Page 201 of Throne of Air and Darkness

84

ARRAN

I couldn’t feel the arrow, but I could feel her fury. It paled in comparison to my own—for her, shoving me out of the way. For the one who’d launched it.

But Veyka didn’t fall.

She screamed loud enough to be heard across every realm, fae and human and every other blasted place, but she didn’t fall.

She didn’t bleed.

She ripped the arrow from her chest. Screamed through the pain of it—the scabbard was safety from bleeding, but not from the pain.

No blood dripped from the pointed tip as she lifted the arrow into her line of vision.

The scabbards worked, even separated.

A small mercy—infinitesimally small as they appeared from the tree line. Dozens of them. Line after neat line. Humans and fae.

And at their head, a singular male. Striding across the clearing, a bow knocked with an arrow held loosely from one arm.

Unbothered.

Fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty… we were outmatched.

But Veyka wasn’t looking at the lines of soldiers dressed in matching silver and sky-blue armor. Her eyes were fixed on the male at the center.

Wrong.

More wrong than an advancing force, a foe that had already fired on us.

Wrong at the core of my being. Wrong that wiped all reason and understanding from Veyka’s face.

Wrong.

“This cannot be,” she whispered.

She was so white. Her skin was nearly the same shade as her hair. The dark blacks and browns of her clothing were stark against her skin. The only color at all was her eyes. The bright blue was ablaze. Not with the glowing ring of blue that spoke of desire. But with wrath.

“You are dead.” She stated it like a fact. Even as the fae male drew himself up tall before her, still several yards away.

His brown hair fell forward rakishly over his brow as he tilted his face toward her. “You certainly thought so.”

Her face was blank, unreadable. To everyone but me. I knew Veyka like I knew myself, her soul an extension of my own. I knew what lurked behind the wall of ice she’d constructed.

She was calculating. Soon, she’d reach for her power. She didn’t care that we were outmatched. A blink, and she’d be behind the male. She’d slit his throat and then sever his head from his body. Lyrena would blast him with flame. It would be done.

Once my mate finished him, I’d shift and dispose of the unit of soldiers behind him. Human or fae—I could rip them apart all the same.

I’d demand answers about who the male was, why he’d shot at us, but later. After he was dead. After the soldiers were dead. I reached for my battle axe, the need to kill thrumming in my veins.

But Veyka did not move.

This conversation… she wanted something. To stall, but why?

Unless… she really did want this information.

“I killed you.” She was so still. No trembling. I could hardly feel her through the mating bond in my chest. The rage that she’d descended into was so deep, even I couldn’t reach her.

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