Page 68 of Fae Unleashed
Did he think that he could take control of my beast? He might have made it, but it no longer belonged to him. His creation moved on without him. I’d found a reason to breathe, a reason to fight, and a reason to live once again.
No one was going to take that from me.
27
CERRI
When Faust realized that he could not take Rhoan from me, his face twisted into a visage of rage and horror. The man thought he had everything under control only to find that nothing had ever been in his control.
I would have laughed, but there were other matters still at hand. Rhoan pressed his flank to my side. I buried my hand in his thick black fur and turned my attention up to Beryl. She glared ominously down at me.
Behind her, the sky continued to grow darker. This would be a battle of the wills if she didn’t leave. I’d hoped to call her bluff. The woman had every opportunity to kill me, but she didn’t. I wanted to believe that was because shecouldn’t. Something stopped her from delivering the final blow.
All she had to do was…
Pain sliced through my core. My jaw dropped. Warm blood dripped down my front. I looked down at my stomach in shock and horror to see a silver blade sticking out from my dress.
“I’m so sorry,” Del whispered in my ear.
Rhoan spun and slammed a paw down where Del had been. He lowered his head and snarled at all who dared come near me. His eyes were too wide, though. Panic had set in. I clutched his fur and tried to whisper reassurances, but I was out of arcana.
I’d put it all into the ground of my domain to keep Beryl from taking it back. Left with nothing, I couldn’t heal my wound. And when I tried to pull arcana from the seed I’d planted in the ground, an invisible barrier stopped me.
My knees hit the stone floor, but I barely felt it. Rhoan nudged me with his black nose. A weak whimper escaped him. Though I tried to raise my hand to him, my body was too heavy. My limbs turned to lead as the life slipped out of me.
Beryl smiled down at me as she approached. Rhoan lowered himself and snarled in warning.
Across the way, beyond Beryl and Faust, I saw Del perched on the wall surrounding the rooftop. A look of grief darkened her features. Though I could have told her that this wasn’t the end, I had nothing left in me to speak.
Beryl laughed once again. She seemed triumphant, but I refused to be beaten this easily.
Rhoan
Blood filledthe grooves of the stone roof. The red lines formed a starburst around Cerri’s body. The sight of it made my heart stretch taught to the point of ripping in half. Everything I thought I had, gone in an instant.
I lowered my body beside Cerri’s. Once more, I nudged her with my nose as if that might bring her back to life once more. There was no reason to go on if I couldn’t do the one thing I’d sworn to do.
Another Seelie Court, fallen because I wasn’t half the man I should have been. I’d failed her. Cerri had deserved better. There was no deal I could have made to be the man she deserved.
I should have hunted Del down. I should have turned and attacked Beryl and Faust. My body refused to move. The beast wanted one thing. It stayed at Cerri’s side and covered her body from the sun with one outstretched wing.
The…sun?
Beryl’s magic had been slowly blotting out all light over the course of this fight. If Beryl had won, there would be no light. And yet, the skies opened. Bright sunshine shone down on the castle and all of the domain. It turned the blood around Cerri’s body to gold right before her corpse crumbled and washed away on the wind.
A howl should have filled my throat, but my confusion drowned it out. Cerri’s aura flared bright on everything in the domain before shrinking back. I watched the aura wash back to its source, down in the heart of the hedge maze below. As the magic pulled back, flowers sprang to life all along the once-cursed hedges.
Tal sidled up beside me and asked what was going on. Even Beryl and Faust seemed confused. The only ones who seemed to understand what was happening were the dryads. They whooped and hollered before racing into the heart of the hedge maze.
Bewildered, I followed. My aching heart pumped furiously as I threw myself into the air and coasted down into the maze. Hope swelled inside me. Could it be? I highly doubted it…this had to be the end. Right?
I’d watched Cerri’s body turn to dust.
It’d been a wound that she could have healed. I’d watched her come back from worse. This should have been nothing. I didn’t understand how it could have killed her. Cerri was stronger than that. She could heal from graver wounds than that.
My feet touched the ground as guilt turned my stomach heavy. She never should have been in that position. Had I not pulled Del into our inner circle, had I been better about protecting Cerri, none of this would have happened.
It was all my fault.
