Chapter 33

I've written my fair share of fight scenes. I knew that war was bloody and brutal, that it was chaos in all its glory. But this... I had not been prepared for this. Dismembered limbs were literally everywhere. Along with corpses, blood, and, well, I wasn't exactly sure what I was looking at, but I think at one time it might have been someone's stomach.

The butcher knife I'd snagged before leaving the main house seemed like a ridiculous child's toy compared to what the rest of them were using. Claws and teeth, brute strength and guns, arrows and fire. But I needed something to defend myself and my men with, didn't I?

At least, I'd expected to. But Hades wouldn't let me anywhere close to the fight. Every move I made to engage was met with his shadows stopping me.

"I can help, damn you," I growled, my frustration over feeling useless making me exaggerate my skills. I've never so much as trained with a knife. I couldn't even lie and say I had some long underutilized self-defense skills from a course I took after I moved out on my own. I was a writer, not a fighter. And if I tried to go out there on that field and use my kitchen knife, I was as liable to gut myself as I was one of the villagers.

"You can't. You're a distraction, baby doll. None of us want to see you harmed, and you going out there would mean us willingly putting you in harm's way. I know you want to fight, but there's nothing on this earth or any fucking realm that will get me to allow it."

I didn't appreciate his use of the word ‘allow' like I was some kind of child who needed permission instead of a grown-ass woman. But since he was the one with the shadow magic currently keeping me in place, there wasn't a whole lot I could do about it either. I also knew I was the reason Hades hadn't really joined in the fight. Our side could certainly use the help of the god of the underworld, but he was fully focused on keeping me alive rather than taking down our foes. I wasn't sure how to feel about that. Maybe he wasn't either, because Hades glanced down at Asshole, who stood at my feet. "Go. Protect your goddess and do your worst, Cerberus."

Asshole yipped, and the shadowy barrier keeping us safe opened for him. He ran for the battle, body morphing to over ten times his size, white fluffy fur replaced with a sleek black coat. But it wasn't that change that brought a gasp to my lips. It was the three heads, mouths filled with razor-sharp teeth, that stopped me. Cerberus attacked with a fury I'd only seen from Tor. But for every enemy he killed, three more came through the gates.

I watched, frustration and horror churning inside me as more and more blood was spilled. Joffrey went down, followed by Logan, his howl of agony when a silver spear punched through his chest reaching my ears and making me cry out.

"You might not be a fighter, but you have other gifts that might help."

I flinched at the unexpected sound of my mother's voice in my mind. I looked around, wondering if she was here somewhere, but I didn't see her.

She had a point, though. I did have a certain set of skills that definitely packed a punch. Problem was, I wielded my scream more like a sledgehammer than a scalpel, and the last time I'd tried to bring the dead to my aid, it was a short-lived affair. In sum, a bitch lacked control. This is the exact reason I'd been trying to train and build up my metaphorical muscles.

Tor's bellow called my attention to where he was literally tearing limbs from bodies. My beautiful demigod was coated in blood, his eyes burning black, Berserker rage pumping through his veins. But he staggered and fell to his knees as I watched, his palm pressing on the wound in his side as blood—his blood—poured freely down his leg.

Before I could even process that, a bellow of pure outrage shook the trees as Kai's dragon took a hit. I didn't think something as small as an arrow would have any impact on such a massive creature, but apparently I was wrong. Horror and fear turned my insides to ice as Kai tried to flap his great wings, but one seemed to be stuck at a weird angle. Almost like he no longer had control of the muscles within it. Then, without warning, his enormous form went slack, and he was no longer flying through the night sky but falling.

Fucking falling.

"Get back! He's coming down. Fuck," Hades growled, arm banding across my chest as he pushed me away in case Kai crashed to the ground near us.

My dragon landed less than a hundred feet from where we stood, the force of his body hitting the ground akin to an earthquake, causing everyone nearby to lose their footing and fall. Everyone but Hades and I. His shadows kept me in place.

"They're not going to stop, Dahlia. There are too many of them. Your men will die."

No. They couldn't die. I couldn't lose them.

