Page 117 of Hearts of Stone

“Looks like some demolition work is in order.”

We both nodded to each other and then shoved our feet against the remaining walls around us, sending them tumbling onto the grass too.

“We need to get Jade out of here,” Graven said, appearing beside us. He eyed the structure warily. “This place will collapse if you keep going.”

“Go.”

Wulf got to his feet, although Luther struggled to. Whatever weakness the felling of the building had caused in Luther, it hadn’t done the same for my brother. “Take our mate—”

“No!” Jade shouted.

Some nights I loved the fire that burned inside my mate, but on others… My breath hissed through my teeth as Jade rushed over. She wrapped her hands around Wulf’s arm to tug him down to her.

“I know what you’re planning to do and I command—”

He reached over and pressed a claw to her lips, the flesh dimpling around it as he stared into her eyes.

“If we are truly soul mates, I’ll find you again in another life,” he told her. “One where I wasn’t brought to my knees over and over by madness and pain. I need to end this.”

“No!” She shook her head violently, gripping more urgently at his arm, as if that would be enough to stop him. “No, Wulf, please…”

“Wulf…” He nodded slowly and then smiled. “My name on your lips, I can carry that with me as I do what I must.”

“More than that.” I stepped forward and so did the others as we heard the pain in her voice, my eyes following the track of one silvery tear. She flung herself at him and his arms went around her tentatively. There had been only pain in Z Ward, no pleasure, so it took him some time to recognise it. I willed him tosee the offer for what it was and his arms drew tight around her, clinging to our mate with everything he had.

Because this was goodbye.

We could destroy Z Ward and remove some of Luther’s power, but that wouldn’t be enough to make him take his final breath, not until Wulf did.

“This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be,” she murmured into his neck. “You’re the victim here.”

“Not anymore.” I heard the growl of determination in Wulf’s voice, something that had been missing for so long. “I am whole again when I touch you, no matter for how short a time. Even if my mind frays again, I’ll remember you.”

“Remember this,” she said, pushing her face into the long length of his hair and then sought out his neck.

I pulled in a breath so fast my lungs stuttered. The cry for her to stop caught in my throat as her blunt teeth sank down into his flesh. Wulf let out an incredible roar, not one of pain, but of triumph. He held her far too tight, my claws flexing with the need to pull her free of him as jealousy, a foreign emotion, rode me hard. She had claimed him, yet I… But when he pulled free of her, I saw the male glow with an unearthly light that found its twin in her and there was something he’d long lost shining again in his eyes.

This was the gargoyle that had been shipped here from Scotland, the warrior that had fought off the English. He let out a massive battle cry and then set her behind him.

“I wear your mark with pride, Jade of The Eyrie,” he told her in a rattling growl. “I smelled the stink of the English soiling their breeches as I lopped off their comrades’ heads. I beat back legions of soldiers at my lord’s behest. This cage was never enough to contain me and Iwillbreak free!”

His fist slammed into one wall, then another, the damage apparent as the whole building shook, because it wasn’t just the walls that were collapsing, but the roof, too.

“We need to get Jade out of here!” Graven snapped.

“No—” Her hands clawed the air as I collected her up, but I forced myself to hold her tight as I sprinted for the hole in the wall.

“He does this for you, lass. We’d all do the same, but this is a sacrifice only he can make. Don’t dishonour him in this moment, please.”

“But…” She started forward a few steps the moment I placed her on the grass, safely beyond the building. Dashing the tears from her eyes she turned to stare at me. More tears formed as she struggled to speak. “But…he’s the victim here. He’s the one that was forced—”

“And now he takes his revenge.”

Graven settled beside her, arms crossed as we watched the battle unfold.

Luther was like a little doll, tossed around the remains of the building, short flares of fire magic forming that were soon extinguished as Wulfstan smashed more walls. The torture room collapsed into a mess of bricks and mortar first. Wulf spent far too much time pulverising those bricks to dust, which gave Luther a chance to rally.

He staggered towards Wulf, trying to command him to stop, to obey him, but the old master would never regain the kind of control he’d once wielded. His day was well and truly over and now he was forced to see the evidence of it. The office was destroyed, as was the ablutions block. And at that destabilisation, the top floor started to shiver. It was a disconcerting thing for a building to do, so we scooped up Jade and took to the air where we had an aerial view of the final collapse of Z Ward. That entire building, an edifice to pain,torture and the worst of witchkind, it seemed to waver on its foundations and then it all came crashing down.

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