Chapter 28

It's strange. I've seen so many spirits in my life. Seen them lost and confused. Composed of nothing but pain, anger and fear. A small slither of a soul. The parts of them that perhaps heaven will not take. The part that would never allow a soul to rest in peace if it went to the beyond with it.

I look down at my lifeless body, cradled by Shaw, who actually sobs. Tears stream down his face as he cradles me in his arms. My eyes stare into nothing. The whites are bloodshot, and a small trail of red falls from my nose and ears.

My mother laughs, looking at him cry. Looking at him so lost as he holds her child in grief.

She killed me. She actually killed me.

‘I knew you loved her,' she laughs. ‘I could smell it on you. There was no way you would ever vow yourself to me. You think I don't know when you lie, Ronan? I taught you how. Shame. Now all you shall have of her is the stench of rot and the knowledge that her last memory of you was a betrayal.'

Shaw roars such a roar. One to shake the earth. To have demons run scared. He drops me and launches himself at her, slashing and slicing with his sword as he just attacks. She counters with magic and dodges with skill, finding it all so funny.

I look at myself. Cold. Empty. Broken.

Dead.

I'm fucking dead.

I blink as Dorian stops by my side. His eyes are on my corpse as he pants from the fight. He shakes his head and falls to his knees.

‘Ashe…' His fingers rest on my neck. He doesn't feel my pulse. Gently, he brushes the hair from my face, leans down, and kisses my forehead. Only when the ground shakes does he look up.

Archie's great wolf form skids to a stop, showering them with dried leaves and dirt. He looks down and sniffs. His snout nudges me, urging me to move. When I don't, he whines. A sad little whine I would expect from a puppy. He nudges me again, looking at me as if waiting for me to sit up and go "BOO!". Only when Sinthia's demented laugh rings out does he look up. The sky fills with high-pitched shrieking.

‘More Unseelies…' Dorian says, looking above. ‘Arch, we have to kill the coven and quickly. How did she summon them all so soon?'

They both look down at me.

‘We'll come back for her.' Dorian's voice cracks as he speaks. ‘There's… there's nothing we can do.'

Archie snarls as he hears Sinthia's laugh.

‘Archie, don't!' Dorian's words are ignored, and Archie bounds away. ‘ARCHIE!'

But he's gone.

Dorian gently rests my body against a tree, kisses my forehead, and leaves.

The Unseelie are coming. The Blood Coven is back.

I'm dead.

But I'm aware that I'm dead. I'm aware that I'm a spirit.

I haven't moved on nor am I lost to rage, despair or pain.

The air illuminates with fire and explosions. Dark Unseelie creatures swoop and dive from above. They claw their way up from the earth.

‘Shame,' I hear Cole say. I turn to see him looking down at my body.

What the fuck is he doing here?

He nudges me with his foot and scoffs.

‘I was looking forward to making them watch as I killed you myself, but it seems I was too late, and the blood queen beat me to it.' He crouches and softly sweeps my hair from my face like a lover admiring his sleeping partner. ‘First, they take you from me. Then they snatch Thalia, wherever she is.' He looks around, scanning the area with very little care to see if he may spot her. He returns his focus back to me. ‘Then they bring the most powerful witch ever to exist back to life, leaving you for dead in the process. When I saw them taking you from their castle unconscious, I just had to follow. I was never going to miss whatever misery they were planning on putting you through.' He withdraws his sword and takes a moment to admire the steel. ‘I'm going to keep your head on my mantel. Now, I get to keep you forever. And the coven will know that I killed the blood witch and that I, and I alone, saved them all from annihilation.' He grips my hair and rests his sword at my throat. ‘They will worship me.'

I scream in sheer rage and lunge for him. He will not claim my body like this. He will not hack me up.

But when I grab him, his eyes widen.

No longer am I stood above him as a spirit, but I'm back in my own body. It's my very real hand around his throat. I feel his warm skin like it's fire. I feel his pulse hammering away under my fingers. I hear his heartbeat as if it were in my ears.

‘Not… possible…' he gasps, clawing at my hand. ‘You're… dead!'

Impulse takes over. The sound of his heartbeat. The warmth of his skin. It calls to me. It screams.

I lunge and bury my face in his neck, the compulsion to bite taking hold. When I do, his skin breaks easily. I drink. My fucking gods, I drink, and I drink like a female possessed by a dire thirst.

He screams, and I moan, relishing in its taste. When I feel something hot on my shoulder, I let him go, and he scrambles away, clutching his neck.

I pull out a dagger from my shoulder. The bastard stabbed me!

It hurts. A lot. But when it's out, it eases. My tongue runs over my teeth. I have fucking fangs.

I roll my head and feel something inside snap back into place, erasing the tension I felt a moment ago. Confused, I check myself. My wounds are healed. The cuts. The bones.