My eyes darted across the battlefield. Where was Hook? Why hadn't he come back to me?

Out of my four mates, only one was still standing, so far as I could tell. They weren't dead, though; I could sense them through our bond. They were hurt, critically so, and I couldn't get to them.

"You know what you need to do. You can end this here and now."

"We need more fighters," Hades muttered. "Is this all we have? I can't use my shadows and keep you alive at the same time."

"You've done it before. One, a hundred, a thousand, it's no different. This is what you were born for, Dahlia."

Hades wasn't going to let me into the conflict. There was no possibility of that happening, but there was a way I could join without ever leaving his protection. My mother was right. I was born to do this.

Crouching down, I planted my palms on the cold, damp earth and tapped into my power. They were there, so many of them. Hidden underneath the grounds, buried like the secrets they were. All the former residents of Blackwood who'd never been allowed to leave. My limbs shook as I siphoned all of my magic into the dirt, picturing it spreading like a drug through veins until each and every remaining body was touched by me. Commanded by me. My very own army of the dead. I didn't need their souls. I didn't need information from them. All I required was their ability to fight, and my power would give them exactly enough life to do that until I released them.

It's what I'd done when I summoned them in the cemetery. Granted, I'd been suffering from massive blood loss and hadn't been able to keep them going for long, but it had done the job. Now, though, I wasn't injured, and I was fueled by incredible purpose. My men were suffering. They were in danger. There was no way I'd let anything happen to them, so these corpses, these zombies, or whatever the technical name for them was, wouldn't stop fighting until every last one of these assholes was eliminated.

"Dahlia, what are you doing? That's too many of them," Hades warned. He'd clearly tapped into my thoughts and worried I couldn't do this, but with the magic binding us all together, I was stronger than I'd ever been.

"Too late. I have to do something."

The ground shook, a vague tremor like an aftershock, but before long my army was clawing their way out of the dirt, some doing so in the middle of the battlefield, others coming from all angles. There were shambling creatures with clumps of dirt in their hair and most of their flesh intact. Others were yellowed skeletons, their clothing or what was left of it in tatters. Others still were barely more than crawling torsos. And then there were the animals. Dogs, cats, horses, all of Blackwood's familiars and pets had also risen.

Sorcha had warned me that many creatures died here. I didn't think she understood how true her statement had been.

"Holy hell," my dark lord whispered. "You don't have their souls in your grasp, do you?"

I shook my head, needing every ounce of control I had to keep them focused before I assigned them their task.

Hades's lips were at my ear, pride in his voice. "Give 'em what they have coming, baby doll."

Power sang through me, lighting me up from the inside. I didn't feel drained at all by using my gift to reanimate the dead. If anything, their existence made me feel stronger. Energized. Like somehow they were empowering me.

With a pulse of energy through the tether between myself and the bodies, I whispered, "Fight for us."

The shambling zombies turned their attention to the villagers, their attack pressing forward without stopping. Sure, they could be destroyed, but they didn't feel pain the way the rest of us did, so they'd keep going until they were nothing but powder, and all because I willed it.

I scanned the melee, heart pounding as I searched for Tor. I needed him to come to me and remove himself from the danger now that my army was at work. Then he, Hades, and I could go search for Cas and rescue Kai. When I caught sight of his towering form, horns glinting with the blood of his enemies, eyes strained with fatigue, I opened my mouth to call his name. But before I could, a large arrow, twin to the ones used on Kai, hit him in the chest. Shock registered on his face as he glanced down his body, and he lifted one arm in an attempt to pull the arrow from his flesh. Only his limb was sluggish, his steps staggering, and as I watched on in horror, my untamable Viking's eyes rolled back in his head and he fell.

It was too much. The straw that broke me. I'd already watched my dragon fall from the sky, my pirate was missing, and now my beast was dead or dying.

No.

This wasn't happening.

It couldn't.

I needed it to stop. I needed everything to stop.

So I did the only thing I could. The one thing that felt instinctual and appropriate for a woman who'd reached the end of her rope.

I screamed.

I screamed, and they died.

They all died.