Page 139 of Sidhe
“Fool. There are no rewards fortraitors,” Malak hissed, his breathing strangely labored, face damp with sweat, and blond hair mussed for the first time in all the many situations Nathan had seen him. “I should know,” Malak added with a twitch that wasn’t quite a shrug, something mad,wildin his red on black eyes as he reached for Nathan with the bloody hand that had justkilled Solrin, and pulled him in close, “not unless you take the rewards for yourself.”
Something indefinable began to fill Nathan’s chest, not pain, just pressure, pressure so great that he screamed anyway, while hearing a chorus of cries from the others to match his own, until finally, in a great rush, they were no longer on the battlefield.
Coughinghaggardlyintotheground—into thefloorbeneath him—Nathan tried to get his bearings. He was inside the Gatehouse which was once again dark and shadowed.
“Well, aren’t you just a huge disappointment,” Malak’s voice spoke snidely from above him, the bitter voice accompanied by a swift kick to Nathan’s ribs that doubled him over further. “Your crew deserves most of the credit though, don’t they? Because from my point of view it doesn’t look like you’ve done much of anything.” Another kick, too hard, acrack—damn it, there went a rib—and Nathan tried desperately to crawl away, wishing the Gatehouse wards were still intact to spare him the beating.
To his surprise and relief, Malak allowed him to scramble to his feet. Sasha’s peaceful touch on Solrin had damaged the dark sidhe king. He looked wild and oddly disheveled. But the shade of darkness around him was larger than ever, made only too clear for Nathan with the goggles that had somehow remained over his eyes.
“Really, Nathan, what did they even need you for?” Malak continued to taunt him. “Your horsemen have done far more than you. You haven’t accomplishedanything.”
As dire as the situation seemed, Nathan took some comfort in that Malak was desperate, angry, weakened. They were in thebar of the Gatehouse, but it was empty after going dark, all those who had been inside now outside the doors joining the fight.
“Nothing to defend yourself with?” Malak sneered in Nathan’s face.
Nathan dropped the hand that had been clutching his ribs, standing taller despite the sting of pain. “Part of being a good leader…is knowing how much your soldiers can accomplish without you. What about you? Lost your one ace in the hole, so you kill him? Real show of power there,” he mocked, though it pained him to speak of Solrin’s death so flippantly.
A fresh grin twisted onto Malak’s face as he twitched the bloody fingers of his right hand. “So easy to pass on the blame, isn’t it, Nathan? But I wasn’t the cause of Solrin’s death.Youwere. You’re the reason he’s dead. The reasonIainand so many others are dead. All I asked of you, all you needed to do was remain with me. You tricked me out of that deal, fine, I admit defeat. But if you had chosen to stay with me none of this would have happened.”
“At the cost of what?” Nathan spat back. “Don’t try to pretend like the battle wouldn’t have happened. Oberon, Gwen, Aloysha, they all would have fought against us anyway.”
“And you could have sent them away without harming a single one of them.” Malak pushed closer to Nathan, forcing him to stumble back. “You could have kept the fae, incubi, and succubae safely in the Veil. You could have dismissed my forces entirely, you just didn’t want to. Those decisions were yours, Nathan. If you had chosen me truly, you would have had the chance to make things different. You could have saved lives. Now you are the cause of a hundred deaths,moreby the end of this.”
There was a wall at Nathan’s back, jarring him as he attempted to escape Malak’s proximity. They were near the jukebox and it was crackling as if the very presence of Malak caused it to fritz, even with the power out.
A part of Nathan mourned the loss of what Malak offered, the way his power had felt, the way it had made him more than himself. But no. He knew he didn’t need to be anything other than what he was. Because he was Nathan Grier, damn it, and theDevilwas not going to get the better of him.
“Nice try,” Nathan smiled around any fear lingering in his belly, “but I’m not crawling back to you, asshole. We’re gonnawin.”
Malak snarled, pain spiking through Nathan’s head as the dark sidhe king grabbed him roughly by the hair and yanked him over to the windows. “Win? You think you’re winning? Look at the whole of it, Nathan, and tell me if you still believe that.”
Defenseless against Malak’s superior strength, Nathan found his face pushed harshly to the glass looking out over the fields. He could see everything, from Alex and Ula outside the doors, to the farthest reaches of the fight.
So many had fallen. More than a hundred, Nathan saw now. Lindsey was pulling his injured wife back behind the stockpile outside the Gatehouse doors with Alex and Ula, one of Charis’ wings looking half torn off.
Cam and the twins still seemed to be alive out there, so far away that Nathan could barely spot them, but out on the middle of the fields, Jim, Sasha, and Walter were being hit by wave after wave of fiercely fighting dark fae that were not stopping even though they had lost their leader and any true direction. Nathan struggled to spot Shiarra, Oberon, or Gwen.
“You see now, Nathan, how much you’rewinning,” Malak snarled beside his ear. “It all looks so promising until you step back and see just how much I surpass you with sheer numbers. Your horsemen can accomplish little, their powers almost all used up now, and for what? You’re going tolose, Nathan. You made me stronger with every decision you made this past year. I don’t need you anymore to win. And do you know what happensif I win without you? Oh, the ways I can think up to torture those you love…”
“You think you can get me to choose you again by threatening me?” Nathan scoffed. “Nothing could ever make me throw everything away again.”
Calm now, confident, Malak smoothed his mussed hair back as he stepped away from Nathan, leaving him against the glass. “Who says I want you back? Even if you crawled and begged and pleaded for your fellows’ lives, as I said…I don’t need you anymore.” Reaching for Nathan again with a surge of anger, Malak grabbed him by the front of his shirt and lifted him straight up off the floor. “I’d rather watch your world burn. And all the people in it.”
Fear and futility bubbled up from Nathan’s stomach into his throat, and he hated it, hated that Malak could still turn him into the weakest version of himself. But not all of him felt weak. Because Malak was still a part of him, still wrapped up inside of him, and Nathan had to fight that every moment to remain solely himself.
Suddenly, the remnants of disheveled wildness in Malak’s eyes looked like more than whatever Sasha’s power had done to him or any consequences from the fighting outside. Malak was struggling just as Nathan was struggling, fighting against how wrapped up they werein each other.
Nathan could see it. With the goggles firmly in place, altering his vision, he could see past the shade of darkness, the monstrousness of Malak, and he understood. It wasn’t just that the goggles let him see through glamours. They let him see throughlies. And the dawning of that caused a smile to spread wide across his face.
“What’s so amusing?” Malak asked with a touch of frustration.
It was hard to breathe, lifted up as he was, but Nathan had dealt with far worse. “More like…fucking hilarious, pal,” hechoked out. “You don’t even mean half of what you’re saying. Kinda pathetic if ya ask me.”
The red on black eyes glaring up at Nathan flashed in warning. “You think I won’t honor what I’ve promised you?”
“Maybe. But there’s doubt written all over your face. Guess being an evil overlordprick…gets a bit tougher when you got a littlehumaninside of you.”
If Nathan had any doubt that he was right, the way Malak’s face twisted angrily rather than in denial or dismissal proved otherwise. “Human? I have been many things,ammany things, but never human, like you miserablewastesof flesh,” Malak growled.
