Page 51 of Queen Takes Sunfires 2
All of her.
* * *
EIVIND
The only thingkeeping Helayna on her feet was her three Blood, standing at her back and side, their arms locked around her. I couldn’t see exactly what she was doing, but I could feel the flow of energy she was sending to the other queen. All the hairs on my body quivered with static electricity and my teeth ached.
Shara Isador stood facing the lake, arms spread wide. Blood dripped from her wrists, the scent thick on the air. The shield she’d thrown up above the nest sparked with constant lightning and fire, on the verge of crumbling beneath the constant barrage of sunfires. Red-gold energy slung up against that shield almost like wild birds crashing into glass, battering it with frantic wings and claws.
Detective Harris stood on my right, eyes bugging out of his skull, but he wisely didn’t say a word. I had a feeling the Isador Blood were just looking for a reason to chomp his head off. With them all shifted and crowded against their queen, offering her their blood, the human was getting quite the show.
I strode over to Helayna and slashed my wrist open on my fangs so I could press the wound to her lips.
:You’ve given me too much already,:she protested, though she gulped my offering as quickly as possible.
:If you fall, then Ironheart is no more. I don’t care about me.:
“They want their queen,” Shara called back over her shoulder. “They’re not going to stop until Karmen returns. Can you call her back?”
Why the hell did they both look at me? I didn’t have a bond with her. I was the last person she’d want to see again.
Helayna looked like death warmed over. She wasn’t going to last much longer. Closing my eyes, I pictured Karmen in my mind. The way she’d looked asleep in the hotel. Her back healed, her hair gleaming in the darkness like captive fire.We need you.I paused, my heart thudding heavily.I need you. I’m sorry. So sorry.
The last skeleton beams of the bridge to the mainland tilted, metal screeching as it was pulled off its foundation. Steel beams folded and crumpled up like toothpicks, sucked into the widening storm that swirled in the dried lake. Harris’ car rolled over and over, tumbling after the destroyed bridge.
“That paperwork’s going to be a bitch to explain,” he muttered, though I could barely hear him over the roaring winds.
The cabin was going to be next. I didn’t give a damn about the building itself, but Ironhearts had lived here for centuries. I hated being so helpless. What could my wolf do? Howl at the black hole devouring our nest? Snap at sunfires that could light up my fur like kindling?
“Something’s coming!” Shara yelled. “Brace yourselves.”
A thunderclap made my ears ring, and the ground rocked beneath my boots. Blood dripped from Harris’ nose and he staggered, almost falling. I grabbed his shoulder, keeping him from tumbling across the blood circle.
In the open yard just inside the nest, a ring of burning gold started to spin and widen.
“Sunfire!” I yelled, shoving Harris behind me, closer to Helayna and her Blood. “They’re inside!”
The burning hole firmed, shimmering like a golden mirror. A skeleton stepped through, as tall as Shara’s rock creature. If it had flesh, it would have probably been nearly as wide.
Two more skeletons jumped after it, both dressed like they’d stumbled off a Roman Empire movie set. A blaze of flames charged through the hole, solidifying into a fucking elephant. Carrying another skeleton.
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing, or did I hit my head?” Harris yelled in my ear.
Several more sunfire beings and skeletons came through the hole. Some kind of horse-like creature with four legs. One had four wings. Two fiery dogs jumped through, baying like some kind of Wild Hunt had started.
One of the skeletons reached back through the hole and guided a woman out. Not just any woman. Karmen.
On one level, I recognized her. Her presence resonated through my body like someone had slammed me head-first into a giant gong. She had the same blazing red-gold hair, though it was longer now, flowing almost to the ground. She wore a golden gown that flickered and flashed with sunfire energy. In fact, her entire body blazed with power. She didn’t need a crown to mark her as a queen. A golden nimbus gleamed around her, as if she was a sun shining down on us mere mortals.
On a deeper level, I didn’t recognize her at all. She wasn’t the scared woman on the run from the hospital. She wasn’t the woman who’d ridden from Chicago to Minnesota with me in the car. Who’d had nothing to wear but a hospital gown and my coat. The woman who’d fled from sunfires and skeleton soldiers, rather than walking with them as if they were her guard.
Head high, she came toward the other two queens. Helayna’s dark alfar hissed as the sunfires came closer, definitely an oil and water problem there. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked like the soldiers’ brightness actually hurt her Blood. Shara couldn’t take her attention off the shield, but her Blood certainly took up defensive stances around her, facing the new queen rather than the thing in the lake.
“Karmen!” Helayna called out. “Thank the goddess! I’m so glad you’re alright.”
Karmen glanced at her but didn’t answer. Her gaze flickered over me, making me flinch. She didn’t even act as if she recognized me. I deserved it. Definitely. But it still was a major blow to my pride. Her face was so cold and distant, she almost seemed like a marble statue.
The nimbus around her blazed redder, flaring with molten sunfire energy. The clamor outside the shield grew even louder, sunfires battering at the shield desperately.
