I breathed in awe. “Because of us.”
With a sob, I threw my arms around Lancaster’s neck and pressed my lips to his. Without him, they wouldn’t be here. He was the one who got me to those camps, who spoke up against his own late queen in favor of the warriors. He was the one who reminded me just how strong a human could be.
Lancaster held me tighter, moving his lips to my ear. “What do you say, Bounty?” His voice was still laced with agony over his sister and that brutal edge that needed to see her death avenged. He pulled back, holding one of the daggers from his own belt out to me. “Do you want to be their queen?”
He’d told me the choice was mine, how I wanted to claim this title. I could simply be one of them, or I could guide them.
The Bounties and humans had shown up tonight because of us. And I would not leave them to fend for themselves when the dawn broke. I may not have known what it took to be a Queen of Bounties, but I understood what it meant to stand together.
Wrapping my fingers around the handle of Lancaster’s dagger, I whispered against his lips, “There’d be no greater honor.”
“Actually,” a voice said, a shadow dropping over the debris. All three of us spun, my eyes popping wide when they met Damien’s. “Ophelia has need of you.”
Chapter Eighty-Three
Tolek
I want her.
Her.
Her.
Ophelia.
Something in the back of my mind ticked with each syllable of that name as I watched the aggravated warrior and the petite woman disappear amid all the other soldiers. Why was it so familiar? And why did an instinct deep within me shake and rattle at the thought?
The auburn-haired man before me pressed me further into the corner, droning on and on about something I didn’t care to listen to.
I didn’t truly care about any part of this battle raging right now. Didn’t care about anything but the power at the ends of my fingertips and how I could master it. How I could fuel it.
A burst of gold exploded in the sky.
Her.
That was right, she was the one I needed?—
A sharp sting rang across my cheek.
He had slapped me. This warrior with his arm banded across my shoulders hadslappedme. Judging by his size, it wasn’t as powerful as it could have been, but I laughed anyway.
Pathetic, all of them.
“You need to fight back, Tolek!” he urged. “Fight back for infinity or whatever in the fucking Angels it is you’re always whispering to Ophelia!”
Ophelia. Infinity.
No. That was wrong.
The top of my scalp prickled, like sharp points digging in. The rattling deep in my spirit mounted, and bolts of lightning zapped through my blood.
Infinity.
No. Not infinity.Infinitely.
“Ophelia?” I choked out. My chest ached at her name, desperation clawing up my throat, partnered with a sliver of pure bliss only she gave me.
“Yes!” the warrior before me chanted. “Ophelia—she needs you, Tolek! She needs you to fight him.”
