Chapter 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

WANE

M y arms shook as I pulled Haley against my chest, my shadows covering her like a cocoon, as if I could keep her safe within it. I could shatter shadow cities and rebuild them in my own image, but I always failed to keep her safe.

"I'm sorry," I rasped, leaning over her to brush my lips to her forehead, a clang of alarm going through me at how hot she was and the sweat slicking her body.

"Let go of her," Harvey snarled, pure venom in his voice as he shoved past me, his shoulder slamming into mine, knocking me further away from the titan. From my torturer and captor. But never master. You have no master. It was something I heard my mate say to Wynvail, but I took the words to heart, too. "Give her to me," my twin demanded, no softness or understanding in his voice or in his quicksilver eyes.

He hated me.

"She needs to be protected," Kai agreed, matching rage on his face as he stalked closer, the ground rumbling as his power trembled around him. "Not sent to fucking war."

My stomach knotted, but I kept my expression neutral, masked every once-healed piece of my soul as it cracked and shattered again. My family hated me. All of them. And I couldn't blame them; I hated myself. I'd known Haley was pregnant and I let her walk into a battle against the most vicious and powerful being in creation.

But I didn't want to let go of her. I couldn't. Instinct made my heart race, made blood pound in my ears. "She's my mate, too."

Harvey scoffed, a deep, throaty laugh. There was no kindness in the sound. "Your mate. Yeah, you're doing such a good job of being her mate. You should have—"

"Locked her up?" I asked, my voice calm, flat. "Is that what you're saying?"

"Stop," Haley slurred, her eyelids fluttering. I held her tighter, surrounding her soul with love and promises to keep her safe.

I looked each one of them in the eye. "I should have thrown her into a room and barricaded her inside, like she was a prisoner? Like the titan had locked her in a prison matching mine?" My calm showed the first signs of cracks. I couldn't breathe. "Is that what I should have done?"

"You should have told us," Emlyn sighed, heavy with disapproval that killed me as badly as Harvey's hatred. His attention snapped to something behind me, and he surged forward. I froze as Emlyn reached through my shadows and—grabbed my shoulder, pulling Haley and I away just as the titan reared up, casting off his restraints like they were cotton thread instead of lethal power.

He … Emlyn grabbed me, pulled both of us out of danger. I swallowed the lump in my throat, falling apart inside where no one could see. He should have taken Haley and left me to be crushed or captured.

"Would you have ever told us?" Kai pressed, sending a ripple through the air as his snakes hit the edge of my shadow, trying to find a way in. "If Wynvail hadn't, would you have told us?"

"She begged me not to," I breathed, trying to lock down the shaking moving through my limbs. I needed to keep her safe, keep her close to me. I needed to. "Telling you would betray her."

"By not telling us, you betrayed us," Harvey snapped, shaking his head. "We need to move away. Now. Give her here."

I held Haley tighter, closer, but my stomach was a knotted mess and … maybe they were right. Maybe I couldn't keep her safe. Maybe I was a useless mate.

I shook my head hard to dislodge that word—useless. It had been used like a knife against me; it had cut over and over until I was weak and defenceless, and part of me wished it was the titan who'd wielded it. That, I could have recovered from. But it was people I should have been able to trust. People who destroyed me long before I ever met the titan.

"No," Haley protested when I passed her to Harvey. "Hurts."

"What hurts?" Kai demanded at the same time I lunged after her, panic ripping me apart. I scanned her for blood and—froze.

"Wane," she slurred, her eyes fluttering shut.

I glanced away, a lump in my throat, but my eyes returned to her, to the places of her body visible beneath her armour, my stare lingering on her neck where black sigils filled every available space of her skin like Kai's tattoos or my scars.

"Shit," Wynvail hissed, and light flashed, swallowing all of us.

I slammed my eyes shut, blinded, but I felt his magic like heat on my shadows, like true warmth. And when that warmth receded—the warmth that made no sense, because Wynvail was cold and moonlight—I blinked my eyes open and found us on the road opposite the Capitol, a safe distance from the titan.

I wanted to ask why Wynvail's magic felt warm when it had always been icy, but he was created from Harvey as much as he was from me, and my twin was sunlight and heat and rage. Maybe Wynvail was enraged.

