THE DARK KING’S eyes bore into mine, unblinking and unnaturally wide. His mouth goes slack and his pink tongue moves as if he’s trying to say something, yet no sound escapes. He looks down at the spear protruding through his chest, following the smooth, wooden spike to the very point where it touches mine. His horrified glare travels back up to my face one last time, then he crumples to the ground, taking me with him.
He’s dead.
Stavros Skotos, king of the Dark, is dead.
I grasp my neck, coughing, as I try to suck oxygen back into my lungs. It burns with every lungful but I can’t get enough, the sounds of wheezing carrying over the sudden trample of footprints in my direction.
“Gabs! Oh my God, are you ok?” Morgan wraps her arms around me, pulling me close. I can’t talk yet, but I nod, even though the movement unleashes hell on my neck. It’ll pass. My body will begin to mend itself any second.
Lars checks to see how I’m doing before rushing to Niko’s aid. He’s sprawled out on the floor and in bad shape, but he’s conscious, and Lars has already begun to heal him. Working through the pain, I force myself up on shaky legs. That’s when my gaze sweeps to her. My savior. Stavros’s murderer.
Delia Skotos.
Her small hands shake uncontrollably, and her gaze is filled with an almost vacant kind of terror, as if she’s checked out. I gather my strength and will my vocal cords to work.
“Thank you.”
As if the sound of my raspy voice has somehow snapped her out of her trance, she flinches. “Yes. You must go now. Go save my son. I’ll stay with the vampire, just go bring my Dorian back.”
I nod, not knowing what else to do. I’m so grateful for her intervention, and as I race out of the room, the others at my heels, I pray that I live long enough to tell her that.
Freshly healed, Niko takes the lead, and we head to Dorian’s quarters. Now that Stavros is gone, the halls are no longer spelled, and we aren’t trapped in a maze. We turn a corner and nearly run right over Alex.
“I was lost and couldn’t find you,” he says, falling in step with us. “Then suddenly, everything shifted.”
Niko nods. “Stavros is dead.”
“What?”
“He’s gone. Now we just have to get Dorian and get the fuck out of here.”
We arrive at a door, and familiarity rocks me. Dorian’s room. Just wood and brass are the only things that stand between me and my beloved.
I suck in as much oxygen as my lungs will allow and place my hand on the knob. Twist, click, creak. My feet carry me inside, into the beautiful room full of Dorian’s favorite things. However, it looks nothing like it did just days ago. Evil inhabits this space. It’s splashed onto the walls, draped over the windows, embedded in the carpeting. It stands before me on designer spiked heels, dressed in a skin-tight, black dress.
“Well, isn’t this a lovely surprise. Darling, we have company!” she calls towards the back.
I tear my narrowed eyes away from Aurora’s twisted, red pout just as Dorian emerges from the bedroom. His gait is fluid, almost wraithlike, as if he’s not even trying to hide his darkness. He’s dressed in all black, like Aurora, inadvertently mourning the Dark king’s death. Or maybe anticipating mine.
“Isn’t this cute,” he scorns, going to stand beside his raven-haired slore. “Nikolai and his little pack of rejects. Aurora, my love, I thought you ordered the trash to be sent to the incinerator.”
My love?
I push out his insults and steel myself before taking another step into the room. Niko stands at my right, while Alex is at my left. “Come on, Dorian,” I say, holding out a hand. “We’ve come to take you home.”
“Home?” he scoffs, looking every bit like his father. “Scurvy bitch, I am home. And right now, you’re trespassing. So I’m going to give you to the count of ten to collect your little clan of miscreants, and get the fuck off my property before I skin you alive to make a coat for my woman. One. Two. Three. Ten.”
His eyes erupt with blue flames and he raises a hand above his head, preparing to strike. The men beside me do the same, animalistic snarls falling from their lips. But before anyone can strike, Aurora steps between us.
“My love,” she coos, placing a hand on Dorian’s chest. “How about you let us girls talk. Gabriella and I have a few…kinks…to work out.”
Talk? Unless it’s my fist talking to her face, I don’t have a damn thing to say to her. And the wicked gleam in her eye is telling me that she’s thinking the same.
“Hmmm. Yes. Have your fun, baby. I so love it when you get worked up.” Dorian kisses her lips, and I feel my rage raise another ten notches.
“You go enjoy the show. I won’t be long. We’ll still have plenty of time to do that thing that you like.” Her slick, wet tongue runs over her teeth as she turns back to me.
Four bodies heat around me preparing to fight, but I shake my head, not daring to turn my gaze from Aurora’s sinful smirk. “This is between me and her.”
