Chapter 28

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

HARVEY

C ronus had played us all like this was a huge game, and we were losing. I'd been pushed to the edge of my temper for hours, riding a wave of violence I couldn't entirely control. The world stopped turning when Cronus disappeared with my mate, and like a switch flipped I stopped leashing that deadly temper. Why should I pull punches, why care if I eviscerated our allies along with our enemies? My mate was gone. My mate was gone.

I threw my head back and screamed, tearing the lid off my power in a way I'd only done once before. I didn't let a mere trickle free, didn't release even a river—an ocean of sunlight poured out of me, blinding me to anything but burning, ruthless gold. It split the sky in two, cleaved the blackness around us, and burned every shadow soldier into shreds of magic. Magic stolen from my brother when Cronus tortured him. Magic Wane would never get back.

My throat burned as the scream kept coming, sending my magic higher, further, until I felt bodies char and crackle, bones seared clean. I pulled back only when I sensed Wynvail near, his own magic an eruption of light and rage.

Haley was gone.

"Where is she?" I screamed at the empty field, only a few gods and titans remaining of our allies. "Where is she?"

I took a furious step and the ground trembled, the skies splitting even wider, sunlight fracturing it with cruel fury. No one would escape until I had my mate back.

Another step and veins of gold cracked the sky like tributaries of a river, and magic flashed across the battlefield as people wrapped themselves in shields or were whisked away from the danger. Another step and Cronus's god army fell apart, scattering in fear. They should be afraid.

Some were not. Some readjusted their grips on weapons or readied magic. I bared my teeth and welcomed them, stalking across the endless field, aware of where my family stood, marking their positions so they'd be left alive.

A golden-skinned god with armour reminiscent of a Roman charged at me, a shield across one arm and magic gathering like rubies in his palm. He was very confident for a man who'd lost most of his power when Zeus was killed by Queen Lili and her men. The gods' magic had shifted, and I didn't think it was a coincidence that Cronus was making a bid for power so soon after the age of gods ended.

I crooked a finger at the golden god, my expression merciless, no excitement or thrill in my heart. I was a being of brutality and unforgiving sunlight and nothing else. The god smiled though, his mouth cracking with something cocky and eager. I crooked my finger again and a bolt of sunlight shattered the sky and stabbed down at the ground. It speared the god so suddenly that his expression didn't even morph into shock, his golden face full of confidence. His eyes emptied.

I encouraged my sunlight to burn him to a crisp and marched past his blackened corpse, scanning the army for more attacks and not particularly surprised when three threw themselves at me at once. As if they could find safety in numbers.

There was no safety when I was unleashed. I burned them to charred bones.

Sweat beaded on my forehead and dripped down the bridge of my nose. My body throbbed, overheated inside my leathers, but I marched on, calling bolts of sunlight from the burning sky, spearing any and all who came at me. I lost more of myself with everyone I killed, with every crash of sunlight I ripped from my soul and speared through bodies, frying them to blackened husks.

"Where is she?" I roared at the next person to come at me, this one a human descendant of a god. He didn't stand a chance. Even as he hit me with something noxious and green, his magic a poison in the air, I seethed with power. Within seconds, his bones smoked on the ground. I stepped over them and walked on, searching for my family, for my mate.

"Where is she?"

"Here," an awful voice said behind me, not painful to my ears like Cronus's thundering voice but eerie, terrifying. Fifty voices speaking at once, echoing and raspy.

I spun, inhaling, gathering magic, but it was Typhon who stood in front of me. Haley was nowhere in sight.

"Where is she?"

Typhon's expression was flat, the fifty dragon heads attached to his torso spitting green fire, his black wings beating behind him like he'd just landed.

"No!" a familiar voice screamed, their voice distant but piercing. I vibrated with power, frantic to know why Wane was screaming, but I couldn't take my eyes off the father of monsters in front of me.

"Where is my mate?"

"She's here," Typhon replied, all his dragons speaking at once, mouths parted and glowing with verdant flame. Had his magic been green before?

I took a step forward, bristling with rage, reaching for a bolt of sunlight and ready to burn him to a smoking husk. Typhon moved at the same time, muscles shifting across his body.

