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Azrail's heart skipped several beats, and took so long to start up again that he expected to drop dead. Maia brushed him away as if he was weightless, his hold on her weak. He could do nothing to protect his mate as she trampled long grass, her wings full black and spread behind her, fluttering on the edges in a way that foretold violence. He knew her eyes would be dark, her sharp fangs bared, a snarl in the back of her throat.
Her fae side might have been submissive and weak to a powerful fae growl, but there was so much dominance in her personality that it almost didn't matter.
Az took a step, his feet sliding in the mud beneath the grass, and the spell broke over him. His heart started again, faster than before, and his breathing came raspy and quickened. The sight of Maia walking into certain death with her wings bare, her back straight, and nothing but strength and rage in her posture, snapped something that Azrail had been fighting to hold together for months.
It wasn't only smoke that poured out of him, but a slow, creeping death.
"Command your soldiers, general," he ordered Ark, his voice nothing but deep, endless dark.
He didn't wait for his own orders; he snapped his hands at his sides and sent oppressive smoke into the ground, snaking towards the stone circle like an adder the size of a river. Bigger than the saints' circle, big enough to devour every stone. But what would taking that kind of wrongness into his magic do to Azrail?
Would it change him like it had changed the kidnapped fae and beastkind?
"Maia," he growled, pouring dominance and command into the sound, lashing his voice like a whip across the distance between them.
Maia faltered but did not stop, her wings snapping her annoyance as she soldiered on, fixed unerringly on Jaro as he stood before Vawn. They looked alike from several metres away, both tall and slim, both graceful and beautiful, trained in the same art form of sin and beauty. Jaro's red hair was sleek and gleaming, Vawn's long waves messy and wild, but they could have been brothers, Vawn another lost sibling returned to Jaro at last.
"What are you doing?" Azrail muttered at Jaro, his hands flexing as he reached inside for more power. He'd only combined his earth and smoke twice before, and the first time had been an accident. But the dagger he'd made had slayed the golden fae, cut right through their metal armour to the flesh beneath, and if it could do that, maybe it could handle these beasts, too.
He didn't think about them once being people.Couldn'tthink about that.
Not as Vawn reached out and shoved Jaro. Not as he spat a word Az was still too far away to hear, and Maia howled in rage, glowing so bright Azrail couldn't look at her directly. Not as the monsters spilling out of the broken stones answered Vawn's command and rushed at Jaro.
Faster, faster,he urged his magic as it speared underground, his arms tingling as more and more grew inside him. He had a vague sense of something hovering behind him, likely that three-headed wolf, and his hair whipping around his face as he ran faster than ever. He barely saw the ground, eyes fixed forward.
"Maia!" he shouted, but no matter the dominance in him, something far more dangerous lent Maia power and speed, and he couldn't catch up to her. The ground trembled as she stormed across the island.
The beasts were everything Nesslyn had warned them about, and even more grotesque up close. They towered above Vawn's six-foot frame by a full head, covered in green-black scales and dripping noxious-looking pus from their claws, short horns, and wicked teeth. Azrail's heart stopped as the one nearest Vawn moved faster than anything that large ought to, racing like a jaguar, all power and efficient, lethal speed.
Jaromir didn't budge an inch, didn't wince or flinch away. He stood with his back straight, facing Vawn, his red hair blowing in the wind. Az wished he could see his expression, wished Jaro would do something other thanstand there. He was going to be slaughtered, torn apart by those claws and feasted upon—
Sickness crashed through Az's gut, but he clamped down and gritted his teeth as he raced to the stone circle, not giving the shaky fear any power over him. Instead he grabbed fistfuls of magic and sent arrows of smoke past Maia towards the monsters.
Maia didn't send a wave of power; she didn't need to. Every step she took shook the earth, and everywhere her silver glow fell on the grass, thorny purple flowers sprang up, tangled and thirsty for blood. They didn't respond even to Az's requests to part, so he gritted his teeth and ran around them, his heart bruising his ribs in its panic.
Behind him, Ark shouted orders at the others, directing them to send bursts of magic at the beasts. Az already knew it would have no effect, but he couldn't stop burrowing into his own power as he ran, the stones of the saints' circle close enough to cast a shadow over him now—and Maia, storming ahead like a force of nature, not a hint of fear on her.
"Maia,stop," Az growled, but she didn't even falter this time. And he was out of ideas.
He was going to watch his best friend and the love of his life murdered before his eyes, and all because he wastoo fucking slow.
She lifted her palm when the beast clasped Jaro with a clawed hand hard enough to cut him.
Az's stomach dropped at the sight of the creature standing on two legs, the rough-hewn features of its grey face—the long, pointed ears.
His sickness twisted tighter, and only shock kept it at bay when Maia clenched her fist, and a vine of thorny flowers punched out of the ground and straight through the beast’s torso.
Blood spilled and skin tore, showing its mangled insides, gored on her thorns. The vine thrust out of the once-fae creature's skull, and its eyes went dull.
Maia was close enough now to hear whatever Jaro was saying to Vawn, to look their lost friend in the face and see all the ways he'd changed. Azrail's breath wheezed as he pushed himself to his limit to catch up.
The thorny vine tore free of the twisted once-fae, and the monster thumped to the ground, cut in two. Azrail swore softly, realising just how lethal his mate was. He was lucky she hadn't donethatto him when he hurt her and pushed her away.
"Now!" Ark yelled, and a shudder worked through Azrail as magic crackled through the air behind him.
He recognised Bryon's air magic, but he hadn't felt it likethisat the palace: scalding hot, like it would melt the flesh from his skin if it made contact. Kheir's magic was less visible, but two grey-skinned creatures crashed to the floor before they could reach Jaro—or Maia as she flew past him and Vawn like a storm to meet another beast.