Page 5 of Wrath

Nope. Not happening. I refused to allow her to go down this train of thought.

“I chose to go with you,” I countered immediately. This time, I didn’t hesitate to give in to my baser instinct. I cupped her cheek with the palm of my head, relishing the warmth she emanated in almost perceptible waves. “Nothing that happened was your fault. Have you been blaming yourself this entire time?”

The thought devastated me.

Gutted me from throat to navel.

Ripped me open and pulled out my insides.

Z’s blue eyes ensnared my own. They were entire oceans I wanted to get lost in. Drown in.

“You can’t look me in the eye and tell me that everything that happened wasn’t my fault.” A shudder worked its way through her. “I hurt all of those people…”

I knew exactly what she was thinking of. At her wedding to the assassin, Axel, Z had used a special dagger to drain the insidious magic from the kings—our fathers. However, the magic had entered Z and turned her…dark. Evil. Malicious. She’d killed everyone at the wedding and then left with her sister Aaliyah, the mastermind behind the entire operation. I hadchosen to leave with the two of them, wanting to keep an eye on my mate and protect her the best I could.

Now we had Z back, but the war had only just begun. The kings were imprisoned but still alive. And Aaliyah would stop at nothing to get Z back under her thumb.

“That wasn’t you,” I told her gently, grateful that my stutter didn’t come out and contradict those words. Since meeting Z, I’d been doing better at controlling it, but it still popped out when I was stressed or anxious. “That was the dark, corrupted magic.”

“But I still?—”

Whatever Z was about to say was interrupted by the door being thrown open. We both spun around to see Dair standing in the doorway. The mermaid looked haggard, dark circles marring the skin beneath both of his eyes. He hadn’t slept since we rescued Z—not that I blamed him. It was hard to find any semblance of safety when a demon from Hell was hunting our mate.

“We’ve reached shore,” he said, volleying his gaze between the two of us. His eyes lingered on my horns a fraction longer than necessary before he forced himself to look away. “You guys need to see this. Now.”

THREE

Z

Ifollowed Dair up the staircase and to the deck of the ship. Surprisingly, Killian tagged along, his tail thumping against the wood with every step he took.

I didn’t know what I was seeing at first.

In the distance, craggy gray rocks rippled as far as the eye could see, interspersed here and there with fields of grass and throngs of trees. The water crested the shoreline, its white-tipped edges reflecting the sunlight.

The rest of my mates stood at the very edge of the boat. I couldn’t see the expressions on their faces, but tension thrummed through their bodies in waves. Beside them stood Phineas, the captain of the ship, and his first mate, Toylo.

“Come here, love,” Lupe murmured as soon as he sensed me, gesturing me forward.

I shouldered my way between him and Ryland and faced the horizon.

My breath caught.

There, lining the shoreline, were hundreds, if not thousands, of tents. In an open clearing, two warriors parried swords whilea crowd cheered them on. More people were walking to and fro, traversing the makeshift trails created by the tent placement.

My first thought was—the kings. Somehow, they escaped the dungeons and were building an army.

But then I looked closer.

The men and women didn’t hold themselves with the same lethal elegance of a genie or the insouciant slump of a mage. Their eyes weren’t the bright crimson of a vampire, nor did they hold the ethereal beauty of an incubus. There were no shadows enveloping their bodies the way they would for a shadow, and none of them lumbered like a shifter. The waters were devoid of any mermaids as well. The only ripple came from our boat.

These people were…human.

As if they sensed eyes on them, the two humans fighting stopped and turned. The crowd followed the direction of their gazes. It wasn’t long until I felt hundreds of eyes piercing my flesh, devouring me like an infestation of fire ants. A tendril of electricity released in my stomach, and my hands turned clammy.

Then, as one, the humans fell to their knees and bowed their heads.

“What the fuck?” Bash murmured, his brows wrinkling.

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