CHAPTER ONE
My horde crouched low, eyes fixed on me, forming deadly a circle with me at the center.
Sorin smirked, eyes of liquid gold lasering in on my gaze. “Whenever you’re ready, love.”
My blood sang with power, muscles vibrating with it as the steady thud of my heart sent magic careening through my veins like a car on a slick road, one overcorrection, one hesitation away from disaster. The air, so thick with the ever-ready power of my demons, smelled like all of them—honey and leather, fiery whiskey, newly tilled soil, and sweet, dark amber. The latter of which, Callum’s and Verril’s scents respectively, I hadn’t smelled until last night.
Holy fuck was that a night.
In coming together—sharing a bed and our bodies—we’d rekindled the Green Realm hold, the seat of magic for Callum’s realm and the races who draw their magic from it. Callum dutifully portioned off the lion’s share to the beings whose lives depend on magic, taking the least for himself until the hold was restored completely.
We weren’t sure how long that would take, but not one of us expected Callum being at full strength before we were to face-off with the Blood King.
The other side-effect of bringing the realm leaders together in my bed was that, like Lillith, I now had access to all of their magic. Each of the four twisting tendrils of power summoned a different sensation within me.
Which should I play with next?
My leathers creaked around me as I settled into an attack stance. Sorin’s biceps twitched in expectation but instead of attacking I shimmered out of the circle.
The blackness of the nothing pressed in around me.
But as the emptiness welcomed me, something pulled, no, it clawed at me, ripping me from the nothing back to the golden light of the rune room and throwing me to the ground.
I stared at the shifting, glittering sigils on the black ceiling, brushed a lock of pink hair from my eyes and tried to make the room stop spinning.
Verrill stood over me, smiling, his raven-black hair covering one star-lit eye. “You can’t get away that easily.”
I leapt to my feet. “That’s cheating. You can’t tear someone out of the nothing.”
“I can, and I did.”
I folded my arms, battle leathers flexing as I let out a great sigh. “You know, when I suggested training as a team this wasn’t what I had in mind.”
“I’d wager not. It is, however, what you need.” Verrill smiled and once more dropped to a low crouch. “Powerful though you are, you allow your mind to project your next move. You must break yourself of the habit.”
I lunged for him but the Shadow King sidestepped, bopping me on the head with the pads of his fingers. “If the Blood King is of sound mind, he’ll know your plan the moment you set foot in his realm. That is, if you don’t work to batten down the wall to your mind.
That was easier said than done. I could seal off my thoughts well enough, when that was the only thing to worry about. Making the space in my awareness for that and hand-to-hand combat—well, I wasn’t there yet.
But Verrill had a point. We had no idea how much stolen magic the Blood King mastered. Maybe none, but we were preparing for the worst.
Sorin nodded. “You’re fast and strong, stronger than us even, and Jadzeera has done well with your training.” The leather-clad, white-haired Queen of Arcana tipped her head in an appreciative nod. “But you lack the honing and skill that hundreds of years of boredom and warring have given us.”
I lunged again, this time feinting left at Sorin but going right, toward Callum. We collided and I knocked him off his feet and pinned him to the ground. I locked eyes with my Green King, but before I lost myself in those inhuman pools of cobalt he shifted his hips and reversed the pin, knocking me to the ground, holding me there with an arm across my middle.
He laid a kiss on my cheek and whispered, “Care to try that again, my queen?”
I squirmed from beneath him and rose to my feet. “I doubt I can make up for hundreds of years of training in under a week.”
Jadzeera stepped forward, her delicately pointed chin slightly raised. “You’re right, you cannot. That’s why we’ve decided you’ll have a minimal role in defeating the Blood King.”
My chest tightened at her words. “Pardon me?”
“That’s right, prophecy girl.” Sorin grinned at me. “You did your part. You brought the realms together. Now let us do ours.”
“Wait a minute—”
“The decision has been made, Zurie.” Callum’s smooth baritone, usually a source of such comfort, soothing the raw edges of my strange new life, now cut like a freshly whetstoned blade. I stood slack-jawed, the air leaving my lungs like I’d been punched in the gut as I stared at my realm leaders, each pleased with themselves for finally coming together to make a decision.
Raw shifter power rose first, as it always did, raising my hackles and rippling my skin.
Sorin nudged Callum in the ribs. “See, I told you she wouldn’t like it.”
I staunched the urge to reach for the Shifter King and his calming touch as more power roiled through me—the responsive, taut line that was mind magic snapped down around my thoughts as the tingling newness of green magic sparked throughout me, and sigils whose names and attributes I hadn’t yet learned burned behind my eyes.
I had a line to each of their native magic churning in my veins and they wanted to ground me.
“You may have made the decision but I have no intention of heeding it.” I let their magic—no. I let my magic seep through me, blowing through the rune room like wind through a tunnel and met each of their gazes one by one.
“It wasn’t your decision to make. We’re moving forward with the plan. We leave at the end of the week. And by we, I mean all five of us.”
Sorin’s jaw clamped shut as he forced his words through his teeth. “If something were to happen to you—”
“If something were to happen to you, to any of you, and I weren’t there to stop it, I wouldn’t survive that. We’re stronger together. You know that, and I won’t have the Blood King doing to me what he did to Lillith. He’s not dividing us up and he’s not getting near any of you without going through me first. Now, we have a week. Let’s quit wasting time talking about it and work on getting me ready.”