Chapter 19

I'm going to lose her. She stares at me, her brown eyes huge in her face, her mouth open as she says something. Her silken hair floats around her head, otherworldly. I'm going to lose her. My heart pounds against my chest, and I'm running for her.

I can't let her go. I never should have brought her here.

I should have told her I loved her.

I love her.

Someone is screaming, screaming her name. It's me, I realize. My heart is tearing in half, and a foul wind kicks up. It carries a fetid stench and rips through the cave, sucking all of us towards the gate in the center.

I know that scent. I turn back to the men guarding the entrance, gladdened to see their weapons already drawn.

"Make ready," I scream at them, and they nod at me, fear glazing their eyes.

We all know what is about to come through that gate, and I have to trust they will not let it out from the mouth of this cave and into Vraya.

I must reach Danielle before the creature comes through. I push ahead, fighting the storm-force wind that gushes from the gate.

The wind dies. She collapses to the floor, her head lolling. We only have seconds. They stretch long between us, and finally, finally, I reach her.

The stench intensifies, ozone and lightning and the electrical smell of hell that's taken out hundreds of our people. The same creatures the Butcher King and his people fled, the creatures they first brought here. It's been waiting, biding its time, for someone like Danielle to use the gates and rip back through.

It's here.

I throw my body over Danielle. If this is how I die, it is a good death. Protecting my mate.

The dark of space replaces the eerie glow, sucking all the light from the room, all the air. I heave a breath, my lungs tight as the vacuum intensifies.

"Hold," one of the men yells, closer behind me than I expected, thank the stars above and below.

It steps through the gate, leathery wings flapping as it takes flight. The creature opens its maw, the entire head splitting in half as it screams. There's no eyes.

There are never any eyes.

"Harbingers," another guardian shouts, needlessly.

Another harbinger flies through, screaming its defiance, and starlight-tipped arrows fly. A third. A fourth.

It's too many. I must close the gate, or we'll be overrun. It must be Danielle, keeping it open, her powers unstable since she refuses to seal the mating bond. I wouldn't change it though, I wouldn't push her to fulfill our bond, to be my mate. I can't stand the thought of taking any choice away from her, not when she already came through to Vraya on accident.

My ears numb as they shriek again, and I pull Danielle into me, away from the gate. Pain lances my hip as I stand, and when I look up, I nearly drop my mate.

A fifth void harbinger towers over us. Wicked claws glint in the faint light of the Starbound glyphs, and arrows tear through its hide. I shove Danielle behind me, and she falls back to the portal, limp.

"Come on, then," I snarl, drawing my sword. It rakes a claw across my face, and the world narrows to me and the creature. I will keep my mate safe. I will keep her away from it, and I will die with her name on my lips and her life intact.

I slash my sword across its wings, hobbling it. I hardly notice as it rakes my arm, gouging the fresh wound in my hip again. I cut it to pieces, shredding it like so much meat. I vent my rage on the thing, until it stumbles, disappearing beyond the gate. Behind me, Danielle screams my name, and when I turn, another creature has taken its place.

I snarl, blood weeping into my eyes. I blink it away. The harbinger's studded with arrows, but it doesn't slow, doesn't waver in its purpose. A light hand wraps around its ankle, and it turns towards my mate.

My heart sinks, my stomach twisting. "No," I bellow, thrusting my sword into its chest.

Danielle screams as it swipes at her, and I'm frantic. I cannot lose her. I cannot lose my love, my heart.

Heat floods the space, and I recoil. Flames tear up the beast's leg, its side, filling the cave with the smell of rotten, charred flesh. It screams again, only to be doused in fire.

Danielle. She holds one hand on the harbinger's ankle, her other palm flat on the surface of the portal gate. Impossible. She shouldn't be able to access her powers, not without our connection.

She's drawing on it.

Even so, she pales as the conflagration continues, intensifies. The creature slumps, reduced to less than nothing, a sludge, and topples to the side.

Danielle smiles wanly up at me, her beautiful eyes triumphant.

Then her eyes slide shut, and she collapses once more.