Then, I struck. One of my daggers went straight up his chin, into his mouth, and the tip cut into his brain. The other one slid in between his ribs, angled up, and straight into his heart that had never once held space for me.
The moment the tips of the black knives hit home and I twisted, the world burst open.
Something vast and ancient slammed into me, rushing up the obsidian points and into my hands before I could even draw a breath. It wasn’t a clean, simple stream. No, this was a flood. Wild, furious, and mighty, this was a storm that had been cagedtoo long and was now free to tear through me. The force of it stole my breath, my balance, every coherent thought I had ever had and would ever have.
It filled me. No, it wove itself into me. Thread by thread, the title my father had once carried and my mother had borrowed began to unravel from them. Invisible cords snapped loose from his bones and rippled through the air. I could see them as they were freed from him and reformed within me. Each strand stitched itself into my bones, marrow, muscles, blood, and DNA. This wasn’t just power being taken and exchanged. I was being reforged around it.
I felt it change me as it claimed me. My blood thickened, and every heartbeat pushed molten metal through my veins. Heat bloomed in my chest until it risked cracking my ribs asunder before spreading outward in hot rivulets that reached the tips of my fingers. My lungs burned, full of air that wasn’t air. I tasted iron, lightning, fire, and something far older than language on my tongue. Impossibly, my senses became even keener from my vision to my hearing. Now, if I focused, I could see the glint of each droplet of blood in the air, could hear the stirrings of animals miles from here, and distinguish who had been in the house and when all the way to two weeks ago just via scent. As the last of the title of Huntscommander knitted itself into me, the mantle seemed to reshape itself. It settled with a balanced, steady weight that felt almost grounded instead of stifling, as I would expect. Everything shifted in its wake.
This wasn’t just power.
It wascommand.
It was the right to speak and be obeyed, the burden of lives and futures, and the weight of my bloodline knotted into my spine. It was the Huntscommander’s title settling over my bones, fusing to me so completely it felt like I’d been carrying it all my life and had only now realized its shape.
And it was mine.
My birthright.
With my acceptance, it was finally home.
What remained of my father gave one last rattling gasp. Then, his knees gave out. I ripped my daggers out, and I stepped back. My breath was still coming fast, my daggers still dripping. Father’s body hit the hardwood with a hollow thud, the sound seeming to echo in my chest more than in the room itself. I didn’t try to catch him.
Que te pudras en el infierno, pendejo.I hope you rot in hell, dumbass.
Mama was already kneeling at his side. I didn’t linger to watch and see what she was going to do. Instead, I turned and rushed to Byrd, moving faster than I ever had in my life. In a fraction of a second, I was there, dropping to my knees and pulling Byrd into my arms.
Byrd’s eyes were closed as if she was just resting and not like her life was in mortal danger yet again. Her skin and scales were pale. Her wings and tail were limp behind her. The wound had crystallized, so her bleeding had stopped, but I knew she had lost a lot of blood. I could hear so much louder than ever before how little flowed through her veins, how hard her heart struggled to pump. The bond between us hummed with pain, but her gaze was steady, locked on mine.
“We have got to stop meeting up like this after I have been penetrated in the not-so-fun way,” She rasped, faint but with her smirk very much intact.
I let out a breath that was halfway between a laugh and a groan. I wiped my blades on my pullover before I sliced my wrist to press to her mouth. As she drank, my thumb brushed her cheek affectionately. “Please do not say ‘penetrated’ when you are close to dying.”
With her mouth occupied, Byrd murmured into my mind,I knew there’s a reason why I call you my Knightmaiden. Always saving the day. I guess I should call you my Lady Huntscommander, now?
That earned a real laugh from me, sharp and relieved. I pressed my forehead against hers.Don’t even start,mi esposa.
“Proud fucking dumbass. This was bound to happen. I tried to tell you,” Mama muttered. She had her hands over Diego’s chest wound, her power flowing like a cruel tide. The magic sparked under her hands, but there was something different about it. Instead of Father’s wound healing, it seemed to flow outward. Blood, tissue, muscle, and more spilled from his wounds, instead of patching themselves up. His eyes widened as he looked at Mama, and I saw legitimate fear in them for the first time in my life. I realized with a slow, dawning chill that Mama wasn’t healing him. It was something far from it, and Father knew it. Faster than he deserved, Diego took his last breath, his body stilling forever.
I tilted my head, watching everything continue to flow out of him even after he died. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
She glanced up at me, her mouth curving into something almost like pride. “How do you think I got the nameKiller Queen? Few things are deadlier than doctors and nurses, you know. Medical expertise is a weapon of its own.”
Maisie’s voice came from somewhere to my right, sharp with curiosity and disgust. “What did you ever see in him?”
Mama snorted, sitting back from Diego’s now-limp body. “I never have had a good taste in men. I was hoping Quinn wouldn’t inherit that from me. Thank goodness she didn’t, because now I have an amazing future daughter-in-law!” Her eyes flicked to Byrd, whose color had already returned.
That’s my girl.
Soon, Byrd got enough of my blood to heal. Mama and the girls begged to see the ring as soon as she was recovered enough, making her laugh. It was soft and tired and real and still my favorite sound. Byrd was glowing and whole, and she looked undeniably, ridiculously happy for the first time in far too long.
And, for the first time, I allowed myself to hope that we could keep her that way.
Free
BYRD
Six Months later…
