Byron narrowed his eyes, turning back to watch where Caldris fought with the Mist Guard’s elite army. I couldn’t see him fighting to get to me, but I could feel the rage in his bones.
I felt his anguish, his desperation, in spite of the way I’d cut off our bond, and my eyes burned with tears as the wave of his grief crashed into me, shattering the window I’d closed between us. His pain was a deep anguish, the surge of emotions overriding the burn of iron in his arm where he’d been injured. My own arm throbbed with pain, feeling heavy at my side as it connected again with his injury.
Please, don’t leave me alone again.
I squeezed my eyes closed, shoving back the burn of grief in my throat.
Where you go, I will follow.
Byron spun me around so suddenly that I stumbled over my own feet, that grip on my hair tipping my head back sharply. The iron of his blade pressed into the column of my throat, searing the flesh as I recoiled. Caelum fought to close the distance between us. With a few more moments of effort, he’d be able to reach us.
“Say his name,” Byron commanded, something curious in his voice making me clamp my mouth shut. He raised the knife from my throat, slashing a white-hot line across my cheekbone. Fire burned through the wound, setting my face ablaze as the blood dripped down. “Say it!”
“Caldris,” I said, his name echoing through the gardens of Mistfell. Something drummed between us as my mate cut down the last opponent standing in his way, a thick spray of blood arcing from the other man’s chest as the Fae tore his sword from the place where the Guard’s heart had once been.
“So this is the legendary God of the Dead,” Byron murmured, his voice soft against my ear. “What do you think the King will give me when I bring him the head of a God?”
I stilled suddenly, giving away far too much in the agony of the thought. I’d only wanted to save my mother, not condemn my mate to death. “You don’t like that. Don’t tell me you have feelings for this beast?”
“You are far greater a monster than he could ever dream to be,” I said vehemently, the conviction in those words shocking even me.
Caelum’s dark stare met mine as he wielded a sword in each hand, stepping as close as he dared before Byron adjusted the blade at my throat. My skin sizzled all over again as Caelum’s eyes dropped to where the blade touched me. His glare trailed over the cut on my cheek, his nostrils flaring as he clenched his jaw.
“It takes a truly pathetic excuse of a male to toy with a woman and to mark her flesh,” Caldris said, his glare honing in on where Byron loomed over my shoulder.
The Lord’s breath washed over my face when he leaned forward, saying the perfectly wrong thing in his absolute arrogance. “Estrella is well-acquainted with wearing the marks I leave on her skin.” His next words turned the earth of his own grave. “Aren’t you, sweetheart?”
Everything in Caldris froze, his entire being and soul pausing as the meaning beyond those words penetrated him. His eyes narrowed, bleeding to complete and utter black. “Byron,” he growled, and the memory of revealing my tormenter’s name to Caelum in the hot spring washed over me.
“How sweet of you to tell him about me,” Byron said smugly as he leaned forward into my back. “Did you tell him all the things I made you feel that he never could?”
“I told him you were so weak a man you couldn’t even beat me yourself most of the time,” I said, trying to shift his attention back to me. The tip of the blade cut into my throat and Caldris’s gaze snagged on the blood.
“I see he has done nothing to make you behave appropriately,” Byron complained.
“He likes it when I stab things. Call it a character flaw,” I said, smirking in spite of my death staring me in the face. The fact that Caldris himself paused meant he knew exactly how quickly Byron could drag the blade across my throat. He knew even he couldn’t cross that distance in time to get to me.
“She’s just a mate,” Caldris said, tossing Byron one of his trademark smirks. “But it’s cute that you think her soul will be powerful enough to form a Veil. The last male who gave his life to it was a God, but sure. She should do the trick.”
I jerked against Byron’s grip, knowing exactly what Caldris was doing. Whether his words were true or not, I wouldn’t allow him to give his life when I felt the ominous energy rolling off the boundary. I felt it in my flesh, whatever came when I crossed the barrier would be horrible. It would be a fate worse than death—all the things Brann had promised.
“Don’t listen to him. He’s just toying with you,” I said.
“Perhaps, but a Veil formed from his soul would be a lovely trophy, and then you would still be alive. Without a mate,” he said, leaving little doubt as to where that would leave me exactly.
“And I would still choose death over you.”
“Lay down your swords,” Byron said, his order going straight over me and to Caldris. My mate dropped his swords at his side, not flinching in the slightest when the two men stepped up to him. He held my gaze as he placed his hands in front of him, allowing them to shackle his wrists in iron while he grimaced. His skin sizzled inside them, nearly dropping him to his knees as the force of it weakened him.
The chain that connected the two shackles hung between his arms, swaying as he stood. “Now let her go.”
“Don’t do this. I’m ready to die,” I said.
“If you’re gone, then so am I,” he returned, smiling slightly. The Guards brought him closer to the boundary, until he stood beside me but out of reach. Byron spun me to face him, watching as the Mist Guard forced him to his knees in the sand.
“Stop,” I ordered, wincing when the protest fell on deaf ears. One of the witches stepped up, chanting at the edge of the boundary. The waters of the ocean receded from my feet, sucked into the vortex as she created a wall from the very seawater itself.
“O’ dromneacht en farroile,” she said, drawing her hand up from where it lay beside her thigh. “Go ti en sparath thas.” The Guard pressed his blade to Caldris’s throat in preparation for whatever was about to come.
“No!” I shrieked, the sound blasting from within me. It echoed through the space, cracking into the wall of water the witch worked to build. She flew back into it, the wall bursting back into the ocean like a popped bubble.
Time stood still as she broke through the wall, falling to the ocean below. The water was shallow, her head smacking against the sand as she landed. Darkness descended, crashing through the twilight with the force of a midnight sky.
I twisted my head, ignoring the fiery path the blade drew across my throat, and grabbed Byron’s arm with both hands. Pushing the knife away from my neck while I turned, I elbowed him in the side as I spun free from his grip. In the same moment, Caldris rose to his feet, smashing his shackled hands into the face of the first Guard and disarming him with a fluidity that still took my breath away.
He tossed me the sword he’d stolen, not pausing to see if I caught it before he turned his attention to the other Mist Guard. I spun again, catching the sword out of mid-air as I twirled. I wrapped my fingers around the hilt, swinging in an upward arc. The Lord’s stared at me in horror as I faced him, something shining off his pale skin. The light of a million stars twinkled over his flesh as I sliced the sword toward his neck. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but he never managed to say the words.