And the soul-deep relief that they had both come through the fight intact.

Together.

“Oh, Zael,” she gasped against his parted lips. “I was so scared.”

“I know, love.” He kissed her again and again, as if he couldn’t bear to stop. “It’s okay now. It’s all over.”

Brynne’s relief was so overwhelming, she didn’t realize they were no longer alone in the chamber.

Not until she felt Zael’s pulse spike with renewed alarm.

They broke their kiss, both of them glancing toward the smashed, open door of the room where several Atlantean elders and a dozen or more colony inhabitants now stood.

At the front of the group were Elyon’s sentry comrades. No longer unarmed as they had been when Brynne and Zael first arrived at the island, but each holding a long blade like the gore-streaked one that Brynne still grasped absently at her side.

Every person standing there looked at Brynne and Zael in accusation.

In silent, horrified condemnation.

 

~ ~ ~

 

“Put the crystal down, Zael.” Baramael’s dual-colored eyes were narrowed on him in a lethal glower as he ground out the command. “Tell your woman to drop the blade.”

“It’s not what you think.”

He knew what it looked like—the most respected of the elders and one of the colony’s trusted sentries, both beheaded and lying in growing pools of blood. Him standing there, holding the crystal in one hand while his other hand held tenderly onto Brynne, whose own fingers were wrapped around the grip of a gore-streaked Atlantean sword.

“You heard him, Zael.” This threat came from Vaenor, the sentry who had served with Zael and Elyon in the legion. The dark-haired soldier took an aggressive step forward, his blade at the ready. “Put the crystal down.”

“Not until you hear me out, all of you.”

Zael let go of Brynne only so he could cautiously reposition himself in front of her, in case anyone rushed to any worse conclusions about what they were seeing there now.

Because as stricken as their expressions were as they registered the scene of carnage near their feet, it hardly compared to the shock he saw written on every Atlantean’s face as they tried to get a closer look at Brynne.

She was fully transformed, as she had been the night he’d found her in that Georgetown alley.

Her fangs were enormous, her eyes heated orbs of molten amber. Every inch of her pale skin was now covered in a tangle of dermaglyphs. Even her face bore the Ancient skin markings, all of them seething with dark colors. Zael didn’t need to glance at her hand where it curved loosely around the grip of the Atlantean blade to know that the tips of her fingers were crowned in sharp black talons.

She was uniquely Brynne.

Formidable.

Glorious.

He had never felt so proud to be standing with her.

Nor more in love.

“Holy shit,” someone whispered from within the stunned crowd.

“She’s something more than Breed,” another voice muttered. “Just look at her.”

“Yes,” Zael said. “Look at her. Thank her, because Brynne just helped save this colony today. If not for her, Elyon would already be standing in front of Selene handing over this crystal.”

Baramael eyed him warily. “What are you talking about?”

“Elyon killed Nethilos. I found them both up here, but I was too late to save him.” His glance drifted to the carnage near his feet. His bile rose at the sight of his friend’s brutalized body. He felt only disgust when he looked at the sentry who had betrayed him. Betrayed everyone in the colony. “Elyon had been plotting to leave the colony and return to the realm with the crystal. The prospect of an alliance with the Order would have ruined all of his plans.”

Vaenor grunted. “A convenient explanation when Zael is holding the crystal and the only other two witnesses are dead at his feet.”

Rumblings of agreement—of suspicion and doubt for both Zael and Brynne—traveled the crowd.

“It’s all true.” Tamisia stepped through the gathered throng. “Everything Zael just said is the truth.”

The other elders who stood at the front gaped at her in disbelief.

“What is this about?” Baramael demanded.

Tamisia recounted what she had told Zael about Elyon—how he’d been obsessed for some time with defecting and had been attempting to coerce her into going with him. She explained how she had grown wary of him, but that she hadn’t realized he would be willing to kill, nor had she ever dreamed he might attempt to steal the colony’s crystal for his own gain.

The other elders and the rest of the assembled crowd gaped at her. Soon the animosity and mistrust that had been focused on Zael and Brynne began to shift to Tamisia.

Baramael’s bicolored eyes flared with disapproval. “You’ve known of Elyon’s disloyalty to the colony, yet never told anyone?”

“I was afraid of him,” she murmured quietly.

“Your fear cost Nethilos his life,” Haroth, the other male elder sharply reminded her. The black Atlantean raked a big hand over his short mohawk. “This cannot stand, Tamisia.”

“I know.” She nodded, tears sliding down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”

Baramael nodded grimly to the sentries, and they slowly began to guide the spectators out of the chamber. When it was just the elders remaining, he stepped up to Tamisia. “Your actions killed a good man, a friend to us all. That is a loss we can never repair. However, if not for Zael and Brynne stopping Elyon, your silence could have jeopardized this entire colony one day. You leave us no choice but to banish you, Sia.”

A sob choked out of her. “Nethilos was my friend too. I don’t expect any of you to ever forgive me. I know I will never forgive myself.”

“At least we still have the crystal,” one of the female elders gently pointed out. “At least Elyon was thwarted in his betrayal of us.”

Zael nodded, agreeing in sober contemplation. “And you still have the alliance. If the colony wants it.”

From within Haroth’s dark-skinned face, his pale green eyes flicked from Brynne to Zael. “None of this changes the council’s condition on the alliance with the Order. What Brynne did here today is admirable—we are all in her debt—but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s Breed.”