Chapter Twenty-Six

Vex didn't wait.

When I returned to the citadel the next day, I couldn't find him. And yes, I went looking. It had been two days since he had asked to speak to me. We needed to have that talk. But he wasn't anywhere in the citadel. So, I went out to the training yard. Not there either. I left the yard, crossed the courtyard, and went into the gardens.

After several minutes of searching, I finally found him.

With Lord Hess. A Bear Ladrin. And a bottom. They were sitting on one of the benches generally used for romantic interludes. The gardens had many such locations—spots where the plants grew in a shielding way to give the nooks some privacy. The lords knew to avoid those places if they heard any noises coming from them. I hadn't heard noises, so I didn't pause when I approached the edge of the rosemary hedge. Just barreled around it. And found my sweet warrior poet wooing another man.

I jerked to a halt, my jaw falling into the grass, and just stared at Vex. He looked up at me, curious at first, then his eyes widened.

“Ember,” Vexen said. “I—”

“Nope!” I cut him off. “Nope, nope, nope!” I spun around and bolted, still chanting, “Nope, nope, nope, nope, noppity nope.” If I kept saying it, maybe my brain wouldn't process what I'd just seen.

I just couldn't deal with Vex betraying me. And yes, I considered it a betrayal. We were in a relationship. One little argument didn't end that. If he wanted to end it, he should have said something to me first. Shit. Maybe that's why he had come to talk to me. And it wasn't as if I had caught him fucking another man. He may have just been laying the groundwork, as it were. Preparing for when he was clear to—

Nope! I couldn't think about it. I was too happy. Things had been going so well with my lovers. I had hope. A future to look forward to. My training was coming along nicely, if with a few stumbles. I was going to save Ara and win the war. Vex abandoning me right when I needed him could not be a part of that. It couldn't happen.

But it had.

I stopped walking and looked around. “What the fuck?”

I was in a forest but it wasn't the one outside the citadel. I recognized it immediately, though. I had faded to Fress. Yup, like a sad puppy or a scared little boy, I had run home. But I had so many homes now that my mind had gone to the first. The only one that was gone. No house, no garden, and no family there. And yet, it was still my first home. Not the one I considered my home anymore, but important nonetheless. It had formed me. And this glade was where I had gone when I needed solace. Maybe that's why I faded there. I knew, deep down, that I needed somewhere safe where I could fall apart.

Without anyone fucking judging me!

I fell to my knees in the soft grass and stared at the happy stream that bubbled and gurgled its way through the meadow. So soothing. There were even a few flowers sprouting along its edge. But I still bent forward and gave in to my tears.

“Damn it!” I snarled and swiped at my eyes. Every time I got sad now, I saw Vexen's condemning expression. He had been wrong, and he had apologized for it, but that argument had still found a home in my subconscious. And now, mourning him, it decided to rear its stupid head and say hello. It called me a fool and weak. It said I was the reason Vex had given up and moved on. And I was. Of course, I was. How could it be anything else? There were only two of us involved, and I couldn't blame him entirely. It was at least half my fault.

Let's be fair. It was mostly my fault.

And now I felt guilty for that as well as sad.

I was about to lay back and take a breather when I heard a rustle from the forest. It could have been anything, but instincts took over, and I searched the treeline. I was looking for the Corrupted or the dead or even the Corrupter. Instead, Vex stepped into the sunlight.

“What the actual fuck?” I whispered, mimicking Fire.

“I called after you. Why did you run away?” Vex demanded.

“Why did I . . . ?” I gaped at him for a second and then shot to my feet. “Oh, I don't know. Maybe I didn't want to hear you tell me you had moved on. Maybe I'd been having a good day up until then, and I couldn't handle that shit yet. And maybe I came here so I could process it. By. My. Self.”

“Ember, you need to stop running away from things,” Vex growled as he stalked forward. “Especially people.”

“And you never do that.” I grimaced at him.

“I didn't run away from you. I left so that I could finish thinking things through before I spoke to you. I wasn't ready to talk.”

“You were the day before.”

“Things changed.”

“Yes, I saw that.”

“I'm not with Hess,” he huffed.

“Not yet. You're too honorable for that, aren't you? Too romantic. You're waiting until you can properly end things with me before you get in there.”

“For fuck's sake, Ember! Why can't you let me speak without interruption or assumption for once?”