"It's the same language as her prophecy," Emlyn said, breaking the ringing silence—unless you counted the bellows of rage and war around us and the buzzing screams of magic as our army fought the titan. He had brought no backup, no soldiers. He didn't need them.

I stared at the new tattoos on Haley's throat, followed them down her arm beneath leather, and when Kai pulled up the edge of her armour they scrolled down her stomach, too.

"Her magic's changed," I said tentatively, braced for their hatred. "Can't you feel it? Something shifted when she cut the titan open."

"We need to get her out of here," Wynvail said firmly, no room for argument in his tone.

"No," Haley mumbled again, her eyes fluttering open, irises a storm of colours—grey and turquoise and green, glowing brighter than they ever had before. "No. He's—weak. Losing."

As if the titan heard her words and realised the truth, a roar came from across the battlefield that used to be the US Capitol. I shivered, wrapping my arms and shadows around myself, deepening them until I was entirely covered. Haley whimpered, her hand fluttering weakly, reaching for something. Oh. Of course.

I crooked my finger and the shadow that had caught her dagger placed it into my hand. I unwrapped the shadows around my face, around my arm, and held it out to her. "You'll want this."

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Harvey erupted, the ground shaking viciously under us as his glare cut my soul. "She's half dead, and she's pregnant, and you're handing her a fucking knife?"

He threw his hands up, and I flinched back, fear icing my blood. I only realised after that he hadn't moved to strike me. He was just throwing his hands up.

"Enough," Emlyn boomed, his eyes on the titan behind us. I didn't want to look. I didn't want to know how close he was, or how badly we'd failed. Haley was weak, and she'd cut him apart, but for what? He was still alive, still furious, still—

Emlyn hugged me, wrapping his arms around both flesh and shadow and gripping tight. "Enough," he said, softer, the words just for me. "You are part of this family, and you are wanted. We'll talk about this at home."

If we ever got home. But I sucked in a ragged breath and nodded.

"Phase two of the plan," Wynvail said, the anger mellowed in his voice, replaced by unease. "It's not going to work, is it?"

Phase two. While the titan was weak, Queen Lili's army and all the freed gods would hit him with so much magic that he couldn't fight back. And Haley would kill him.

Haley couldn't kill him. Not now. My gut twisted. I did this, let her come here.

No. Fuck that. I wasn't her captor; I didn't let her do anything.

"I should have told you," I said hoarsely, not daring to look at my family. "If she hadn't begged me, I would have."

"Whatever you're going to say, Kai," Emlyn rumbled, "just remember that you are incapable of saying no to our mate, just like Wane is."

I glanced up to watch Kai snap his mouth shut.

A ripple went through me—not from Haley but somewhere else. Someone else. I sucked in a breath, tasting smoke and magic and blood. "Something is wrong."

I couldn't explain it, couldn't explain the tremor of warning I felt to the marrow of my bones. My chest seized, my gut cramped, and a familiar, creeping fear made me freeze.

"Something is wrong," I repeated, and my shadows writhed faster around me, desperate to protect me.

The titan roared again across the battlefield. I didn't want to see him, but I couldn't stand it anymore. I twisted to look at him just as a deep explosion of blood-red magic filled the sky around his enormous onyx form. I caught my breath, my trembling worse, vicious. He was overpowered. He was losing.

I wanted to run, instinct screaming at me that I wasn't safe, but I couldn't take my eyes off the sight of the titan's twenty-foot form shrinking to fifteen feet, and then twelve.

"It's working," Wynvail breathed, a laugh of disbelief in his voice. "Shit, they've actually— no!"

I knew what he saw; I saw it, too. The flicker of electric blue, the churning black pit of magic, and the glow of the titan's eyes that heralded pain and screaming, begging for death.

"What?" Kai demanded, holding Haley closer and making her moan in annoyance.

Wynvail didn't get a chance to answer Kai. The world shifted and tipped. I felt the impact of the titan's time magic like a stab wound as it grabbed us, crushed the fight out of us, and ripped us somewhere else.

I knew where we were the second my feet landed. Sulphur and blood laced the air when I choked down a broken breath. This was the realm where I'd been held captive for a hundred years. This was the Damned Realm.