Page 71 of The Wolf Queen

“Burn,” I said, my wolfish lips curling back, revealing my fangs as I said the word, the flames of my blade exploding up the length of the sword and over me, then outward.

The first time I saw the flames lick over his flesh, the relief was tangible. Then seeing that skin turn reddish, the raw, that was even better. Black sluggish blood? It was like manna from heaven, exactly what my soul needed. I sucked the sight of it, of him jerking stiffly, bracing himself for the pain, then his teeth locking together to stop the sounds in his throat.

“No,” I said. “Scream. Scream for all of the people you made do exactly that. Scream for me with all of the pain you inflicted. Scream until you have no throat to make a sound.”

And for a moment I thought that was possible. My flames licked his flesh like a lover might, caressing his entire frame, but right as he was engulfed, his skin turning bright red, then black with blood as it peeled away, something happened.

He laughed.

Callum shook himself like one might a dog, flicking my fire from him and leaving it to set the curtains alight, the carpets and the bed. But it was replaced quickly. Black smoky flames formed instead and that’s when I realised exactly what they were.

His grin was like a skull’s as he reached out, a single finger touching a single red rose that had been left in a cut-glass vase by his bedside. Left over from Aurora’s days perhaps? I didn’t know. Whatever it was, it died in that instance, the rich red petals turning black, the air filled with the sweet scent of its perfume, right before it turned sour and rank.

“You can burn my Reavers, steal their souls, reduce them down to weak little bastards,” Callum said. “But you won’t stop me. Eleanor and I were an aberration, according to my grandmother, the power my sister was supposed to wield split between us. She took the light and I…” He held his hand up so I could see the black flames flickering there. “I took what was left.”

Callum moved closer then, the sounds of the room now bleeding in. People were shouting, Reavers were roaring and wood was cracking under the weight of something.

“I was always the one who could do the things she couldn’t. Put her horse down when the poor bastard broke its leg. Beat the snot nosed brat who disrespected her in the classroom so he thought better of doing that again. Killing our grandmother when she decided that I was not a positive influence on her. Nothing ever stopped me from doing what I must, not even death.”

I’d seen it before, Callum’s death scene. Him crushed under the weight of Strelan and Granian dead both, crying out for the Morrigan as the ravens circled overhead. But this time I saw her, a familiar figure, appearing by his side and pulling him free, then placing her hand on his forehead.

Aeve?I asked, seeing the priestess from the temple right then.

Her head jerked sideways, those kohl rimmed eyes, the fine network of lines on her face creasing as she gave me a tiny smile, right before a red light filled Callum’s prone body.

No, I thought, over and over, as I saw him move, wait, then grow strong again, when I was born. No, I thought as he learned his craft. He hadn’t managed to create Reavers successfully at first, but he learned. Gods, how he learned. And he was a master of it now, able to create monsters with little effort.

He gave me the answer I needed.

Our powers were the opposite to each other’s, perfectly in balance, but that was because each one of us kept a certain amount back for our own survival.

But what if I didn’t?

I thought of my children, my mates and everyone I’d bonded with since I left my father’s keep. Even the people I grew up with there. None of them mattered right now, not in the face of this threat. Pepin said I needed to visualise what was needed and then draw upon the power of the land to make it happen, so I did it now.

I didn’t try to burn him, but us.

The flames didn’t lick over my skin so benignly now. I felt their heat first, then their bite, my skin beginning to sizzle. It hurt, but so did everything since that day and that’s what fed my flames.

I got up every day and tried to reach for it, for love, for connection, for need and closeness. I remembered Jan pressing a kiss to my cheek, the feeling there and gone again and somehow that painful moment of sweetness coloured this. Her small moment of spontaneous affection had made my heart ache, just like I did now.

Burn, I urged the flames.Burn all of it, even me.

That’s when I saw Callum’s smile falter, the fight we were engaged in finally going my way, I felt the sweetest of pain. I’d brought this bloody bastard back into this world and I’d take him out of it.

“Darcy!”

They were the ones that broke my focus. They would every time. Because their pain? I saw Dane stumble back from the door, the Reavers beyond pushing hard to take the ground ceded. I watched him face fall, his strength leave him. Then Weyland, Gael shifting as he saw red lesions appear on my mate’s skin, trying to heal them with the blue fire in his hands, but his own body was burning up as well, his hands no longer able to contain that fire without harm. Axe roared, his skin beginning to peel, but he threw himself at the door, willing to hold the line until the very end. That’s what broke me. Because I could throw myself on the funeral pyre. I’d been dreaming of that since the moment we lit the logs under Nordred, somehow knowing that’s where I belonged.

But not if it took them too.

I couldn’t.

Because this was my weakness, one that Callum didn’t possess. He was connected to nothing and no one, so there was nothing he needed to protect or hold back. The bastard could throw his whole soul into his attacks on me, beating me back, turning me cold, so bloody cold until…

“Not like this.” Bryson’s voice sounded so soft, so calm and when he touched me that terrible cold, the burn faded away. “Not like this, little queen.”

I collapsed into his arms not from a desire too, but because I could do nothing else. The flames that burned inside me, it flickered, spat, sputtered and then–

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