Harper felt like she was choking—like she couldn’t get enough air. The hairy insect arm around her neck was horribly strong and the scent of rotten meat hung heavily around the Sovereign—a noxious cloud that made her want to gag. She fought the impulse grimly—X'izith’s arm around her neck narrowed her airway so much she could barely breathe. She was certain if she started throwing up right now she would choke to death.
Not that choking to death might not be preferable to the alternative.
She saw Shad’s finger tighten on the trigger of the silver weapon he held and wondered if this was the end—wondered how much it would hurt to have her head torn off.
Please just let it be over quickly, she prayed. Please don’t let it hurt too much! Please—
And then everything happened at once.
There was a flash of light by her right eye—almost a silent explosion. The arm at her neck jerked and Harper was sure this was it—she was going to die.
But instead of pulling her head off, the hairy insect arm somehow jerked itself free of X’izith’s body. It fell away from her neck and lay twitching at her feet on the table-like surface of what he’d called the “Breeding Platform.”
The Sovereign’s surprised shriek of pain and anger was just beginning when another flash of light—this one lower—lit the dim room. Suddenly, it was as if a huge, powerful hand pushed Harper forward, away from the screeching, flailing insect.
She stumbled and fell off the rocking platform, expecting to face-plant on the hard stone floor below.
Instead, strong arms caught her and Shad was holding her tight.
“It’s all right, sweetheart,” he murmured, his voice low and rough with emotion. “Everything is going to be all right now, Kallana. I’ve got you—everything is going to be all right.”
“Oh Shad!” His name was torn from her throat in a sob and she clung to him, pressing her face to his neck, not wanting to see what was happening behind her. The screaming, scrabbling wounded dance of the Sovereign as he jerked and swayed and died. Please, God, let him just die.
Then she realized something was missing.
“My cloak!” Her head jerked up as she realized she was no longer wearing it. Had the strange, silent explosion she’d seen from the corner of her eye—the one that had somehow pushed her off the breeding platform—hurt it? “Is it okay?” she demanded, turning her head to try and find it.
“I’d say it’s just fine,” Shad said dryly. “Looks like the same can’t be said for its prey though.”
“It’s prey?” Harper forced herself to look at the breeding platform again. Sovereign X'izith was still there—on his back now, dying like a stepped on roach.
The biggest roach in the world, Harper thought and shuttered convulsively in utter revulsion. She’d always hated bugs and living in Florida meant she saw a lot more of them than she wanted to. But the Sovereign of the Hive put even the biggest palmetto bug to shame. Watching him die was truly horrifying.
There was a hole in the Hive leader’s abdomen and his breeding barb had twisted upward and was dripping burning green ichor from its bent tip down into the exposed cavity. Smoke was rising from the ruined flesh as he burned himself with his own acid-like essence. This had to be excruciatingly painful but it wasn’t his only problem, Harper saw.
Her rainbow cloak had finally let go of her…and attached itself to X'izith’s head instead. It had a hole in it too, Harper saw—or rather, a threadbare spot where its fabric looked as thin as cobwebs—but that didn’t seem to have affected its energy level at all. Its many spines and quills had formed into claws and a ravenous looking mouth with jagged rainbow teeth. Currently it was doing its best to tear the Sovereign’s face off.
“Oh God,” she whispered, burying her face in Shad’s neck again. “Oh God, I don’t want to see!”
“You don’t have to, baby. Don’t look,” he urged, nuzzling the top of her head comfortingly with his chin. “Just don’t look—everything here is almost over. Baird and the rest of the warriors are going to wipe out the rest of the Hive—the few who are left. These fuckers will never bother us again.”
“Never again,” Harper whispered, nuzzling closer to lay her head on his broad shoulder. “We won, Shad—we changed history. We really, finally w—”
She stopped in mid-sentence because somehow, instead of pressing against him, her face seemed to almost press into the hard flesh of his shoulder. And the flesh wasn’t hard anymore—it seemed to give, almost like marshmallow.
