My eyes widened in horror at that suggestion but I didn’t question him further, trusting in his gifts, pressing my fingers to my throat and amplifying the sound of my voice as I yelled out loud enough for our entire army to hear.
“Retreat! Return to the tunnels! Retreat!”
All around us, the rebels heard my call and suddenly they were racing back towards The Burrows instead of fighting to escape them, not one of them defying my command as they hurried to do as I’d ordered with the Nymphs hounding after them, hungry for their demise.
“Get a shield in place between our army and theirs to allow the retreat time to take place,” I commanded no one in particular, but Hamish raised his chin in understanding.
“It will be done, my queen. Kitty and I will hold the line while our people make their escape.”
“What are you going to do?” Catalina gasped, catching my hand as I looked away and she seemed to realise I wasn’t going with them.
“I’ll follow once this fight is done,” I snarled, hunting the sky for Lionel or Lavinia but finding neither of them close to me. “If Lionel dies tonight then we can salvage this.”
“But, my queen,” Hamish gasped and I shook my head at him.
“That’s an order. I need all of you to get our people out of here. Can I trust you to do that?” I fixed him in my glare, and he bowed his head as he gave in to my command.
“It has been an honour fighting for the true queens this day,” he said and my heart swelled with emotion as I thought of Darcy, wondering if Orion had managed to return her to herself and hoping with all my soul that she was going to be okay.
“It’s been an honour fighting with you too,” I said firmly, gripping his hand in farewell and gasping as Catalina threw her arms around me.
“Make that motherfucker scream when he dies,” she snarled and I breathed a laugh as I swore to try, releasing her quickly and turning back to face the fight.
“I beg permission to stay and fight at your side, my queen,” Justin said, drawing my attention to him as he moved to stand protectively by me once more and I gave a nod, seeing the determination in his gaze.
“Let’s see if we can end this thing.”
I took off running with Justin a step behind me, my gaze falling on Alejandro once more as he appeared in the crowd of Nymphs who were chasing after the retreating rebels, the rattle of his kind echoing through my bones and making my magic shrivel away from me as I raised my sword with a bellow of challenge and ran forward to meet him.
C aleb shot us through the manor as I kept the concealment spells tight around the two of us and we raced to find what we needed. I hoped to fuck that Seth knew what he was doing in leading the Nymphs away because his crazy ideas were dangerous as hell sometimes.
“No time to be subtle about it,” Cal called.
I felt the heat of his fire magic burning through his skin where I was perched on his back a moment before he blasted it into the wards surrounding the house where Stella Orion lived.
The heat of the flames kissed my skin as we shot through the barriers and detection spells, and I clung on tight as Caleb kept going, moving so fast that I just locked my gaze on the back of his head instead of trying to see anything around us to save myself the feeling of motion sickness.
We crashed through the front door and Caleb shot through the house, sending doors slamming against walls before finally skidded to a halt before a panel in the wall which I was guessing was the secret entrance to the basement. My eyes widened as we found Stella Orion standing there, her fangs bared and earth magic coiling in her hands.
“Step aside,” I warned as Caleb bared his fangs right back at her.
“Why are you here?” she demanded.
“Move,” Caleb growled.
“And what if I don’t?” she breathed, and I sensed something beneath those words, my gift latching on to fear, hope, loss. What was she thinking?
“You’ll die,” Caleb spat, but still she didn’t move, her gaze darting between us.
“Is that what you want?” I asked, tugging harder on my gifts and her eyes widened as she felt the pull of them.
“I want so many things,” she hissed, and I felt an ache in her that burned right through me. “I want to go back to a time where the world wasn’t full of death.”
“Well you should have thought about that before you helped your Dragon pal to take over the motherfucking world,” I snapped as I tasted the regret on her, the depth of it fuelling my power reserves.
She tried to snap her mental shields up against me, but I wasn’t going to let that happen, holding on tight.