Page 5 of The Sacrifice

“Take the little dirt path that leads down the east side of our manor,” I direct her with a growing smirk. “I’ll distract the Brothers. They’ll never see you.”

“I owe you everything, Quinn.”

“Pish.” I wave a hand at her. “If you weren’t my friend, who else would I talk to?”

We have a little chuckle at that before I scurry into the woods in the opposite direction of Sarai. No words of farewell. No mention of prayers or good fortune or ‘spirits be with you’. Sarai and I are beyond such declarations. When you live closest to the Veil where death and rot are more common than life and growth, you learn to cope. And never say goodbye.

“Want to have some fun?” I giggle to Qora who breathes frost down the back of my neck, prickling the hairs as I hide behind a bush a hundred yards off from the procession.

As if she knows what I mean, Qora pulses her shadows in staccato ripples that I’ve always interpreted as laughter. Any opportunity for Qora to misbehave, she will take.

With a single nod from me, Qora bolts, surging through the trees and shifting right in the path of the procession. No, the Sisters and Brothers can’t see her, but the horses sense her. Several stomp the ground, cracking ice and stone with their powerful hooves, dipping their heads and aiming the powerful horns on each side of their heads at my Shadow. One rears up, howling. It doesn’t take much for the Sisters to calm them, and when I turn, Sarai has fled her hiding spot. I catch the ends of her black dress flicking around the corner of our house and smile.

As soon as I swing my head back, a horn roars throughout the valley. Deafening and bone-chilling, it resounds like a hundred claps of thunder to warn all within the Borderlands.

The Veil has severed early. The monsters are coming.

And I’m late.

3

We are gods of the Waste forever

DRAGO

I slam my fist into the offending mirror, shattering it with my scaled fist. A rumbling growl, born of a familiar but horrific hunger, stalks my body.

“God-damnit, Drago,” Mayce lectures me from the opposite side of the hall. “Will you wreak your havoc upon the castle as horridly as you did last Hollow Night?”

I snarl, baring my growing teeth and mocking, “Suck. My. Cock. Brother.” The Fae may not be my blood brother, but since we’re bound by a force beyond blood, we retain the title. And he’s sucked my cock plenty of times.

Signs of the Hunger prey upon his body as it does mine. His ears have grown longer as well as his claws while black spirit bleeds through his wings, breaking bones, burning sinew, and distorting them.

The more rational one among us, Mayce approaches me, infernal arms stoic at his sides, back straight as an arrow. Not a thread out of place on his robe. Fucking Fae. If the Hunger wasn’t wreaking havoc on my body and threatening fire to feed on my insides, I’d have the gorgeous specimen on all fours with his ass in the air already.

“We will have more than enough time to lick our wounds and recover from this night as we have done for centuries. But I would prefer not to spend a month restoring the castle following one of your tantrums.”

“My castle,” I bark. “I can do whatever the fuck I want with it.”

“There is no reason we must lose all sense of propriety and give in to our primal natures, brother.”

A snort echoes from down the hall, and I roll my eyes to where Kyan has propped himself up on the desk, arms crossed over his chest, shadowy wings overlapping the wall. Always sneaking up on us, appearing from thin air.

“You wish to say something, little brother?” Mayce turns to the fallen angel, his long hair swinging like golden lichen down the sides of his neck as he invites Kyan to interject.

His angel eyes have grown larger, shining like glowing flames. Fur sprouts upon his incandescent skin. “Who was responsible for the most kills last year?”

“Merikh,” Mayce and I say in unison. On cue, Merikh’s lone voice howls and roars from the furthest wing of the castle. I roll my eyes. Suffering in isolation as usual, the brooding, bloody bastard. The Fae might be the epitome of propriety, but I’ll take his grounded ass any day over the vampire.

Kyan waves a hand, lifts off the desk, hovering in mid-air before landing with his boots barely brushing the floor. “Other than him, I believe it was Mayce who had the most kills.”

“Doesn’t fucking matter.” I clench my scaled hand into a fist and crack my neck from side to side at the familiar pain of bones breaking, realigning to form my wings. “The Sacrifice has happened for a thousand years, and it will last for another thousand at this rate. A girl would have to be mad and invisible to follow us into the Waste. We’re never leaving, brothers. Nothing but exile for our future.”

“When did you turn into Merikh, Drago?” Kyan asks, jutting out his chin to me. “He’s the dark pessimist after all. You should be blowing smoke from your ears as our official hothead.”

I flex all my muscles, the veins straining in my arms, and leer at my brother, “Better a hothead than a featherbrain.”

The punch comes when I blink. Shouldn’t have been shocked when Kyan’s blow knocks me off my feet, rattling my teeth, and sending me hurling into the shattered mirror. He might be the youngest of us, but the fallen angel still packs a mean punch.

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