Shadows blotted out the sun for a second, but enough light remained to see Typhon lurch forward, all the dragons on his body snapping their jaws. Magic glowed through their skin, outlining bones and skeletons and skulls. I struck before he could reach me, ripping a bolt of sunlight from the sky and driving it through his body, charring Typhon to ashes and bone. The green glow of his dragons winked out and I turned to face the rest of the army—

And jerked back when Queen Lili lunged at me with murder darkening her expression. Her teeth were bared, eyes dull but dangerous. A silver sword thrust too close for me to escape, the edge too sharp to be anything but fatal. I twisted, too slow, too late—

Oh, god.

Shadows crashed down from the sky in a turbulent column at the same second the sword drove at me. I tried to stop my momentum, tried to twist away, to reach out my hands as the shadows formed into dark leather, scarred bronze skin, blood-slick chestnut hair, and a determined expression that made me sick.

Wane faced me instead of the threat, his gaze locked with mine when the sword drove through his stomach. An intentional choice, like him standing between me and a fatal blow was intentional. Oh, god. Pain exploded in his silver eyes as Lili threw her weight on the sword, cutting a jagged line through my brother's torso, severing sinew and muscle.

I tore across the few feet between us and caught him before he could fall, ripping power from myself to eviscerate Lili with a flare of light. She didn't even scream as she died.

Sunlight erupted down the sword as I pulled it out of Wane with shaking hands, cauterising the wound on both sides.

"I've got you," I promised, throwing the sword to the mud where it burned to ashes. "I've got you, Wane."

My heart ripped out of my chest when his eyelids fluttered, lashes casting long shadows on his cheeks. Blood soaked into me, so much blood that I couldn't breathe.

"Why would you do this?" I demanded, my voice breaking as I held him close, pumping him full of healing magic and painfully aware that it was too sharp, still full of Harveil's deadly rage.

"Don't… need me," he slurred, eyes moving behind his eyelids. He was so heavy in my arms. So heavy. "I'm… being a good mate… Take care of…. Haley."

"Fuck no," I argued, strangled. My eyes burned, dropping tears on his chest as I poured even more magic into his wound. A sob shattered the air at the sheer scale of the damage. "No, Wane. Do you hear me? No."

I pressed my forehead against his, desperation crushing my chest, making me shake. The sky went dark above us as I fuelled all my magic and concentration into healing my brother. But the sword had done a cruel job, the queen's handling of it making his insides a jagged, shredded mess.

"Please," I gasped, fumbling for more magic, weaker than I'd been just minutes ago. I used too much disintegrating the army. I should have saved it. So fucking stupid!

"Don't you dare fucking leave. Not when we just found you, not when I just got you back after a hundred years. Please, Wane. Everything I said, all my anger—I didn't mean it. You are a good mate; you always have been. I took my fear out on you, and I never should have said that. Don't leave me."

Magic sank into the ragged hole the sword had made inside him, frantically mending ribs and capillaries and sewing the frayed ends of muscle together, but Wane's eyelids didn't flutter again. He didn't speak, didn't move, and I was shaking too hard to tell if he was breathing.

Light flashed beside me, and then Wynvail was there, his expression horror stricken. And Kai, with slashes bleeding on his chest. And Emlyn, swaying on his feet, his eyes bleary with pain. Their faces became wan with dread when they saw Wane limp in my arms, not a shadow clinging to him, when they saw all the blood he'd lost, the ragged mess where a sword had driven through his chest. Worse—through his heart.

Emlyn stumbled through the mud towards us, and a sob forced its way past my clenched teeth when he helped me bearing Wane's weight, his hand resting on my shoulder, too. Kai grabbed my other shoulder, his hand trembling as he gripped me. Wynvail scanned the field of bones and mud, supporting Emlyn as he swayed, weakened by an injury I couldn't see but felt, throbbing, screaming warnings at my magic.

"She's gone," I rasped, meeting Wyn's eyes, so similar to mine, to Wane's.

"Where?" Emlyn croaked, his bleary eyes sharpening. "Where did she go?"

I shook my head, pumping all my power into Wane, desperation making me dizzy. "I don't know."