“The Guild won’t let you go peacefully,” I reply knowing damn well the Mages will kill him. It’s just a matter of time. ‘Replacing’ Alden was a nice story so that they could get him out of the way without anyone catching on. I wonder if this was Marie’s fate as well. They call us animals; they are the same, cut from the same fucking cloth as us.
“She doesn’t need to know, as I said. I couldn’t take out my sister’s killers, and I raised her so she was strong enough to. I knew she and Adam were different than the others. Not just that they weren’t human, which, as an elder, I should have been able to spot. Had it not been for my love for them, I might not have been so blinded to their differences from the other children. The Guild would have put them to death, had it not been for Marie and her careful planning.”
“She will be pissed that you didn’t tell her.”
“She’ll get over it. She will have you in the end.”
“She’s marrying Adam in two days,” I snarl because I fucking hate it; hate saying it, hate thinking it.
“No, I may be just a human, Ryder, but even I have eyeballs. I have seen her look at you and just now, and she wasn’t looking at Adam with the thought that she might not make it—she was looking at you.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that she was brought up by you to value life. In the end, she will do what is right. It’s in her code, embedded in her soul by you. Ristan has seen Syn and Adam with their child. I already know how this story ends.” Without me in it.
“So you say, but even destiny can change if the will of two people is strong enough. I say fuck destiny, and let us decide what our future is. It changes every time we make a choice, and I damn sure don’t think anyone can say what will happen just by seeing it. Nothing is set in stone until it’s happened.” The beast agrees with him wholeheartedly.
A flash of a sword catches my eye as one of the Fae decides to make the first move and strikes out at Syn. She feints with one dagger and strikes back with the other. I lose all interest in conversation; the beast unwilling to allow me to play word games with the Warlock as Syn engages in battle.
Chapter Thirty Three
I met them head on. The faces I knew from my past that haunted my dreams were here now, facing me. The blades were sure and steady in my hands as I prepared to end these assholes. The blond Fae closest to me lunged, with lightning fast speed as if to grab me, and missed as I sifted just a foot to the right. Another Fae seemed to materialize in the blond one’s space, swinging his sword right at my head. I jumped back, feinted with one dagger and swung with the other, blocking his attempt to separate my head from my neck. I darted after him, but moved away when he lunged at me. These were just his pawns, and I wanted to send a message. I picked up speed and twirled through them deftly and swiftly, light on my feet as I danced around them effortlessly; making sure the blades struck precisely where I wanted them to.
My blades carved effortlessly into one Fae’s neck, and sliced into the next, swirling and dancing as I did damage. I was weightless on my feet as I circled them from the outside until the last one was met and fell to the ground by my hand. I turned around, blinking rapidly past the blood that covered my face and soaked my hair. I exhaled slowly, and pushed the first one I had taken my daggers to. The fight happened so fast, I don’t think he realized that he was dead until his head detached from his body, and tumbled to the ground.
The other two lay still on the blood soaked ground. I moved forward and examined the bodies; their necks had been severed enough to drop them, but not enough that they wouldn’t regenerate for some playtime with Ryder and his men. I looked around for the blonde fourth Fae, and he was nowhere to be seen. He must have sifted out when the other Fae sifted in for the kill.
I could feel Ryder’s eyes as they drilled into my flesh. His anger was palpable, even through the shield’s impenetrable surface. I could hear my own heart as it raced inside my chest. “He’s not coming,” I whispered, feeling disappointment that the one I wanted to kill the most wasn’t going to show up to be slaughtered with his lackeys.
“Something is, I can feel it,” Lari said, placing her hand on my back as she pushed more of her power inside of me.
“Lari no, if you give me everything—”
“I still have enough power to stay solid for a few more hours. I’ll still be able to tell Adam goodbye.”
“Talking to the dead, Bitch? Hope you are getting acquainted, because I plan to send you to them very soon,” a deep resonated voice said from beside me. I sifted across the shield and met my parents’ murderer face to face across the distance.
He smiled coldly. His eyes took in the dead Fae on the ground. The others weren’t dead, but they wouldn’t be talking anytime soon. Just a little further away was the decapitated body of the first Fae who arrived here. “You did this?”
“You killed my parents,” I accused, watching his reaction carefully. “This is my eye for an eye.”
Nothing—no emotion showed on his sharp features. Only a little madness was showing through his eyes.