to speak. I jerk my body hard enough Onyx’s hold tightens and the futility of it burns through me. But I can’t let Phantom go. I just can’t.