They shift away, but I can still feel their worry. Dorian reclines on a plush sofa, looking rather bored. He likes to watch, huh? Well, who am I to deny him a show?
“I’ve waited a long time for this,” Aurora says, widening her stance.
“Ditto.” I didn’t come here to talk shit. We’re way beyond that.
Aurora tries to circle me, but I follow her movements, refusing to be prey once again. “I still owe you for sucker punching me.”
“Good luck.”
Her shrill, mocking laugh rings out, hurting my ears. “Well, aren’t you sweet.”
I roll my eyes, contemplating just shutting her the fuck up with a little jolt of magic. But then I would run the risk of her deflecting it, and in this close proximity, I could end up hitting my loved ones. I could immobilize her, snatch Dorian and hightail it, but where’s the fun in that? And she would always come back. We’d never be free of her.
No. This ends tonight, once and for all.
Aurora strikes first, her nails serving as razor sharp claws. She misses, but one of her talons catches my shirt, shredding it. Oh, so she wants to play dirty? Fine. Let’s see what this bitch is made of.
I flex my fingers as spiked metal encapsulates my hands. Brass knuckles. I smile, feeling like that old Gabs who used to be known for her quick temper and even quicker fists. Time to take it back to those boxing lessons with Chris in the garage. He knew what was coming; he knew I’d need to fall back on all he had taught me in hand-to-hand combat. Maybe in some ways, he was a Guardian too.
I flow back into the dance, my body moving fluidly in a tight circle. I’m aware of every part of me, and every limb will serve a purpose. Aurora shifts left, stepping right into my fist. The impact throws her off kilter but she quickly recovers, using the distraction to throw a jab. I block with my forearm, but her nails cut into my skin, leaving behind three bloody slashes. I don’t even look at them. I just keep moving, bouncing on the soles of my feet to keep my body warm.
“I hate bitches that scratch,” I say, as I see blood trickle from the side of her head where my fist connected. “What are you gonna do next? Pull my hair?”
Still circling me, she reaches up to where a droplet of blood hangs on her earlobe. She swipes it with the tip of a nail and places it in her mouth. “Your perverted ass might like that.”
I wink. “I might. Just ask your boyfriend.”
She bares her teeth before launching herself at me, claws outstretched. I spin right and clock her on the back of her head as she passes, but not before she bends and slices the back of my calf. Fuck. That’s going to be nasty. I feel the sting deep in my muscle, but I can’t acknowledge it. Even as warm blood pools in my boot, I keep my feet busy.
Aurora teeters on her heels, but stands upright on shaky legs. Her eyes are nearly opaque and glassy, as if that last blow knocked a few screws loose. Oh yeah, she’ll feel that one in the morning…if she even makes it until morning.
“Oh, get on with it,” Dorian says from behind us. “Stop playing with the girl and finish her off.”
In a fury of claws and fangs, Aurora pounces like a cat, tackling me to the ground. Her nails are jabbing my arms and hands as I block my face and neck. For someone so slight, she’s strong. And I can tell she’s been waiting to take a chunk out of me for months.
I hear my friends and family screaming, just feet away, telling me to get up, and trying to send me words of encouragement through choked sobs. Alex is shouting and cursing at Niko and Lars, demanding that they let him go. Morgan cries for me, her words a babbled mess.
I really should stop torturing them. They obviously could not know that this was my plan all along: Let Aurora get cocky, and allow her to think that she’s gotten the upper hand. And the moment she feels she’s won, and looks up at Dorian with sickening pride, turn the tables and squash that slore like the filthy cockroach she is. Just thinking about it makes the Dark in me surge with exhilaration.
Sometimes you need to feed the beast, just to let it know that you haven’t abandoned it. And as long as it knows that you’ll still nurture that deluded side of your psyche—that part of your soul that cradles your brokenness—it will always serve you when you need it to.
Killing Aurora quickly would have been too easy. Murdering my mother, trying to kill Jared, backhandedly stealing Dorian…she deserves to feel the pain she’s caused me. And I want her to wear it like a cloak, walk around in it for the rest of her days. I want that pain to be so close and so real to her that it becomes imbedded in her skin. So every time she winces, she’ll remember my fucking name.
I shift my weight, planting my feet under me, and flip Aurora over so quickly that her head spins Exorcist-style. Before she can open her mouth to spit another nasty insult, I fill it with my fist, the metal over my knuckles shattering teeth like glass. She screams in pain, but it’s cut off the second I connect with her right eye, permanently stealing its sight and crushing the socket into rubble. When I raise my fist to deliver a devastating blow to that perfect little nose, I sense movement on my right, causing me to pause for a fraction of a second.
