Page 135 of Wrath of the Fae Queen
So much ash floats into the air as the skin of my enemies cracks in jagged red lines like parched soil. As flesh peels away to reveal the red of muscle beneath, then that too disintegrates.My anger knows no bounds. It is hungry and uncontrolled. It becomes a beast in itself, targeting more and more people who stand against us. Who allowed this. Guards. Templars. Anyone. No number of lives consumed is enough.
I pass easily between the guards still reaching for the hilts of their swords. Either they are stuck in time, or I am moving impossibly fast. I fall to my knees beside Aldrin and pull him into my lap, shaking uncontrollably. So much of that magic is pouring out of me in death and destruction, but there is so much more left. His eyes stare up at me as I wipe the blood and hair from his face, but I don’t know if he can see me. My tears fall on his cheeks and run away in pink rivulets.
I join the open cuts on my hands with the seeping wounds of his body, combining our blood once more, and I find him in there. His breathing is terrifyingly shallow and his heart misses every other beat, but his mind is active. His essence still clings to his flesh. I pour so much of myself into him, my magic, my life force, my love, but it is simply whisked away by the toxins.
Stop, dear heart. You need to stop.His voice is so weak and distant it makes me more afraid than anything else.
“How can you ask that of me? How can you expect me to stop?” I whimper, running my fingers across his face. Gods, he is so cold.
I glance up at the fae taking the full brunt of my power and wrath, still in the throes of death but nowhere near the piles of ash and dust I need them to be. King Leonardo is on his knees, clutching at his ruined face, Starlight warriors crumpled all around him. Titania claws at her eyes with those long artificial nails, screaming wildly, while Torin tries to pry her hands away.
Belladonna crawls toward me, lips peeled back in a snarl as chunks of her blackened flesh steam away in great channels of ash, revealing her cheekbones. Behind her, Valentine lies unconscious, body thrashing. Good. She will learn what it feelslike to have your mate die in front of your eyes and be helpless to stop it. I have no doubts about where the poison that is killing Aldrin came from.
They are dying far too slowly, but I can’t spare more of my magic for them.
There is a third pull on my power. One that I don’t immediately understand. Then I see it. The thin, black lines of poison running across my hands. I could save myself now if I pulled away from Aldrin, if I focused on destroying those sparse molecules instead of bringing him back, but I don’t want to live without him.
I give him everything. Each last drop of magic.
It isn’t enough.
More toxins channel into me as they overflow from him, and I realize the fate of our position. The fact that our stars were crossed. Because the majority of the poison doesn’t come from where our blood mingles. No, now that it has overtaken every part of him, it races into me through our mate bond. It is a monster that will keep growing and replicating until it has nowhere else to go.
My magic fades as it is consumed by the poison. My grip of death and decay over our enemies drops away and the wields unravel, releasing them. More importantly, my desperate attempts to heal my love fail completely. The raw power pulsing through my veins winks out.
A chill floods my body and my muscles slacken. I collapse onto my side, but frantically try to clutch Aldrin closer to me with hands quickly turning numb. I run my fingers over his brow and across his cheek, brushing away loose tendrils of dark hair. His skin is clammy and so cold.
How did it come to this?
We are face-to-face, staring into each other’s eyes, as I watch the light fade from his. As their amber depths become cloudy, unseeing and vacant.
“No! Gods, no!” I whimper, my words slurred and hardly audible.
I feel the moment Aldrin dies.
His last exhale.
The final beat of his heart.
The mate bond between us winking out.
The death of half of my soul, violently torn from me.
I lose myself to hacking sobs as everything falls apart around me. Intense shakes engulf my entire body as my heart is surely torn in two.
At first I hear distant, garbled shouts. Then there is movement around me. None of it matters anymore.
After a lifetime of torment and regret, I recognize that two people stand over where we lie, but I refuse to look at them. I will die with Aldrin’s face as the last thing I see, even if it is lifeless and covered in black veins. He will always be the most beautiful thing I have ever beheld, in any state.
“Your minion’s poison shouldn’t have affected the girl,” Titania snaps. “I still had use for her.”
“One can never anticipate how the mate bond will react to unique magic. She shouldn’t have been here,” Leonardo states coolly.
I see someone reach for me from the corner of my eye, and a counter-motion to hold them back.
“Wait,” Leonardo snaps. “You cannot have your people touching their skin until the poison fades, or they will die too. They must sit in the morgue for a few days, untouched by any except my people, then when the black disappears, you can string their bodies up on the palace walls and have your celebration ceremony.”
They have won.
