Land of Monsters (Savage Lands #8)

Chapter 25

Ash

Mine .

The claim drove into every fiber of my being, the fierce need to protect her wrapped around my DNA as if it could pause the poison bleeding into my system, clearing my mind in a mist of disconnected thoughts.

The knife in her stomach cut through me, hemorrhaging my vision in red. Rage. Fury.

No one touched what was mine. Hurt what was mine.

If Raven died, with my last breath, I would turn the soil into rotting black tar, destroying any life from this spot, a mark that polluted this world in darkness for what it took from me.

“What did you do?” Sonya barked. “I need her.”

To be a vessel. To be assaulted and abused, forced to carry a monster’s baby.

The only baby she will carry is mine.

Something out of the corner of my eye scuttled along the wall, moving toward Raven, but my focus did not waver from Iain. He had already taken so much from me.

A growl came up my throat, Raven’s green eyes still on me, her breathing labored, blood pumping out of her wound. Iain snarled, yanking another blade from his belt, moving to her, ready to finish the job.

She called herself a monster, but in truth, I was.

Rage snarled up my throat. Like roots being torn from the soil, my feet pushed me up. Wrath shoved past the toxins, slamming through the ground, ripping the earth’s heart out, letting it pump in my hand.

A bellow shredded my throat as I tried to rise. I had no thought or plan, my anger driving me forward.

“Get him!” Sonya screamed at her guards.

“Stay back! He’s mine!” Iain pulled out a pistol from his thigh strap, lifting the weapon to my head before I got to my feet. “Guess it’s fitting you should die this way. You can tell my brother hello from me.”

The gun cocked.

“NO!” I heard the fall of metal to the ground. Raven grunted, yanking the blade from her gut as she shakily stood, the shackles discarded. I could just make out a small silhouette near her, the one who freed her.

Opie.

“Why are you standing there? Get her!” Sonya screeched at the few soldiers around her.

My eyes met Raven’s. It was only a second in time, but I could feel her in my head, my soul, my heart. We didn’t have to speak to understand each other. She was so much part of me now that I knew when I died, a part of her would be joining me.

She moved first. Fast and quick, her bloody blade sliced the back of Iain’s knee, dropping his one leg as he fired the gun. The bullet skimmed over my head, the force of it burning my scalp.

“Ahhh!” Iain screamed when she sliced at him again, his fist smashing down on Raven’s temple, her knife tumbling from her hands, skidding it into my boot. Her pained cry harvested the last scraps of my energy.

Crimson.

It scorched through me like flames and marked him for death.

My shoulders bunched, and I swiped up the dagger. With a cry, I barreled for Iain, ramming into him and throwing us to the ground. When I leaped on him, he had to let go of his gun to stop my knife from going through his neck. Iain and I punched and clawed at each other, my energy struggling, making me sloppy and weak, allowing him to grip the handle, twisting it around to me.

“Say hi to your demon slut for me too,” he sneered. The tip of the blade nicked my eyebrow, my blood dripping on him.

The knife pushed for the middle of my forehead.

Raven roared, her magic fizzing over my skin.

POP! POP! The bullets fired until the gun chamber clicked.

Red mist sprayed into my face, the body under me jerking from the impact before going limp. Blood gushed from the two holes ripped through Iain’s head, his dead eyes staring up, his mouth open in a hollow scream. A cry that would never reach the surface.

The memory of Lukas, seeing the same hole through his head, the same dead eyes, as bile rushed up my throat, taking me back to that night.

“Ash!” Raven’s cry was the only thing that broke me out of my numbness, pulling my gaze to her. She stood there with Iain’s gun, her eyes red flames, her teeth like daggers, but her wound still gushed with blood. She was too weak to heal quickly enough.

Sonya’s scream rattled my nerves, sliding me off her dead son as she ran to him.

“Noooo! My boy!” she wailed, dropping down, her dress soaking in the same color liquid pooling around him.

I tried to rise, but my muscles went limp, taking me back down.

“No, Ash.” Raven was at my side, realizing I could no longer get up. The adrenaline I used burned the poison faster through me. “Don’t give up.”

“Go.” I reached up, touching her face.

“No. I won’t leave you.”

“You have to.” My lids felt so heavy. “Save your family. They need you.”

“I can’t leave you here. Tell me how to save you.” I could hear her panic.

“You can’t.”

Sonya heaved out a chilling growl. Standing up, she surged with fury.

“I will kill you,” she sneered.

“Just try.” Raven bared her teeth, rising to challenge her, the blades on her back slicing through her shirt. But I could feel her magic was thin, her body trying too hard to heal itself to be a real threat.