Harper’s tightly shut eyes sprang open. For a moment, she swore she could see right through Shad’s body to the rough red stone walls beyond. What the Hell was going on?
“Shad?” She jerked her head up, looking at him with worried, wide eyes. “Shad, what—”
A rising shriek cut her off and they turned simultaneously to see that the cloak of thorns had nearly finished the job. X’izith’s mandibles had punched through the threadbare cloth in one part but the cloak had taken his one remaining eye—when the cloth rose for a moment the oozing socket was clear to see. And then it lowered again as, with a final, convulsive move, it severed the shrieking Sovereign’s head from his neck.
The huge insect body twitched spasmodically, its clawed appendages punching the air in jerks and kicks even as the shrieking cry cut off abruptly. Black ichor drooled from the stump of its neck and puddled on the breeding platform below it.
And then finally, it was over. X’izith, Sovereign for centuries, servant of the Nameless Ones, and Ruler of the Hive was finally and irrefutably dead.
Harper knew she should feel relief but all she could feel was disgust and nausea.
“Ugh!” she moaned against Shad’s neck, forgetting the strange momentary illusion she’d had that he was somehow see-through. “Think I’m going to be sick!”
Actually, it would be a good thing if she could throw up—she needed to get the sweet, meaty stuff they’d pumped down her throat out of her system. God, she’d almost forgotten about that! She needed to tell Shad—needed to get an antidote to it, whatever it had been.
“Shad,” she began. “Before you came in one of the, uh, worker bugs reached me and made me drink this awful stuff. It tasted like honey and blood and rotten meat and—”
“Blood Honey.” The low, growling voice belonged to a Kindred with dark hair and pale copper eyes.
“Varin!” Shad nodded gravely at the other warrior. “You have my undying thanks for saving my female’s life. Your aim was true.”
“Just finishing a job I started some time ago,” the other male said. “But did I hear your female say she had been fed the Blood Honey by one of X’izith’s workers?”
Harper frowned. “I…think that was what he called it. They shoved a slimy tube down my throat and…” She shivered and couldn’t go on.
Varin nodded grimly. “The same thing happened to my Brynn.”
“Is Brynn your wife?” Harper asked quickly. “Is she all right? Did they have to pump her stomach to get it out? I mean, it’s poison—right?”
“Of a kind but it won’t kill you,” was Varin’s not-very-reassuring reply. “Listen, we have to finish mopping up the last stragglers,” he told Shad. “Bring your female to the med station when we get back to the Mother Ship. Commander Sylvan will want to look her over for injuries. I’ll talk to you then. Here,” he added. “I’m not sure if you want it back or not but…”
He let his sentence trail off as he held out the rainbow cloak of thorns to her. It had a huge hole in it and was so weak it could barely hiss at the Kindred as he held it.
“Oh, no!” Harper took the cloak gently and cradled it like a baby. “Oh you poor thing!” she whispered as she felt its rainbow quills caress her fingers weakly. “I’m so sorry!” Her tears fell on the cloak. It trembled in her arms for a moment longer and then was still.
Harper looked up at Shad who was watching gravely. “I…I think it's dead,” she whispered and started crying again, weeping not only for the cloak but for the awful ordeal she’d just been through as the stress and fear finally started to leak away. “It’s dead, Shad—it’s gone.”
“It gave its life to save you,” he said gently. “We will never forget its love and loyalty to you.”
“Truly it was a worthy and valiant protector,” Varin rumbled. He bowed his head for a moment in respectful silence, then looked up. “Forgive me but I must go now. I’ll see you both in the med station back on the Mother Ship.”
He left before Harper could ask any more questions but it didn’t matter—she was too upset about her cloak to think any more of the awful Blood Honey and its possible side effects.
But as she clutched the cloak to her chest, she had a worried feeling, somehow—a feeling that bad things weren’t done happening yet. That even though the past had been changed and the Hive had been vanquished, something still wasn’t quite right…