“You're right,” I said. “You can say everything you want to say. But first, how did you find me?”

“I know you.”

“You don't know this place.”

“I knew to come to Fress and then my nose told me the rest.”

“Oh. Right.” I'd forgotten about Ladrin and their heightened senses. Xae had found me that way once. I'd gone to Fress then too, but it had been to the graveyard.

Vex stepped up to me and took my hand. “What changed was that I started to see how wrong I was.”

“Wrong about what?”

“About pressuring you. You can't push someone into loving you. That's not how it works.”

My sadness started to evaporate. He didn't want to end things. It felt like a miracle. But then my guilt was left without company. All alone to manifest completely.

“No.” I grimaced. “No, you can't make someone love you, but I was wrong too. I've been waiting for us to talk so I could apologize. I'm sorry, Vex.”

He lifted his brows. “For what? Calling me out on being a dick?”

“You weren't being a dick. I knew when I made the offer that you wouldn't accept. I was being the dick.”

Vex grimaced. “It was more of a challenge than an offer. And it's not that I wouldn't accept. More that I couldn't. I'm not going to allow our first time together to be under those circumstances.”

“Vex, I know this isn't fair. It has to be hard to date someone when they're with four other men. And then I had to train. After training, I went to spend some time with Rath because the training was hard on him, and then it was the same with Keltyr the next day. It must have seemed as if I forgot about you, but I didn't. I thought about you a lot. I want to make this easier on you, but I don't know how. What do you need? Is there anything I can do?”

Vexen's smile spread slow and deep, bringing out a dimple in his cheek. “You just did. Thank you. It helps to know that you care about my feelings, not just what my feelings can do to help you save a man you love.”

“Holy fuck,” I whispered. “Is that what you think? Or thought?”

He shrugged.

“Vex, no.” I took his hand. “I started falling for you before I even knew who you were. There was none of this to distract me.” I waved my free hand at his face. “And it is distracting. Distracting in the best way, but still.”

“Thank you.”

“But your handsome face and beautiful body pale in comparison to you. The person inside all that. That's who I want to be with. The timing was just terrible. Before we could get together, things got bad. Ara . . . it fucked with me. Still does. I know you know that. You've been great about it. And yes, of course, I want to get stronger and you're a path to that. I want to save Ara. But Vex, if I really wanted just that, there are other men who are easier to claim.”

Vex laughed. “Was that a compliment? I can't tell.”

“It was. Sort of.” I grinned. “Vex, you won me with your words, and that is a deeper attraction than the physical. More solid. An unshakable foundation. My heart is confused right now. I feel like a traitor every time my feelings for you grow. And that's slowed our progress. But that foundation has never faltered.” I shook my head. “The whole situation has made me anxious, and I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry if I've made you feel any less important than you are. You don't deserve that. You deserve someone who will make you feel like the Emperor himself. I want to be that person for you. I'm trying. I'm just—”

Vex cut me off by yanking me forward and with the initial motion, I thought he was going to kiss me. But he didn't. Instead, he hugged me, folding his body over and around mine. My ear pressed against his chest and his heartbeat filled it, steady and strong. I knew that heart was mine, and it was hard not to demand that he just fucking hand it over already. Ara's freedom might depend on my bonding with Vexen. But Vex was important too. I had to remember that, unlike my lovers, he didn't have access to my emotions. He couldn't reassure himself by focusing on the piece of my soul inside him. I had to use my words and actions to reassure him.

“Your words won me too,” Vex said as if he could hear my thoughts. Then he kissed my forehead. “And I know you're trying. You don't have to do that with me, Ember. Just relax and be with me. Let our relationship grow naturally.”

“All right.” I leaned back to look at him better. “So, everything is good between us?”

“Yes. We're good.”

I stepped out of his arms “And you weren't flirting with Hess?”

Vexen laughed. “Hess is a friend. He was listening to me whine about you and offering advice. His advice when you ran off was to follow you.”

With twitching lips, I said, “I knew I liked Hess.”

“He's a good guy,” Vex said as he looked around the secluded glade. He wandered over to the little stream that trickled past an ancient oak. “And I'm glad I followed you. This is a much nicer place to have our conversation than the citadel.”

“Yeah, I suppose.” I joined him at the stream and waved at the oak. “That's the first tree I climbed. This is the only place my parents would let me play without them.”

