Page 123 of Dark & Dreadful Brutes

He had seemed so tired, and so sad. Was he really a monster if he was suffering so much that he’d request to be killed?

“What if someone formed a mate bond with him?” I asked. “Do you think it would change his magic? Or stop his drive to kill Ravv?”

“Your magic only hides the king’s because it’s his opposite.”

“Or because we’re fated mates.”

“But how would we find the Demon’s fated mate?” Coarse countered.

He was still right, and I was still wasting my time trying to think of an alternative.

“If he’s truly the man he claimed to be when we met him, he doesn’t deserve to die,” I finally said. “He deserves a chance to be free.”

“It may not be possible at all.”

“But it might be, and isn’t the possibility worth something? What if we could save him?”

“Some people don’t want to be saved, Laeli, and there is nothing we can do to change their minds.”

My gaze landed on the dragon above us.

Coarse was right, but I wished he wasn’t.

The Demon landed as we reached the outer edge of the city.

The fae yelled battle cries as they sprinted across the ice with their bonded idorr, but the Demon didn’t blow fire.

He didn’t roar or swing his spiky tail.

He simply bowed his head and prepared to die.

The fae with the scale-breaking weapons were at the front of the group. Those with the brutal strength were behind them. Ravv led everyone. Most of his generals had wanted a grander, more elegant plan full of moving parts, but Ravv had refused. There was no need for elegance in slaughter.

I watched all of them go, my eyes stinging as they lingered on the Demon.

The fae neared his massive form without a moment of hesitation.

My eyes slipped down to Ravv and Gleam at the front of the army, and I noticed them slow, as he shouted a command I couldn’t hear.

The warriors around and behind him slowed too, until everyone on the battlefield stopped entirely.

I silently reach out to Ravv’s mind, to see if I could pick up any of his thoughts, and heard him yell, “This is not a fight, it’s an execution.”

The Demon growled something back.

Ravv shouted back, “I won’t kill you for being tired of living, Demon. Do you think you’re the only one who grows weary of this world or the mantle you carry?”

There was a long pause, and the Demon asked what the alternative was.

Ravv called, “There are caves beneath my city. Even when your magic is at its strongest, you won’t be able to escape the depths of them to find any target or agree to any more kills. If you try to shift and fly free, the ice will end you. Its magic prevents it from melting or being broken, just like my city’s. If you truly wish to die, die with honor, traversing caverns of ancient magic even more powerful than you.”

The Demon roared, and Ravv roared back.

After a moment’s hesitation, the rest of the fae army roared with both of them.

The assassin shifted to his man form, and Ravv offered him a hand.

Coarse snarled into my mind and Gleam’s about his mate carrying the Demon—and she must’ve snarled something back to him, because he cut himself off quickly.

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