“I’ll kill you, you repulsive whore!” Dorian screams, arms outstretched. There’s hatred in his eyes. Pure, undiluted abhorrence. Never in my life did I ever think I would see that amount of disgust directed at me. Even when he told me he had to kill me, I could see it hurt him to admit it.
Now, there’s no pain in his murderous expression. He means it—he will kill me. And that realization feels like a blow within itself.
Blue fire snakes up his wrists, preparing to strike, his eyes going completely white. Alex and Niko try to advance, but Dorian is too fast, enraged by the sight of his love being pulverized into the ground. When he’s a mere breath from my face, I lift a hand, freezing him where he stands.
Everything around me stops. There’s no more shouting, no more crying. I don’t even hear the sickening sounds of Aurora’s blood pooling on the ground.
I look at the man I love, the stranger that lusts for my death. And for that second within a second, I let myself see him for what he is.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. And I am. I’m sorry for what I’ve done. Sorry for what I have to do now.
I flick my wrist, regenerating present time, and Dorian goes flying into the wall with enough force to form a crater in the plaster. He crumples to the ground unconscious, and the others rush to his side to start the spell. Still, I can’t forget the look on his face. It’s permanently burned into my retinas. He hates me. Hates me. And according to Stavros, he always did.
I scream out in hurt and frustration, letting my raised fist burrow into Aurora’s sinus cavity. That’s for Donna. I do it again, this time taking out her other eye. That’s for Jared. One more punch to the mouth, splitting her lips wide open. That’s for all the innocent humans.
I raise my bloodied fist, ready to dish out the final blow of vengeance—the one for Dorian—when someone grabs my hand.
“That’s enough!” Alex shouts. “You’ve made your point.”
“No! It’s not enough! She has to pay for what she’s done!”
Alex’s stern expression softens, but his hand stays tightly clasped around my wrist. “At what expense? Your soul? You’re not a killer, Gabriella. Don’t let her make you into something you’re not.”
I swallow down the taste of death on my tongue and look down at the minced mess of Aurora’s face. She’s breathing, although it’s a struggle now that her nose is nearly hanging off and she’s got a mouthful of bloody teeth. She’ll live. She won’t be so pretty for a while, but she’ll live.
The brass knuckles dissolve from my hands as the blind rage trickles out of me like tears. Alex helps lift me to my feet, my body suddenly weak and shaky. He pulls me into his arms and hugs me, despite all the blood and gore on my face and hands. I hear his quiet murmurs in the Dark tongue, telling me its ok. Reassuring me that I don’t have to be afraid. It’s all over now.
But it’s not over. Not yet.
“We gotta get him out of here,” Niko says, looking up at us from his place on the floor.
I break away from Alex’s embrace and kneel beside him. “Did it work?”
“I don’t know,” Lars says gravely, shaking his head. “The darkness in him runs so deep. His soul is nearly black. We won’t know until he wakes.”
“And we don’t want him waking up here,” Niko adds.
After quickly going over our exit plan, Lars and Alex hoist Dorian up, supporting his weight on their shoulders. We’re moving towards the door as swiftly as we can and Morgan screams out in excruciating pain.
“Ah! My leg!”
I look down to see that even in her brutalized state, Aurora has managed to stab Morgan in the ankle with one of her viciously long nails. She’s bleeding pretty heavily, and since she’s human, there’s no chance of her regenerating.
I don’t even think about what happens next. It’s as if my body has been temporarily separated from my mind. All I can do is feel the bones in her face crumbling under my boot. Hear the wet, sick sounds of tissue and brain matter being mashed into pulp. Smell the scent of fresh death hanging thickly in the air.
Aurora is dead. And I killed her. And I feel…nothing…about it.
“Come on!” Niko says, pulling my body away from the gruesome scene. She’s still on the bottom of my boot. I scrape my foot over the ground, but I can’t get her off. “Gabs, we have to go. I know the royals will send in more guards. Shit, they’ve probably called in the Shadow.”
I let him pull me away, my body still numb, still disjointed. It allows me to run down the hallway towards the throne room. The fighting has ceased for now, but there are several causalities. Denny tells us to go on, that he’ll ensure that everyone gets to safety once they handle the humans. I don’t know what that means, and I don’t ask. At this point, with my heart and mind so far apart, I can’t say if I even care.
I’m aware enough to manifest to the jet waiting for us on Crete. I even help Morgan get strapped into a seat while Niko and Alex secure Dorian. I watch as Lars rolls up her pant leg to heal her wound. They embrace, smiling up at each other lovingly, but I don’t see it. I don’t see any of them.
Blank eyes watch as we ascend into the clouds, away from Greece. Away from the evils that festered within the Dark kingdom.
Away from another piece of my humanity.