“What?” He frowned. “Why?”

“Because of my magic. They didn't trust me to not reveal it when I was a kid. Of course, when I got older, I could go where I pleased. By then I knew better. I didn't want to share my magic anymore. I understood the consequences.”

“I'm sorry. That sounds difficult. I can't imagine growing up hiding a huge part of who I was. It would be like me never shifting in front of others.”

“The hardest part was not getting close to anyone. I didn't have friends because my parents would never leave me alone with other children long enough to establish any bonds. When I got older, that caution they had instilled in me prevented me from forming adult friendships. And forget intimate relationships. I couldn't date. I would meet men secretly for sex when my body's needs got too strong to ignore. That was it.”

Vexen's eyes widened. “I didn't realize you were so cut off from life.”

“Well, I've made up for it.” I grinned at him. “But back to us. I just wanted to tell—”

A scream cut me off.

Vex and I spun together toward the sound. Another followed. And a whole lot of shouting. Then came the roar of a Tytra male. A Tytra mated male who was also a wraith lord.

“Get inside!” Nex shouted.

“Oh, fuck!” I took off toward the village, Vex right beside me.

We got there in less than a minute, but it was long enough for chaos to descend. The street was full of dead people who didn't know that they were dead. They chased the living, rounding them up. The attack must have come too quickly for anyone to summon the Wraith Lords. I saw a few people running for the nearby tower. It would take them several minutes to reach it and summon the lords. But that didn't matter. There was a lord in residence now.

And he was furious.

Nex stood before the orphanage, villagers streaming past him, running for the doors. He looked as if he had grown wider, as if his will to protect his mate and the young under her charge had expanded him so that he barricaded the path entirely. But he forgot something important—he had mated a Bear.

Evina came roaring out of the orphanage in her bear form, head tossing so that spittle flew from her strong teeth. She passed Nex to launch herself at the nearest dead man.

“Evina, get back inside!” Nex shouted.

A head went flying and smacked Nex in the chest. He looked down at where it fell—the eyes still moving—then up at his rampaging mate. His lips twisted, then he chuckled.

“Fine, love. Go ahead. Just leave some for me.” And then Nex saw us. “You came faster than I expected.”

“We were already here,” I said as I blasted back the dead with Air, palms out before me. “So we don't have any spell spheres on us.”

“What you're doing is good enough.” Then Nex called to his mate, “Evina, pull back! Let Ember herd them until the lords can get here with the spell spheres.”

Evina came thundering back to us, her massive paws hitting the packed earth and leaving divots behind. As soon as she was out of range, I was able to open a pit in the ground and drop the dead into it. It was an old trick. One the Corrupter was prepared for.

Maybe even counting on.

“Already replacing me, my love?” the Corrupter whispered in my ear.

I spun, but he was standing beside Vex, who had moved back a foot to give me room to work. Before I could shout a warning, the Corrupter manifested two dark swords and lifted them above Vexen's head.

A memory sparked in my mind—that of the first time I met Rath. He had been fighting the Corrupter. Rath fought two-handed. As in, a sword in each hand. And he used magic to enhance his talent. He had thrown everything he had at the Corrupter and still, the Corrupter would have killed him if I hadn't interfered.

And now, he was about to kill Vex.

“We are with you, Ember,” Air said even as I lifted my hands, calling to the Elements. “We're all with you.”

I didn't have time to connect with Aranren and pull all the Consciousness of Death into him. I needed to stop him instantly. So, I rushed ahead to the caging part.

The magic came quicker to me this time and blasted outward without the need to gather strength. When the Elements wanted to help you, you didn't have to gather them. I merely had to encourage them to do what they did best. So, I urged Air to swirl around the Corrupter and glory in freedom of it. I summoned Fire to grow within that fueling storm and heat Water, who I bid to flow as it willed. Earth rumbled through them, just as I asked, shooting up into the boiling, churning mass to offer it more solidity.

Mud encased the Corrupter and lifted him off his feet. The dark swords disappeared. Pieces of Death were inside Aranren, but not all of him. With the Corrupter contained, I could try to pull Death through the cage before I empowered it with Spirit. I hadn't trained this way, but it was my only option.

