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If I’ve learned anything about Boreans, it’s that using power of this magnitude will exhaust her Elixir stores faster than she can replenish them. She must have been drinking it this whole time in preparation…and for the first time, someone has managed to act faster than Orion.
She’s had him in her grips before. I guess I should have expected this. But it still terrifies me that this is going so poorly already.
She turns to look at me and flashes me a cold smile. “Did you really think I wasn’t going to be prepared for you, usurper?”
My eyes widen as I watch Orion struggle against her psychic touch. I thought the Elixir ceremony was going to make us more able to withstand her attacks, but I’ve never seen my hunter look so weak.
And that scares the shit out of me.
“You can’t touch his mind,” I say. “We’re bonded.”
“With enough Elixir, I don’thaveto toy with his mind; I can manipulate the air around him.” Her fingers curl, and Orion lets out a ragged breath as his body contorts.
“Stop!” I cry out, taking a step forward.
“I’m going to break all your men,” Lamia says in front of me. “I’m going to make you watch, you stupid human, as I crush their spirits and their souls.”
Fuck, she’s so powerful. I don’t know how we’re going to defeat her.
“I’ll break them all one by one,” she says. “Start with my stepson because he deserves it the most, move along to your warriors, and then finish with your pilot human and make him serve me for the rest of his life. He is talented…perhaps in more ways than I realized. Thank you for training him for me.”
“No,” I whimper.
“Yes,” she says, then laughs deeply. “There’s nothing you can do to stop me, child. I’ve already started. And Prince Nereus is already mine.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
RYKER
I’m drowning in bodies.
Brainwashed soldiers pile on top of me as I swing my antlers and axe, trying desperately to escape them. The airlock is still in the process of sliding shut, spelling doom for everyone trapped outside if they aren’t Merati or Mlok—and I’m going to die here, surrounded.
I’m suffocating. My breaths get more and more labored as dozens of zombies throw themselves upon me, crushing my chest. My throat spasms, locks up.
I drop my weapon.
Doom is coming for us all.
There’s only so much I can do to fight a horde such as this, even in the full throes of my Skoll rage. My will begins to ebb away with the breaths stolen from my lungs. Through a gap in the mass of bodies, I see that the airlock door is almost closed…
Then I feel something teasing at the edges of my mind, gentle at first, then harder. Like a hand grasps my arm, then another, then another. And her soft voice is in my mind, urging me to keep fighting.
Get up, Ryker. Get up!
Fiona.
My power surges and I fling my antlers up at my opponents, hurling three of them up into the ceiling with a sickening crack of bones and armor. I somehow find my way to my feet, letting out a bellow of rage that seems to break some of the guards out of their trance. The Skoll, in particular, blink their eyes as they stare at me, feeling the power of a true berserker warrior.
I take the opportunity, stepping forward. “We’ve come to liberate this planet and reclaim the Merati throne!” I roar. “Join our cause!”
Some of them have to know me, even through the haze of Lamia’s control. When we left, many of her guards had eagerly served her with the enticement of Elixir, but now it seems that she’s fallen back on using her powers instead. And that means she’s even more powerful than before, and that we’ll need all the help we can get.
They stare in shock, but the clock is ticking. The airlock door is almost shut.
“Join meor die,” I growl, squaring my shoulders and angling my antlers toward them.
A few run, now that they’re free. A few raise their weapons. But, to my joy and relief, others turn on their allies.
