Page 50 of To Love a Dark Lord

Gwen just really wished it was otherwise.

But if wishes were horses, and all that jazz.

Speaking of, her ass hurt from riding all night. Next time, she was going to create a horse out of cotton or something softer than goddamn onyx. She just wanted to look half as badass as Mordred. Not that it really mattered, she supposed. But damn it if she wasn’t sick of looking like a derpy sidekick.

Mordred slowed his approach to a walk as they drew closer to the camp. When they were a good thirty feet away, he dismounted. Against the brighter glow of the firelight, he cut a terrifying figure, all sharp and jagged edges, and his cape made the faintest whisper against the snow. She dismounted as well, patting her horse before following, chewing her lower lip.

Mordred disappeared into a tent.

It wasn’t long before the screaming began. Ducking close to another haphazard shelter, Gwen watched as Thorn ran from within her tent. Thick ropes of briars burst from the ground around her, trying to shield her from the demon who had come to collect his due.

Mordred slashed through the vines, unstoppable as a force of nature. They barely slowed him down. When a nearby elemental formed spears of ice to hurl his way, he flicked his wrist, his cape coming up and hardening to iron. The ice shattered against his shield, no more harmful than snowballs.

The elementals clearly knew better than to fight Mordred when they were surprised. Gwen watched as each one emerged from their tent, took one look at what was happening, and ran for the woods. She knew it wouldn’t be the last she saw or heard from them.

“You bastard! How—” Thorn jumped back as Mordred swiped at her with his sword once more. “You should be—” That was when Thorn caught sight of Gwen. Her missing, yellowed and misaligned teeth were bared in a hateful snarl. “You!”

Suddenly, Gwen was the center of attention. Thorn was coming after her, forgetting the oncoming Prince in Iron in favor of trying to kill her. Gwen burst into flames and spread a circle of fire around her. But the vines were growing back faster than she could destroy them.

Thorn’s attention was split, however. She couldn’t keep attacking Gwen and defend against Mordred at the same time. When Mordred closed the distance between them, making to lop off Thorn’s head, she turned and ran.

“Coward!” Mordred hollered. He lifted his hand, palm up, before clenching a fist.

Spikes of iron, twisted and jagged, sharpened like blades, shot up from the ground. They were curved, rusted, and vicious. Gwen watched as they snapped around Thorn like a cage. The elemental had nowhere to go. Her powers were useless against the metal that warded against all magic.

Mordred gestured again, sending a spike of iron shooting from the air near him, impaling another elemental who was running at him. The weapon passed through his body, leaving a gaping hole in his chest where it shouldn’t have been. Gwen recoiled at the sight. The elemental fell to his knees before collapsing to the ground in a growing pool of blood that stained the fallen snow.

The rest of the elementals were running for their lives. At least they weren’t total idiots.

Mordred, seeing that the rest of his quarry had fled, turned his focus back to Thorn. “I would have given you an honorable death.”

Thorn was cussing in languages that Gwen didn’t understand, but the meaning was crystal clear. She spat on the ground outside the cage of iron. “What do you think you will gain from this? This is murder! You will unite all of us against you. Is that what you want?”

“Yes.” Mordred stopped at the edge of the cage.

That was not the answer Thorn was expecting. Her anger sputtered for a moment before she resumed swearing at the prince.

Mordred ignored her. “The solution was always so simple…yet I resisted the temptation to end you all.” He sheathed his sword. However he was planning on ending Thorn, it wasn’t with the blade. “I am, shall we say, no longer compelled to spare your lives.”

Thorn looked to Gwen, fear in her eyes. “And you are allowing this?”

“On a mass scale? No.” Gwen sighed. “But for you? Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

Thorn roared in rage, cussing out them both.

“I would ask for your last words. But I believe I already have them.” Mordred lifted his hand again, palm up, fingers open.

“Wait!” Thorn screamed, throwing herself at the blades that made up the bars of her cage.

But it was too late.

Mordred tightened his fist.

Gwen had to turn her back to the scene as the blades mirrored the motion of his fingers. Thorn’s scream was cut short as they sliced through her. Covering her mouth, Gwen tried not to be sick from the wet sound of the blades pulling back out of Thorn’s flesh.

“It had to be done.” She heard Mordred’s boots crunch through the snow behind her.

“I know. I don’t—I just—” She took a deep breath, trying to keep her dinner down where it belonged.

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