I reached for the fragile bond between Ara and me and sent my Spirit Magic—my wraith—shooting down it. My soul shuddered as it sank into the Corrupter and then into what made him the Corrupter. Death.

A shiver of ice ran down my spine the moment my wraith encountered Death. Before I could pull the rest of Death into Aranren, the world went dark and sounds dulled. From one blink to the next, I went from Fress to standing before Aranren in the astral plane. There, I could see Death's hold on Ara as a cage of bones, covering the man I loved like armor. But Death wasn't a protector. He was a jailer.

Around the bone-covered Aranren was a cloud of pulsing, colorful mist. Red, blue, yellow, and green. The magic of the Elements. But there was one more color hovering around them, sparking purple. Spirit.

“Ember!” Ara cried. “Ember, run!”

“No. I'm going to free you, Ara. Hold on, love.” And with that, I yanked through our bond, going further than Aranren, into the bone cage, and then into Death.

A shrieking came as a churning mist of bone-yellow and rotting green gathered above Aranren. I pulled harder, and the mass condensed into a spear that shot down, through Spirit and the Elements and into the cage around Aranren. The bones grew thicker and turned a sickly green.

It had worked! Even without going in the proper order, it had worked. Death, all of that evil consciousness, was within Ara now.

Holding tightly to the bucking beast that was Death, I urged Spirit into the mass of elements hovering around it. They merged, their colors becoming pure white. I sent that magical mist down to cover the bone cage, coating it even more thoroughly than it coated Aranren. It was easier to conduct magic there, on that spiritual plane where I could see it. I knew immediately that it was working. I saw the white mist settle and form a sheen over the dull bones. We had him.

Death shrieked. The bones shuddered. The Elements held firm, strengthened by the magic of the Goddess.

“Now, pull him away from Aranren,” Air said. But he wasn't just a voice anymore. In that place, Air had a body. He stood beside me—a slim, graceful man with eyes like a summer sky and short white hair that sparked with magic. He nodded at me. “We've got him, Ember. Remove him from Aranren.”

“Slowly,” Earth said.

I glanced at the dark-haired, burly man who stood on my right. Behind me was a pair of women—one a curvy redhead and the other a slim blonde. They all nodded at me.

It was finally time to end this.

I tugged at the magic, urging it to rise and take Death with it. The white sheen shimmered. Thrummed. The bone cage shuddered.

“Ember?” Ara's eyes widened within the sockets of the skull.

I couldn't answer. I was too focused on working with the cage over his cage. And then I felt the spiritual representations of the Elements lay their hands on my shoulders and back. Just as my lovers would have done.

Suddenly, I wasn't just Ember. I was Air, wild and free. Blowing violently or gently depending on my mood. I was Water, cool and reviving, but also raging when necessary and stronger than anyone knew. Deep within me, I held currents of power that I hid from everyone except those who dared to delve. I was also Fire—a roaring inferno as well as a tiny spark. Even when I was small, I could still light the way. And the way was made smooth because I was Earth, sure and strong. Thunderous and bold. I could offer support or I could set the world to trembling.

And I did. I did all those things as I yanked on that cage. The bones separated. They didn't break or disintegrate. They came apart at the places where the sinews should have been. A full skeleton hovered in the air around Aranren as if it had been carefully pulled apart.

Ara didn't move. He knew better than to interrupt a spell. But I could feel his hope and his stare.

Shaking with power that wasn't mine, I tried to keep control.

“No!” Fire snapped. “Ask. Don't demand.”

So, I softened my hold and asked the magic to help me contain Death and free the world of its unnatural blight.

The bright bones lifted, beautiful in their flight, shimmering white like my bonding wraith. Once they had cleared Ara, the skeleton came together, and the eye sockets flashed with dark green light.

The jawbone opened as Death roared.

“Come to me, Ara!” I held out my hand. “Run!”

Aranren started running. The distance seemed far greater than it was and his movements felt too slow. But he was nearly to me in a moment. The tips of our fingers brushed.

Death's roaring became deafening. A brutal pain shot through me, separating me from the Elements. My dark wraith shrieked and shot out of the bones, sucked back into me, while the Elements and Spirit were also evicted violently. The blow knocked me backward, away from Ara, while he was sucked away from me.

My last sight before I passed out from the pain was of Aranren hovering in the air, limbs stretched wide as the bone cage—dull once more—settled around him.