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A thick metal sword sliced through the smoke and darkness, toward my wolf, and it took me much longer than it should’ve to realize that it was headed toward my throat.
Chapter21
My wolf wentimmaterial only a moment before the sword should’ve cut through her.
There was a savage snarl behind her, and Namir’s shadowy form cut through hers as he put himself between her and his brother. A loud clanging sound filled the air as the Shadow King’s blade collided with the Dark King’s, and the brothers began to move together in what I could only call a dance.
Their feet moved rapidly, their bodies spinning and turning and pivoting as they reacted to each other’s movements as if they’d done so a million times before—which, I realized, they may have while they were growing up.
“Get back to the castle,” Namir snarled, and there was no doubt the words were geared toward me. But my monster was in control, and even as I pushed against her, urging her to leave, she wouldn’t walk away from Namir.
More fae burst from the shadows and darkness. Swords clashed, and the metallic scent of blood tinged the air.
My wolf didn’t hesitate to join those fights, and with her control over my magic, none of the other fae could stop her.
She wasn’t trained, but she moved like the shadows that were a part of her—like the shadowsshewas a part of—materializing in time to tear flesh, bones, and throats, and dematerializing before anyone could tear into her. She wasn’t skilled, but she was angry, and brutal, and vicious.
The numbers of dark fae dwindled quickly, the shadow fae retreating as the remaining dark ones swarmed my wolf, focusing on the monster that was decimating their ranks. She didn’t respect life the way fae were supposed to—all she cared about was survival, and victory, and protecting the city I was coming to love.
She wasn’t my enemy… but she wasn’t my ally, either.
When the last of the dark fae around my wolf fell, her eyes landed on the two kings moving unnaturally fast. Their blades clashed again and again, the noise louder than anything I had ever heard from the castle’s training room. My monster’s gaze could barely keep up with the speed the men moved at.
“Your men have fallen,” Namir snarled at his brother. “You saw my female fight. Run while you have the chance.”
I didn’t know why he considered my monsterhis female, but it wasn’t as if I could take over and say that in the middle of the fight.
Laith laughed darkly. “I saw a desperate woman with no control over her magic, and a man too weak to force her to learn. At least dad was man enough to make mother hone her gifts—your female seems to think she’s actually become a wolf.”
Namir’s snarl was furious, and his fury changed his fighting immediately.
He swung his sword harder, and faster, his movements somehow picking up even more speed. His sword sliced at his brother’s throat too quickly for Laith to block, but a fraction of a second before the blade would’ve cut his skin, the dark king dissolved.
His darkness swept out of the forest, leaving us with the thick shadows that resembled smoke or fog.
Laith’s words began to set in when Namir spun toward me, his eyes dark and wild, his chest rising and falling as he heaved for breaths.
“Your female seems to think she’s actually become a wolf,”Laith had said.
Namir hadn’t argued, or told Laith he was wrong.
He had called my wolfhis female.
…He had calledmehis female.
While my monster was in control.
My body began to quiver.
Was Laith right?
Hadn’t Namir already said the same thing?
“The way you see it determines how it makes itself known,”he’d told Jesh and Lavee on one of those first days in the forest.“When it comes to magic, almost everything is in your head.”
Stars.
He knew that I thought my magic had a life of its own.
