Queen of Blood and Vengeance (Secrets of the Faerie Crown #4)

48. Arran

48

ARRAN

Where the fuck is Orcadion?

The eagle shifter with the stubbornness of a bull had not returned in nearly an hour.

I ripped the throat from the succubus in front of me, shaking my head violently from side to side until the body broke free from the head and flew across the battlefield, joining the ever-growing mess of carnage of the ground. The black bile that spewed from the severed head tasted even worse than it smelled. The heightened senses of my beast made it nearly intolerable. But the wolf also dulled my thoughts. In this form, my primary concern was killing. I’d have to shift back to talk to Orcadion. I’d be able to take stock of the battle and send him to relay orders to the other lieutenants. But that would require him to return.

My beast threw his head back and howled, sending the sound up in the air above the fray. Clouds had begun to roll in during the first few minutes of engagement. Rain had not yet begun to fall, but the deepening gray overhead told me it was only a matter of minutes.

If we’d had the elemental army, I would have called for the weather-wielders to clear them. Or maybe they’d be using lightning to strike down succubus from the sky. It was not an approach we’d ever tried before.

My mind was in no place to file away information. Just that logical strain of thought was nearly too much. Kill , my beast urged.

I obliged him.

My massive jaws shredded the flesh from a newly turned succubus. Ripped off the arm of one that tried to claw out the guts of one of my soldiers. I always went back for the head. Just like a fae, removing their head was the only way to keep them down. An amorite weapon could do the job as well. Any mortal blow would do, so long as it was delivered by an amorite weapon. There were no fire wielders among the terrestrial troops—it was an elemental power. But somewhere, I knew Lyrena was using her flames to slow them down.

Lyrena.

Veyka .

My beast howled again, calling out for her through the bond. But she did not answer.

Terrestrial soldiers littered the ground around me. But we had not lost ground, either. The horde of succubus had not reached the mainland. Why—when they’d overwhelmed Baylaur so easily?

Because these were humans, I realized as my teeth sank into another skull. Humans turned by the succubus were easier to kill than fae who’d turned. Their bodies were smaller, weaker. Even with the insatiable nature of the succubus, the human bodies they occupied were easier for the larger, magic-wielding fae to hack apart.

We were only holding our own because we were not facing our own.

The beast shook his mighty head, blood and gore raining down around me.

Veyka?

The plea turned to a snarl. Where are you?

I could feel her, but I couldn’t reach her. Ancestors, what was happening? My beast usually had a stronger connection to Veyka than even my fae form. She was his mate, his to protect.

I shook my head again, trying to clear it. The fog of killing had overtaken me. There was no room for feelings or emotions when all that mattered was death—raining it down upon our enemies and evading it myself.

Back to my fae form—maybe that was the answer. The beast was too far gone to reach her, too deep in that place of killing and death. The connection between us had always defied logic—how else could a connection driven by a mating bond exist even before we were truly mated? It was forged by emotion, by my beast’s recognition from the beginning that what existed between us was beyond the constraints of reality. It was why I’d been able to defy the ancient magic of the Pit.

I shifted so I could search the battlefield with different eyes—

No.

My hands were still paws, massive and tipped in shredding black claws.

I sank my teeth into my lower lip, using the pain to anchor myself. But those were not my elongated canines, but fangs.

Shifting was natural. Even the first time the beast had emerged, when I was a child locked in a torture chamber, it had happened without thought. It had taken me three hundred years to accept that my beast was me, that the two were not inseparable.

I shifted.

Except I did not.

I was trapped in my beast form.

I threw back my head and howled again, rage consuming me.

Gaps in my power. That was how Isolde had described it. Was this what she’d meant?

I plunged into a knot of succubus feeding on the remains of a bear shifter. My beast tore them apart, ignoring heads or dismembered limbs.

Trapped—I’d never been trapped. Not since those torturous months in my youth, when I’d been stolen away for the power that thrummed in my veins. I’d fought on hundreds of battlefields, but I’d never been captured. Now I was a prisoner within my own body, within my beast.

Veyka, where are you? My beast snarled. I could fucking feel her. The glowing golden bond between us was practically vibrating with energy. Why couldn’t I hear her?

My mind raced, but my fangs and claws tore and maimed. The black bile, the souls of the taken, filled my jaws, coated my tongue and slipped down into my stomach. It matted my pale fur until I could not tell from looking down that it had ever been white.

Veyka—

Claws sank into my back, digging past the thick fur and raking down a vicious line an inch from my spine. I threw my head back, the bellow of pain mingling with the howl, a cry for help. I twisted violently, trying to dislodge the succubus. But its worn-down nubs of fingers were speared deep into the flesh of my back. It was only half a human, the entire bottom half of its body missing—where I’d ripped it apart moments before. I’d done this to myself. I’d lost control and now Veyka might lose me.

No, that could not happen. Without me to hold her back, she would sacrifice herself even more willingly. She would die .

I twisted again, throwing myself back onto the mass of bodies beneath me, trying to break the succubus’s aching grip. Pain seared up my spine, but the monster felt none of it. It clung to me, lowering its jaws to add its teeth to the torture. I snapped my jaws, determined to rip its head off once and—

A swirled blade sliced through the head, so close to my snout that I felt the whoosh of air against the sensitive black pad of my nose. Expertly wielded, the hatchet severed the succubus’s head. Two more swings and the body fell away as well.

I shifted.

And this time, my power answered.

My knees hit the ground, the black bile and churned up dirt sinking into the knees of my trousers. A raindrop fell on the pale brown hand that extended in front of me.

Mordred. My son had saved me.

I took his hand. Tugged myself to my feet. Refused to acknowledge the pain in my back. I couldn’t count the wounds; the pain was too intense. Nor could I parse the scent of my own blood from the rivers of it that flowed around me.

My eyes flicked upward. Orcadion was nowhere in sight. But Mordred stood in front of me, his chest heaving up and down in a rhythm that my own echoed back.

Arran?

The force of relief nearly brought me back to my knees. Veyka.

What’s wrong? Are you injured? she demanded, her worry flooding the connection between us. But if she was worried for me, that meant she was not scared for herself. Wherever she was, she was whole.

I gritted my teeth. I could not say the same for myself—but I also did not need her distracted with my wellbeing. I am fine.

Silence filled my mind.

I did not need her words. With the connection restored, I could feel her response. She did not believe me.