Page 363 of Born of Blood and Ash

“It’s been decades since I crossed that threshold,” he saidas we entered a hall untouched by fire. There were more naked paintings of Veses engaged in all kinds of shenanigans with various menand women. “That was when I considered her a friend.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself. I’m just beingirrationally jealous,” I admitted, tensing as I heard more guards approaching.

Gripping the hilt of my dagger, I focused on the mouth ofthe hall, where it split. “Incoming.”

Slipping past me, Ash swooped down and pressed a kiss to myforehead. Despite his lips being cool, my skin warmed and tingled from thebrief, sweet touch.

“I can taste the bite of your fear,” Ash said to the guards.His voice was somehow soft yet loud in the same breath and achingly cold as hishead tilted slightly to the side. There was a shadowy half-smile on his lips ashe scanned the dozens of guards. “Smell its bitter sweat.”

I kept a close eye on them, fully prepared to unleash the eather ramping up inside me if I so much as thought I saw afinger twitch.

Ash tipped his head back more. “All of you have a choice tomake. Step aside and live.” His smile spread, as cold as the wind whippingthrough the hall. “Or refuse and die for the Primal who is too cowardly to showher face.”

“Why,” I said as the guards remained in front of us, “did Ijust find that so incredibly hot?”

“Naughty, liessa,” hemurmured, his gaze trained on the guards.

We gave them one more moment, not a second longer. I couldstill feel Veses. We wouldn’t give her time to leaveher Court, something I was surprised she hadn’t done already.

Ash sighed. “So be it.”

He became a blur as he shot forward, meeting the guardshead-on. Distant roars shook the palace walls.

It took everything in me to hang back, watching Ash movewith lethal grace. I should be right beside him, carving the path to Veses. But hand-to-hand combat was possibly the riskiestthing I could undertake while pregnant. Even if I deflected every blow, punchesand kicks would slip by. My love for the babes was greater than my need toprove myself.

Arcs of pulsing energy extended from Ash’s hands, strikingdown guards with terrifying and awe-inspiring precision. Chestplatesand armor buckled. Bones snapped. Guards crumpled, their life forceextinguished as swiftly as a snuffed candle.

The palace walls suddenly shook with a force like a mountaincrashing into it. The lights overhead flickered wildly, and plumes of dustfell. A stream of fiery eather sliced through thehall we’d just come from, followed by a high-pitched shriek of pain.

“Careful!” Ash yelled in warning.

I gasped as the wind caught the fall of shimmery blood,spraying it in every direction. I shadowstepped back,knocking into Ash as a few drops splashed against the calves of my boots. Tinyholes immediately formed. I hissed, gritting my teeth as the blood burned myskin.

“Fuck.” Ash snared me around the waist, lifting me off myfeet. “You okay?”

“Yes.” I gripped his arm with one hand. “It’s not that bad—”

The golden draken crashed throughthe ceiling several feet away, sending large chunks of stone flying. Ash swore,darting to the side with me in his arms. And not a moment too soon. A chunk ofred stone nearly the size of a draken’s head slammedinto the wall behind where we had just been standing. My chin jerked up to see Nektas veering back up into the air as another draken with honey-brown scales erupted from the clouds. Ilooked down to see a nude male lying in the rubble, his body bloody and broken.I knew he was dead. I’d felt it the moment the blood hit the air. I stillwinced.

“What a waste,” I murmured.

Ash started to respond, but he felt it the same second Idid—the sudden change in the air. It was as if energy were being sucked fromit. We turned a second too late.

At the end of the hall, the Primal Goddess of Rites andProsperity stood, draped in a gown of glittering diamonds. Behind her were atleast a dozen guards.

Her red-painted lips curved as she threw out a hand,releasing a stream of eather that split into severalsmaller branches and moved through the air in a distinctively serpentinemanner…because, of course.

Ash turned sharply, all but winging me backward. My stomachdropped as I yelled. Ash raised his arm, a wall of shadowy essence appearingseconds before the eather slammed into it. My feetskidded across the marble floor. A pillar stopped me as a bright flare of lighterupted from the impact, and slivers of the eatherpierced the shield, striking Ash. He staggered with a grunt.

Ash staggered, going down on one knee.

My heart stopped as he pitched forward, planting a hand onthe floor. A sound like tinkling windchimes scratched at my nerves.

Veses was laughing.

For a moment, I stood frozen, barely hearing Ash as he saidhe was fine, that only the air had been knocked out of him. My entire beingzeroed in on the Primal bitch.

Smirking, Veses stepped back, andthe guards rushed forward.

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