I didn’t tell her I was afraid there was nothing we could do for them once we did. The feeling I’d gotten from Balor was once you lost your soul, it was a done deal. Souls weren’t pickles that could be stuffed back into a jar. Especially not as brutally as he’d tried to wrench mine from my body. Then there was the whole annihilating of personality facet once he had them. He’d felt like a massive pulping blender, breaking down souls into fundamental nutrients to fuel himself as if humans were his protein powder.
As we stalked from the flat, Ryodan shot off a text to Christian, a second to Lor, telling him and the others to meet us at the abbey, and a third to Barrons, though I doubted he’d be joining us. Protecting Mac from Fae attack was paramount.
We had this. One way or another.
You promised. You’re the last resort, Dani, Ryodan reminded tightly.
I nodded.
I heard that, he snapped.
I smiled faintly. Did not. I didn’t say it. Boundaries, remember?
You fucking felt it.
We’re going to have to make a few more rules, I said lightly. One of them is you can’t hold me responsible for my feelings if I don’t voice them. What he’d picked up was my unshakable sense of inevitability. As if this day, whatever was about to happen, had been aimed at me, trying to collide with me for a long time, and it was…well, I don’t believe in fate but I do believe in actions and reactions. Years ago I’d made an action. The repercussions from it were bearing down on me like a cat-five hurricane whose course couldn’t be altered.
I was ready. Whatever happened. Next adventure.
Fearless as always. I felt his warmth, his respect, his constant, steady love.
It’s all I know to be.
You’re like us in that. Becoming a beast was meant as a curse. But if I could go back to that day and choose again, I’d do exactly the same. Live forever like this? Fuck, yes.
I gasped. He’d never spoken to me of anything to do with his origins. Does that mean one day you’ll tell me?
Tell me something you missed about me, he evaded.
Everything, I admitted finally. Half the colors vanished from my world and I couldn’t breathe right until you returned.
Say it, Stardust. I want to hear it.
I love you, Ryodan Killian St. James. Any name, any form. Always.
Pure joy blazed inside my soul, warming me to the core.
* * *
π
Tucked beneath a base molding in the living room of the flat, one of countless roaches flooding every nook and cranny of Dublin retracted its antennae and sent a silent message back to its counterparts in the cavern, letting Gustaine know the auspicious news that the woman Balor sought had been located.
And was headed straight for him.
I curse the stars that take you away
BALOR HAD ALREADY TAKEN the abbey by the time we got there.
We’d originally headed for the main gate but, a half mile away, we heard the chanting of thousands of Balor’s zombies and circled around to the back. We’d abandoned the Hummer behind a tall labyrinth of hedges where we now crouched, with Lor and the rest of the Nine who were already in beast form.
We eased around the side of the fortress toward the battle raging on the front lawn. It reminded me too much of another battle, between the Fae and us, when I’d melted down and raced back into the burning abbey to save a stuffed animal. The night Ryodan had charred himself to the bone to save me.
The lawn was filled with nearly a thousand sidhe-seers battling ten times that number of Balor’s zombies, slashing and hacking their way through the crowd. It was horrific, humans fighting blank-eyed humans, and I knew every sidhe-seer out there was fighting their own innate instincts to do it. We’re programmed to kill Fae and protect humans. Yet these humans were tightly controlled killing machines Balor had loosed on us with instructions to destroy.
Balor himself was on the lawn—bloody hell, he was enormous! Over twenty feet tall, clad in billowing black—lumbering through the crowd, mask shoved up on his head, that terrible, enormous eye revealed as he bent, snatched sidhe-seers into the air by an arm as if they were dolls, drank their souls, then flung them to the ground like broken toys.
I snarled, hands fisting. There was no way I was staying out of this fight. I lunged forward, only to feel Ryodan’s hand close on my wrist like a manacle.
You promised.
My sisters are dying!
Give us a chance.
“Kill him!” Ryodan snarled. He surged forward, transforming effortlessly, and eight beasts melted into battle, determined to take Balor down.
Scowling, hands fisted, I stayed melted into the side of the abbey, holding my breath, feeling raw power roiling inside me, demanding to be used, demanding that I do what I was born to do.
I heard that, he snarled. Stay put.
Then the Nine exploded out of nowhere, vaulting airborne, landing on the titanic god, ripping with lethal fangs at his flesh.
I knew which one was Ryodan, I could feel him now, and, as I watched, he hurled himself into the air and went straight for Balor’s face, primal jaws wrenching impossibly wide, closing on the god’s flesh, fangs sinking deep.
Balor roared, kicking and swatting at the many beasts tearing into him, howling with rage and pain. Abruptly, he focused solely on Ryodan, closing enormous hands around his throat and squeezing.
My heart clenched. I could feel Ryodan’s pain as those massive fists closed tighter and tighter. Felt like I couldn’t breathe, too. Could feel that whatever Ryodan usually did to kill the Fae wasn’t working on Balor.
Get off him now! I thundered inside Ryodan’s head. Get all of the Nine off him. It’s not working!
But Ryodan sank his fangs deeper into Balor’s face, despite the horrific sense of strangulation I could feel him suffering, ignoring me, and I suddenly understood he was trying to drain the life-force from the god, the way Barrons had sucked the Sinsar Dubh from the Unseelie princess’s body, and I knew at the precise moment he did that it wasn’t working. Whatever gods were made of, it wasn’t the same as Fae.
The Nine couldn’t kill them.
It didn’t surprise me. I’d had a strange unshakable sense of fate riding me like a bitch all day.
I was willing to bet I could.
I inhaled deep and slow, embracing my power, calling to the Hunter within, beckoning, welcoming it. Fill me, take me, I’m ready, I willed. Whatever the price.
Energy slammed into me like a fist to my heart and my entire body bristled electric. I couldn’t get a shot at the god with the beasts in the way without taking one of them out, and although they’d return if Balor killed them, there was a good chance they wouldn’t if I hit them with a Hunter bolt.
Get everyone off Balor, I snarled at Ryodan. Now, I said!
I could feel every emotion he was feeling. Fury, grief, rage, sorrow, denial.
He didn’t say I’ll miss that beautiful body of yours, although I felt it.
And I didn’t say I’m afraid you won’t keep loving a dragon, although he felt it.
We’re both too pragmatic for that. We do what needs to be done.
As the Nine dropped away, as Ryodan tore himself from Balor’s grasp, I quit being the wallflower I simply can’t be and strode into battle with fire in my blood, war in my heart, and extreme high voltage in my veins.