The few guards around Sonya pointed their weapons at us. But instead of ordering them, she lifted her attention to the tall tower right next to us, a cruel gleam in her eyes. “Kalaraja,” she called out, “Kill her family now!”

The outline up in the tower a story over us stepped out, the moon casting a glow on half of Kalaraja’s face, a long scope rifle in his grip.

“Shoot the queen first, then her father, her aunts and uncles,” she ordered. “So she can watch her family die before her eyes. Then take out every one of his, starting with Brexley.”

He cocked his rifle, peering through the scope down at the garden, right at Queen Kennedy.

“Nooo!” Raven wailed.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The gun fired, a bullet cracking across the air. Raven screamed, waiting for the mark to find its target, to see her mother drop to the ground.

Every guard around Sonya fell to the ground like dominoes, a bullet in each of their brains.

Confused, stunned silence descended on us as we took in the dead sentries, following the path of the bullets back to the originating spot.

Kalaraja’s weapon pointed down at Sonya. The man who had shot me, who had hunted Brexley, was standing on our side. At least for now.

“What? What are you doing?” she squawked, sounding more like Nyx. “How dare you shoot at me! Go against me!” Her jaw twitched, fury blasting in her eyes at him.

Bang!

He fired again, the bullet getting within inches of her before it went off course, skimming by her. Kalaraja never missed. I could see the area around her judder, the layer of magic blocking her from harm. Sonya’s protection not only came from the trinket around her neck, but a spell cast around her.

A spell from a Druid.

Those types of spells were very intricate and took a huge toll on the spellcaster because they constantly pulled at the caster’s energy, always needing to adapt and change with the body and environment.

“You fool,” she hissed. “You think I hadn’t planned for something like this?”

Bang!

Another bullet rang out in the air. This time it reached someone near the castle gates, burrowing deep into flesh, bursting through tissue and bone.

Dubthach’s body jerked, his blood painting the snow. The instant his heart stopped beating, his living spells sputtered and snapped, dying with their source.

The invocation dissolved around Sonya, and a flicker of genuine fear danced through her eyes, her grip going to the necklace around her throat.

Pop! Pop! Pop!

Gunfire rained down on Sonya. Crying out, she shuffled out of the way, each bullet missing her by a hair. The stone did its job of making her the luckiest woman on Earth.

It was time her luck ran out.

I struggled to my feet, spotting the disregarded knife next to Iain. Staggering for it, I grazed the surface, but right as my fingers touched the cool steel, another hand snatched it from my grip.

Sonya stood over me, her hand holding the blade, a sneer on her lips.

“You and your whore will die, just like your last ones.”

“Not before you.” Revenge roared through me like a beast, my body swinging, lunging for her and snatching away the dagger. It wasn’t revenge giving me strength, it was my love for Raven, love for Lukas and Kek.

“No, wai—” The blade cut through the flesh of her throat, slowing as it serrated bone and muscle. A howl tore from my soul, unleashing the final death cry of my energy.

Sonya’s scream was stopped, her vocals severed, her head cut from her neck in a mist of gore. The Cintamani stone necklace flung into the air, hitting the ground.

Her body collapsed, her head rolling a few feet, streaming a shower of carnage between the severed pieces.

I stared at the corpses numbly, my brain trying to understand the significance. Robotically, I leaned over, grabbed the gore-splattered necklace, and stuffed it in my pocket. The gunfire from the tower had ceased, and Kalaraja was gone. The reverberations of shooting and screams from below filtered up to our place on the wall, feeling like another world still stuck in chaos as silence encompassed us.

I heaved out, staring at her corpse. Iain lay only feet from her.

They were dead.

Their demise was a mirror reflection of Kek and Lucas, as if the two of them were with me. Had a say in their end. Okay, this would be totally Kek. The sick, twisted justice would make her smile.

“Good work, fairy.” I could hear Kek as if she was next to me. “Now don’t die yourself, otherwise who will tell legendary stories about me in bed?”

A sobbing laugh bubbled up my throat, the blade falling from my hands, and I staggered until I lay not far from them.

I completed my mission. I could die in peace.

“Ash! Don’t you fucking dare.” Raven was next to me, pulling me into her lap.

Go! I tried to tell her, but nothing came out.

She knew me too well.

“I won’t leave you.” Grief streamed down her face, her throat thick with emotion.

My gaze met hers, my eyes conveying deep love.

“Ash, please,” she begged. My lids drooped lower as I drifted away. “ASH! NO!”

Her cries were worse than any wound I ever had, digging so deeply into me, I knew even in death, I wouldn’t find peace. She wouldn’t allow me to.

Not until we found each other again.