“There is nothing more true than accepting who you are but also what you may become.” He smiled sadly.
I was neither the hero nor the villain, the monster nor the savior.
Like the darkness, I justwas.A shadow lost and—a shadow found.
More golden light roared violently around us, Emon had lost control. But it didn’t matter, not now. I had a job to do and like the wraiths, there was only one way to banish the Sanguine from its host.
Rising with my sword held high, I looked into those sky blue eyes full of peace one final time before I struck, severing the master healer’s head painlessly from his body. With one stroke, I ended his painful torture and banished Deirdre’s presence from Finlandia…at least for now.
My corrupted shadows pulsed once before disappearing in a crimson cloud of smoke, summoned by their new mistress.
Slumping over, I gripped my torso both in pain and with a hollowed feeling, like something had just been clawed out of me, leaving nothing but a cavern of emptiness. My shadows were gone.
Lifting my head up with tears in my eyes, I turned to find Emon, but instead was met with the razor teeth of a bloodlusting leopard barreling into my side.
I screamed as Quinn’s beserk leopard sent me skidding across the floor, and I rolled with the momentum to find myself in a defensive crouch, holding my side where my open wounds bled.
Keeping my eyes on the avenging leopard, my heart ached to see the replica of Jarquinn’s eyes glaring at me full of the need for revenge. Finally set free of the wards from the healer’s death, he instinctively scented his fathers blood on my hands.
I palmed the knives at my hip.
“I am sorry Quinn.” I choked, spitting out blood that had pooled in my mouth and pressed harder to my wounds to stem the flow. “I don’t want to fight you, I don’t want to hurt you.”
The leopard snarled, so focused on me that he failed to notice Emon had finished his full shift behind us. As he lunged for me I could see behind him where pure white power had gathered in the massive panther’s wide open jaw.
“No!” I screamed when it erupted from Ethereal’s mouth.
I only had seconds to react. Biting back the pain I knew it would cause me, I crashed into Quinn’s leaping form, feeling his snarling teeth snap beside my head, I wrapped my arms around his body and twisted us to the side, away from the instant death that would have taken him and straight out into the streets below.
Losing my grip on Quinn mid air, I could hear the terrified screams of Finalndia’s fae as I crashed into a shaded canopy that covered half the street. I lay there for a moment, staring at the uncontrollable streams of white hot power coming from the building above me before the cloth gave way and I hit the ground with a silent cry. Curling in on myself, my consciousness dimmed momentarily from the blinding pain.
Shaking my head, I pushed up, blinking away the rising dust, seeing Quinn’s snarling leopard tangled in fabric of his own.
I stumbled to stand, every inch of my body protesting. I could feel my smaller injuries from the fall healing, but my powers were not fast enough to stem the injury I took from the Sanguine.
Uncontrolled, the golden fire exploded into the buildings surrounding us and it heaved before it started to crumble downwards.
“Get to safety!” I roared out to the fae of Finlandia, using shadows to bat down rock and debris assisting them to shelter.
Quinn’s leopard snarled, drawing my attention back down to him. “Goddess shit,” I spat, the bloodlusting cat was free.
A wave of pain blurred my vision of him and I dropped to one knee gasping, unable to hold myself fully up. Forcing my eyes open, I blinked and then stared at the back of a great blonde wolf, howling defensively into the smokey filled air.
“Asher?” My bloody hand reached outward to stroke the blonde fur while my other hand continued to grip my torso.
Gold eyes of the former king of shifters glanced back at me with a slight nod of his shaggy head.
I sighed with relief. “Thank the goddess.”
The wolf chuffed before the city shook with another wave of power and I stared in amazement as Ethereal's giant panther body bursted through the building walls that immediately turned to ash from the sizzling gold fire radiating off him.
Golden will be your one true beacon.
The prophetic words echoed in my head as I watched the cobble stone path split when the panther’s monstrous paws hit the ground and then it too burned to ash. When he swung his massive head towards me and I inhaled sharply.
Bloodlust stormed in his blinding gaze.
“No.” I whispered, before I bowed over my body from another wave of pain.
