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Joelle shook her head, wincing when the gun smacked her ear. “They won’t kill me. Noxx won’t let them.”
The guard snarled a predatory grimace worthy of a shifter. “Noxx isn’t here, and accidents happen.” Cruelty filled the man’s gaze, a hard-hearted coldness that said he wouldn’t hesitate to murder her.
Alexei slowly lowered to his knees and didn’t fight when the other two guards wrestled his hands behind his head. A well-deliveredwhooshof wings would knock these two out, but not the asshole who could kill Joelle before Alexei reached him. Plus, the fourth guard had kept a pistol with a high-capacity magazine trained on her. Two handguns on her. Still not a gamble he could take. The risk to her remained too high even if he unleashed all his magic and somehow managed to shield her.
“What’s your move?” he asked the man, letting menace fill his voice. “Since you think you’re calling the shots?”
“I’m so tired of you monsters thinking you’re special, that you’re superior to us. You’re nothing.”
“You planning to talk us to death or take us to Noxx? I understand she’s expecting me.”
“Those men you attacked out there? They’re my brothers in arms.”
“Wereyour brothers.” Alexei needed the man to feel a fraction of the rage surging through his veins, the magic pulsing along with the anger. If he infuriated the asshole enough, he would lose that stony expression and fall from that tightrope of restraint he walked in his mind.Just a little more fuel to the fury fire and the man would come at him. Leave Joelle alone.“Did you hear their screams?”
The man’s cold gaze went hot.
Better.
“Death’s too good for you, Maronov.” The guard’s steadiness wavered, his hand with the gun shaking the slightest bit. “I think you should watch her die first.”
The next seconds stretched into an eternity. Alexei would remember every sensation as though meant as a blade to his heart. The smooth metallicclick-clickof the guard racking the slide of the 9mm next to Joelle’s head. The rush of Alexei’s pulse, an explosion of thudding in his ears. Her muted whimper and the flare of her magic as she covered Kyle. A coppery taste in the air from blood and metal. The excited huff from the guard when he turned the 9mm in Alexei’s direction. The rattle of Joelle’s cuffs.
Time unwound, stopped, unwound again. He should’ve listened to Alys. She had argued he needed to wait, to plan. But he’d left her on the shore with Eddie and Nita, hoping those two could keep his sister from following. There’d be no way he could waste another second without his mate knowing he wanted her, needed her, couldn’t live without her.
He should close his eyes, should meet death with honor, but he couldn’t look away from her. No, he needed her face to be the last thing he saw. Forcing himself not to look away, not to blink, he hoped she knew he loved her, that he could somehow convey in this last split-second what he should’ve said when he first held her in his arms.
A deafeningboomrocked the floor as if the massive ship had become a toy tossed high on the waves. Piercing white light flooded the room, a blinding and dazzling flash that warmed him to his bones. Darkness descended, wrapping him in its vastness.
So this was the afterlife?
Except the smell of death lingered in his nose, his ears had a rushingswishlike the churn of tides, and his entire body burned with the prickling pain of a thousand sparks. If he had died, why did he hurt? He squinted, but the world had gone black. Blinking, he rubbed at his eyes and tried again, but saw nothing. The void had swallowed him whole.
“Alexei?” His angel called to him. If he’d fallen into a dream or heaven itself, he didn’t want to wake. Except the urgency in her voice pulled at him. He clawed at the darkness, at the abyss.
“Joelle, I’m here.”
She cried, great sobs as if she might break apart. He hadn’t gone to any paradise. No, he’d found a hell. Sadness swept through him, its grip spreading a glacial frost over his magic. He wouldn’t surrender. Death itself couldn’t keep him from his mate. Alexei willed himself to follow her call.
ChapterTwenty-One
Joelle shook from the overwhelming surge of magic that had pulsed through her. Not the same as her usual healing powers, no, this had been something different, something destructive and monstrous.
“Alexei?” She choked on shock and dread. The stillness and silence sent chills creeping through her like icy fingernails dragging up her spine. Above her, the garish fluorescent lights had blinked out, stopping their incessant hum.
Struggling to remember what had happened, she picked apart her memories that crawled in a jumble of confusion and chaos. Alexei had knelt, staring at her despite the gun aimed at his face. Again, he had come for her, to save her. He’d jeopardized his own life and his kingdom by placing her above all, acting like a man obsessed, or perhapspossessed. He had come for her despite the odds, and he would die for her.
No one hurts him. Not while she has breath in her body and magic swirling through her veins.
Dizziness washed over her, and she fought against the fog, calling his name again. Using the pain from the cuffs to focus, she almost toppled off the table from the trembling that ran through her arms and legs. Beneath her, Kyle didn’t breathe, didn’t stir. She’d felt him die as they’d forced her demon prince to kneel. Panic seized her, paralyzing her in its suffocating grip. Her heart pounded a frantic beat, and her stomach pitched as the ship rocked.
What if Alexei hadn’t made it? What if she’d failed to rescue either of them?
A sob tore from her, the tears making her blurry vision worse. She had to find him. Darkness engulfed the room, interrupted only by the shine of her magic. For years, whenever she healed, the symbols in her skin had flickered. Now, they blazed a solid gleam.
Desperation and despair had driven her past the breaking point, beyond the place she’d been pushed when her life had been the only one at risk. Instead of retreating into her protective shell, she’d shattered into a million tiny pieces—scary and bewildering shards of what her soothing, peaceful powers had always been. Between one blink and the next, her magic had exploded in one big bang, a brilliant detonation that reminded her of the nuclear blasts she’d read about.
Her gift had ebbed below her skin for so many years now—there to call forth in an instant and without much effort. Yet this new energy ripped from the center of her sternum in a heart-pounding, breath-stoppingwhoosh. It didn’t come from thoughts and good intentions. Whatever this vivacious wave of intensity had been, it burst forth from feelings—anguish, horror, and grief mixed into an electrifying, terrifying storm.
