“I’m devoted to you, Roselle,” he whispers, “and you know it.”
In this moment, I could believe he’s a god with supernatural powers, capable of destroying all my enemies. His hands move down my back and cup my butt. He lifts me in his arms. My legs encircle his narrow waist, and he presses my back against the wall. His hard torso rocks against me. Heat bursts in my core. Every nerve in my body strains to get closer to him. I want to snatch his golden helmet from his head so that I can see his face. My back brushes against a control panel on the wall, and the lights dim. The walls and ceiling become an ominous, darkening sky. Storm clouds gather on the horizon.
“Where have you been?” Hawthorne groans, like he’s in agony, but he continues to ravage my mouth. A rumble of thunder reverberates. The deep sound penetrates my soul. Brilliant flashes of lightning ripple through the landscape, turning it white, and then gold, and then gray. Gusts blow across a field of barley, the stalks bowing in the wind. “I couldn’t find you,” he says, breathing the words.
“Halo Palace,” I whisper. The silver moniker on the back of my hand shines against the gold of Hawthorne’s helmet. I wrap my arms around his nape. His lips slip to my neck. I gasp softly. He groans, and the vibration fills me with fire. Hawthorne forces me harder against the wall. A thrilling ache of longing shudders inside me.
“I’ve dreamt of kissing your skin,” he murmurs, trailing his mouth over my flesh. “It’s all I dream about.” His lips find the hollow of my neck. He’s the moon, and I’m a wolf willing to howl and commit mayhem to possess it. Hawthorne’s hand grips me, and my eyes close, feeling the warmth of his touch to my marrow.
My head falls forward. The iron sword points of my crown battle with the golden, sickle-shaped blade of his helmet. He lifts his chin, finding my lips again, covering them with his. Opening my eyes, I reach for his helmet, sliding my fingers on either side of its dome. I lift it, pull it from his hair, and let it fall to the floor with a loud clang. My fingers tremble when I cup his face. He gazes into my eyes.
“I walked the beach in Swords where I last saw you,” he says, “hoping to find you, even when I knew you weren’t there. I thought I’d die without you. I’ll give anything to be with you—my firstborn title, my wealth, my soul, all of it.” I lean forward and kiss him. He groans again, as if I’ve stabbed him in the chest.
“I missed you, too. What are we going to do, Hawthorne?”
He hugs me to his chest. “Whatever it takes. I need you. Life without you is—”
A harrowing scream resonates through the rumble of thunder in the holographic room. At first, I convince myself that I imagined it. But then more shrieks and cries bellow from beyond the corridor. Hawthorne goes rigid in my arms. He reaches past my shoulder, cutting off the storm-effect sounds. My legs unwind from him, and my feet slip to the ground. He turns toward the closed door, listening. The ring of fusionmag pulses rises above a cacophony of panicked shouts.
Hawthorne snatches up his helmet and settles it back on his head. He lifts his shield. The gold reflects the dim light of the storm-clouded room. He pauses by the door.
I stop behind him. “Do you have a weapon?” I ask, while easing an iron rose from the belt around my waist. The points of the petals curve like claws.
Hawthorne crouches down on one knee and flips his shield over. The underside has a wide grip that unlatches, revealing a golden dagger hidden within. “When do you know me not to have a weapon?” He grasps the hilt of the blade and extracts it from the shield before latching the handle back into place. He holds the shield in one hand and the dagger in the other. Using the shield, he nudges the door open a crack.
I squat down behind him. Lifting the iron rose to my hair, I cut the vine that holds my crown secure to my head and then ease the circlet from its bed of thorns and roses. The iron crown is heavy in my fist. I wish I could cut out the rest of the vines, but they’re woven into the braids.
Movement—the sound of pounding feet. A woman dressed in black runs past the door, crying and stumbling. Blood and brain matter mottle her hair. Streaks of red and pieces of flesh, presumably not her own, dot the black eel skin of her costume.
Recognizing her as one of the women who came in with my father, I bound up and leap over Hawthorne, pulling the door wide. Fusionmag pulses rip past my cheek, singeing a piece of my hair. I recoil. The bullet connects with the back of the woman’s head, blowing her brains out through her face. Her body crumples.
I turn to see who fired. A ghoulish man, dressed in all black with raven wings, aims his fusionmag at me. His face is covered by a black leather mask, but his lips are exposed in a sinister smile. He utters a single word: “Roselle.”
He pulls the trigger. Hawthorne lurches in front of me, holding up his golden shield. The metal dents in and sizzles. Hawthorne flinches and shouts in pain.
I shift to Hawthorne’s side, draw my arm back, and throw an iron rose. It embeds in the forehead of the dark-clad God of Death, slicing through his skull and exposing the inside of his cranium. I throw two more, hitting his cheeks. He falls backward from the force, bouncing onto the floor. Holographic snowflakes shower down but never reach his body.
“Incoming!” Hawthorne shouts. He maneuvers around me with his shield in front of him. Another round of fusion pulses careen against it. He pushes me back into the room, closing the door.
We crouch down. Hawthorne points. I nod and take the position he indicated, hugging the wall across from him. We wait. Fusionmag blasts shatter holes in the door. A gunman pushes it open, and Hawthorne stabs his dagger into one of his knees. The black-clad figure falls forward. I swing my crown down at him, slicing his arm. The iron blades cut through his muscles and the tendons, slicing his flesh to the bone. He screams in agony, drops the fusionmag, and writhes on the ground.
A second gunman at the threshold fires at Hawthorne, who protects himself with his shield. I dive for the fusionmag the first assassin dropped. Rolling with it, I aim at the man in the doorway and pull the trigger. The pulse caves his face in.
“They’re all dressed like Vinsin, the God of Death,” I mutter to Hawthorne. “Who sent you?” I demand of the writhing man beside me.
Hawthorne crawls forward and claims the fusionmag from the dead gunman in the doorway. He gets to his feet and peeks around the corner. Chilling screams come from the main ballroom.
The Death God at my feet is bleeding out fast. The hue of his skin is ghostly white. Lifting my boot, I kick him hard in the side. “Who sent you?”
The assassin smiles at me, his teeth smeared with blood. “You’re gonna die,” he croons in a singsong voice. He bites down on a white tablet in his mouth. The cyanide goes to work immediately. His eyes roll back in his head, and froth trickles from the sides of his mouth. The rest of his body twitches.
I look at his left hand. No moniker shines from it to indicate his Fate. But there aren’t any marks there. It’s like he never had one.
“We gotta move,” Hawthorne urges, taking my arm and hauling me to my feet.
“My father!” I whisper-shout. “I was following him.”
“Which way did he go?” Hawthorne mouths.