18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

‘XANDER!' I screamed his name but it was too late to do anything else, too late to save him. Just too late.

The flames hit him and he was there one moment and gone the next. His skin bubbled and blackened and his flesh melted off his bones, then even his bones crumbled and fell to the ground as ash.

All that was left of Xander – devoted, hopeful, helpful young Xander – was a pile of ash.

Agony ripped through both Esme and me. We were his alpha and we had hurt him more than Beckett Frost ever had. We had completely failed him. Then rage gripped us, an anger so fierce and total that it felt like our vision was tinged with red.

Without hesitation, I reached out with my piping magic and grasped at Geneve and her cold, black heart. I seized hold of her, all of her. To be fair, she tried to put up a fight and it wasn't as straightforward as controlling the Ogre I'd once piped, but it was far easier than controlling the deadly purple plant we'd just battled. I was more than able to lock her foul will down.

All I could see was Xander and her and the flames. Oh God, the flames. Rage was still roaring in my ears as I replayed the moment of his death, seeing it over and over again. I could smell the scent of burning flesh on the air.

I whipped out with my magic and infiltrated every part of Geneve, taking over her heart and her mind. I could have made her do anything, but in the end all I wanted was for her to stop. Forever.

STOP! I commanded. My order was all-encompassing despite its simplicity. Her wings stopped flapping, her heart stopped beating and she stopped breathing. She stopped. She fell out of the air to the floor, eyes wide and unseeing.

I stared at her hateful face and only then did the tinge of red start to leave my mind and my vision. Reality seeped in, and what I'd just done hit me like a tonne of bricks. I felt sick.

I'd piped Geneve to death. I could have done anything with her, asked her to give me the names of her Domini compatriots, told her to confess her sins to the Connection and face a trial. I could have ordered her to live a kind and compassionate life and never harm others. I hadn't done any of those – I hadn't even thought about them. In the moment, all I'd wanted was revenge and I'd taken it. And now she was dead.

I'd screwed up again.

She killed Xander, Esme snarled. She deserved to die. It wasn't a mistake, it was justice. And now we need to free Daniella.

Daniella's name helped clear the fog that was threatening to overwhelm my brain and freeze it into inaction. Esme was right: Daniella was our priority now and we needed to get her out. Get her home and safe – unlike Xander who would never go home, goddamn it.

Ben touched my arm and I stared at his fingers before slowly dragging my eyes up to meet his. ‘You knew this was going to happen,' I accused, my voice a whisper. ‘But you still brought Xander here.'

Ben flinched as if I'd slapped him. ‘We'll talk about it later,' he said but his voice was rough and uneven. ‘Go find Daniella and let's get the hell out of here.'

I nodded because there was no choice. Later: there would be one hell of a reckoning later.

Ben slid to his knees next to the pile of ash, opened his rucksack and scooped up some of it with his bare hands. He was crying, apologising softly over and over as he gathered Xander's remains into his bag, but I blocked out his sobs and apologies. I felt strange, detached. I needed to find Daniella.

Licking my lips, I cautiously reached out to the plants around me until I found the one that had roots everywhere and had bushes in Daniella's cell. I held the connection and started to follow its pulsing consciousness upwards.

When I opened a door out of the hoard into a corridor, the lack of heat hit me like a slap to the face. Cold slid down my spine and I started to shake, or maybe that was just shock settling in. There was a pretty good chance I was in shock: I'd just made my worst nightmares come true. I'd used my powers for evil. If killing Rain had made me a monster, killing Geneve had made me the devil.

I moved mechanically, putting one foot in front of the other, following the plant's consciousness down a corridor, ignoring the doors along the way because they weren't the right ones. I moved all the way to the end like an automaton until the plant cooed, Here . It was a feeling rather than an actual word.

The door handle wouldn't turn and I had neither the time nor the patience for locks. I reared back and kicked with all my might. The door shattered, sending shards flying inwards. Daniella screamed .

‘Just me,' I said, my voice oddly cheerful. Yup, I was definitely in shock. ‘We've come to rescue you.' I stepped into her cell.

‘Alpha!' she cried. ‘Thank God.'

She was chained to the wall. She followed my eyes. ‘They're designed to withstand werewolf strength,' she said miserably. ‘I couldn't get free.'

‘Don't worry.' I smiled. ‘We didn't come all this way to be foiled by chains.'

Terrance, can you do a hot flame – a concentrated hot flame? We need to melt some of the links so we can free Daniella.

Of course, Your Majesty.

Flames leapt to my fingers as if I had summoned them myself. I held them over some of the chain links close to Daniella's hands, but not close enough to burn her. Enough people had been harmed today.

Soon they turned orange, then red. Daniella gave a tug and the links warped and dropped to the floor, leaving only a few pieces of metal dangling from her wrists. ‘Let's go,' I said. ‘Follow us.'

We could have walked out of the front door but I didn't want to run the risk of walking into the brethren if Greg's distraction had come to an end. We'd taken far longer than our original ‘in and out' plan had allowed for: we hadn't anticipated Geneve showing up and killing Xander, nor had we factored in wandering around to find Daniella.

I also didn't want to use the front door because I needed to destroy the evidence that we had ever been there. I didn't need Geneve's brethren hunting us down.

I led everyone back to the hoard of plants. ‘Into the tunnel,' I ordered. ‘Wait for me at the top.'

Tarkers gave a bark and a pointed growl – he didn't want to obey. I was too tired to argue and truthfully some part of me didn't want to be alone.

You're not alone, Esme murmured. You have me.

Always, I agreed wearily.

‘Ben, take Daniella. Wait for us at the top.'

Ben's eyes were red and his cheeks were stained with tears, but he nodded. My voice was hard and I was pleased when he didn't argue. He took Daniella's elbow and gently led her into the tunnel.

I looked around. Tarkers was still in wolf form at my heels. Behind him the flora flourished – most of it did, although some of plants had clearly been sacrificed to their cannibalistic roommates. They were beautiful but a lot of them were deadly and I didn't want them falling into the wrong hands. Domini hands .

I ripped off part of my T-shirt and tied it around my nose and mouth. Ready to burn this place down? I asked Terrance.

Absolutely, he agreed with grim satisfaction.

Let's do it.

This time the fire that leapt from my fingers was like that from a giant flame thrower. As Terrance and I directed it around the hoard, the temperature rose to unbearable heights and the smoke started billowing. The flames took hold, leaping from plant to plant – and then I directed them to Geneve's corpse.

Hotter, I said to Terrance darkly. Like she did to Xander.

He obeyed and the flames burned white hot. I watched her body blacken and burn and I knew I'd see it in my nightmares.

With the whole room burning, I turned and fled into the tunnel.