Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

HARVEY

I rolled the corpse over with the toe of my boot and bent to retrieve my mate's blade, brushing my thumb over the pink fabric wrapped around the hilt. It was worn and dirty, peeling at the edge. This dagger had been through as much as we had. And the other was in Cronus's possession. That fucking—I didn't have a word strong enough for him, for the monstrous shit he'd done to us.

I clenched my jaw, crouched there staring at the trampled grass, the bloody holes burned into Iapetus's goon's eyes. Pride tried to curl through my chest at the mess Haley had made of them, but awful, screaming loss crushed out the emotion. My hand burned where it gripped Haley's dagger, remembering the fragile weight of her. Kaida.

Fuck, it hurt to think her name.

Piece of shit. I flinched from my uncle's voice, flinched from the others that followed—Locke's and my own. Worthless excuse for a man. You couldn't even detect trickery. Couldn't keep your own daughter safe.

"Harvey," Haley rasped, resting her hand on my shoulder. We should have been covered in blood after the fight we'd just had with Iapetus. It was a mind fuck being so clean.

I swallowed, my dry tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth. "None of that fight was real," I said, "but this was. His goons were here. We must have been surrounded, and even—even with the tricks and mind games, you still managed to kill them."

"Harvey," she said, squeezing my shoulder hard.

I shook my head. I didn't want to talk or acknowledge the tears on my cheeks. A hundred years—a hundred fucking years we'd lived, peaceful and safe, a life full of love and security, sex and stability. It was everything I'd dreamt of. And not a single moment had been real.

All my secret hopes, my quiet fantasy of domestic bliss—now it was poisoned. Cronus had taken that from me. I didn't want it anymore, didn't want anything except violence and rage.

Worthless, useless, pathetic piece of shit.

"Buttercup," Haley breathed. A tear escaped down my cheek when her voice broke. "We're going back to the house near Kyora."

I nodded. I figured we would. But Phoebe had found us there; how safe would we be, really?

It had always been a hopeless future, hadn't it? A life where we were stable and steady, where we weren't always on the run. We didn't get shit like that, weren't allowed to be happy.

"Step back, Haley," I said, and flicked the tears off my cheeks with a rough brush. "Take the others and get to the other side of the island."

I couldn't look at her, couldn't stand to see her without hurt ripping my chest apart, but I saw her shake her head from the corner of her eye, pink hair stuck to her cheeks by the mist rolling in from the water. The whole island had shifted since Iapetus died. Since Wane killed him. Now, it was wreathed in mist, the ocean around us cloaked and mysterious. Threatening.

I took a slow, dragging breath through my nose. "I need you to move, Haley."

My hand shook when I held out the volcanic dagger to her, and I clenched my jaw when I saw the early flashes of light at my fingertips. I carefully handed her dagger and strode away.

"Harvey," she called, reaching for me.

I shook, power bellowing inside me, drowning out everything except for the strident cry our daughter made when she came into the world. Not real. Never real.

How many times would we go through this? How many more fucking losses?

Haley didn't take her eyes off me, but Wane saw the look on my face and pulled her away. He corralled everyone else too, urging them as far away from me as possible. The second they were a safe distance away, I ripped the leash off my magic, releasing the scream trapped in my chest. Waves shook around the island. Mist churned faster. The moment my magic—the magic that had annihilated a whole town, touched the mist—it detonated in a violent blaze of light, eerie and otherworldly.

The scream clawed up my throat, crushing all the air from my chest, so agonised and deep that I tasted blood.

I stayed there on my knees, bowed over myself, lighting up the mist with pure magic, and it was a mere drop of the rage and power inside me. I wanted to exorcise it, to cleanse myself, but power still threshed inside me, eager to decimate every living thing in the world.

I wasn't so far gone that I'd let that happen. I screamed until my voice broke and gave out, and snapped the collar back around my magic, trapping it inside me where it twisted with unending wrath.

There was no happiness in my future, no perfect life, no house where we were protected and safe. All that waited in my future was violence, war games, and cruelty. I'd survived a world like that before by embracing light and humour and defiant hope. This time, I'd survive by taking the violence into me, by becoming as cruel as Cronus.

I'd begged Haley to stay out of the fight, but now I craved it, lived for it. I wanted Cronus dead, but more than that—I wanted him to pay for what he'd done.

Magic sparked in my chest when footsteps neared, and I reacted on instinct, an arc of sunlight slicing the air. Wane waved his hand and shadow knocked it aside; it fell into the water, illuminating the mist until it looked like the ocean had devoured a sun.

Wane didn't speak, didn't offer condolences or comfort, didn't promise revenge. He just held out his hand and yanked me to my feet when I placed mine in his.

He opened his mouth, meeting my eyes with an emptiness that scared me, but he closed it again. There were no words to say. Nothing that would make this better.

We'd felt this loss before. I remembered every single pregnancy, but this was different. I held her, kissed her, loved her with my whole fucking heart. I didn't know how to come back from that.

Wane nodded like I'd spoken and kept his hand around mine, towing me across the island to where our family waited with not horror on their faces but ragged grief and understanding. I wouldn't be the only person who roared their rage at the world today.

"Harvey," my mate breathed, rushing forward to catch my face between her hands. Soft, gentle, but cold—too cold. We needed to get off this island. "Your eyes."

"What?" I asked, my mouth still dry.

"They're pure gold."

It was only her hands on my face that kept me away from Harvey. The rest of me hovered somewhere between Feral and the man who'd slaughtered a whole town in violent rage—Harveil.