All fine.

I was dead. Dead! I stood beside my corpse as a spirit, and then, in the blink of an eye, I was back inside my body.

The urge to kill Cole is overwhelming. To rip out his throat and consume every drop of blood is all that drives me. As I go to attack, he slams his hand into the dirt and gets pulled beneath its surface, swallowed whole and hidden away. I lunge and claw at the soil.

He's gone. His earth magic burrowing him to safety. I scream and slam my fists into the ground. When I hear Sinthia's depraved giggle, my focus shifts.

I'm up and running to the fight. When I break the treeline, I stop dead.

Archie is battling creatures I have only heard of in stories. In dark myths and legends. In the retelling of the war. Monstrous beings with wings and horns. With soulless eyes and death-dealing talons.

The Dark Unseelie. Every creature is contaminated by darkness. All the monsters that followed the Blood Coven and its queen.

My mother.

The ground is littered with dead creatures, and their blood only strengthens the sisters. Many willingly offer themselves to the coven, proud and delighted to sacrifice themselves for their strength. They're running up to them and tearing at their own throats, spraying them with blood.

My mother stands between her blood sisters, dripping in red and thrumming with power.

They face the three guys.

Shaw and Dorian ready their swords. Archie digs his paws into the dirt to charge.

The three of them will not win. Not alone.

I fall to my knees and press my fingers into the dirt as the guys charge the smiling witches, who are more than happy to end them.

But their smiles soon falter when they see that the guys are not alone. As Dorian, Shaw and Archie run, facing death, they're overtaken by an army. An army that has the witches overwhelmed.

Unseelie. Dead Unseelie.

An army of the dead.

Corpses, risen to fight.

My corpses. My army.

Me.

I exhale, calming the storm of power inside. Soothing the urge within me to abandon this and rip at throats instead.

Fight. Protect. Focus.

I command a hundred of the dead. I am the dead.

It doesn't matter if my puppets get hurt. It doesn't matter if they get struck down or have limbs torn off. They're already dead, so they just get up and carry on.

Malevolent calm is what settles inside of me. A relishing of the chaos and death. One that urges me to carry on. To push myself harder. To command my empty vessels to fulfil my desires.

Death. I want death.

I am death. I command it. I own it.

I am a necromancer. Blood is my power. My power is with the dead and the damned.

Archie grabs Sinthia. She tries to protect herself, but his jaws are no match for her. She screams as he bites her, snatching her petite body in his mighty jaws. He violently shakes her and only releases her when Dhalia throws a shot of dark magic at him.

Sinthia is dropped, bleeding to the floor, sobbing hysterically.

‘Bad puppy!' she screeches, looking at her mangled torso. ‘You're such a bad puppy!'

When Dhalia tries to help her, Dorian leaps between them. He has a doll in his hand and crushes it. She doubles over, and as she does, Archie slams his paw on Sinthia's head, biting her stomach and ripping. Bits of flesh, blood and organs fly through the sky, showering Dhalia and Dorian in red mist as they soar overhead.

When Sinthia's severed head lands before my mother, an eerie silence falls.

Neve lifts her vengeful gaze to Archie, the male who just murdered her sister, and her eyes go black. Those dark veins pulse, and she pulls back her wrist to throw some serious dark magic at him.

I raise my hand. A wall of rock and soil rises between them, taking the brunt of the power.

I was unsure if the earth still heard me. If it would listen as it did before.

Archie looks at me and roars. But in my head, I hear him. His words beyond the wolf.

LOOK OUT!

A screech from my left rings out, and my eyes widen as a creature I think was once a fae man sprints towards me. He would have the beauty Kieran had if his skin wasn't a sickly green and his body an elongated and spindly shape.

He's moving as fast as a hound, his eyes on me. The daggers he holds are coated in blood and ready to drive into me.

A swarm of shadows swamp him, swirling with such violence the air fills with desperate screams and tearing flesh. Sheer terror fills those screams. Complete despair. When the shadows recede, all that's left is a mess of blood and pulp. The shadows go to Dorian, who then continues his fight.

When I look back to the bridge, my mother fades into grey mist and glowing embers, which soar straight at me. Her body reforms, and her hand is around my throat before I can blink. Those dark tendrils of power seep from her fingers and force their way down my mouth and nose.

‘What are you?' she snarls, lifting me off the ground. My connection to the corpses are severed. I know they've all fallen to the floor. ‘I snapped your neck.' She sniffs me. ‘Impossible. This is impossible.' She looks into my eyes hard. ‘Dead…'

There's another harrowing scream from the bridge. Neve turns. Roots and vines hold down Dhalia as the boys surround her, dodging the streaks of magic she tries to hit them with.

Dorian grips her poppet in one hand, crushing it and making her scream. She uses her dark magic to rip and burn the roots, but I keep sending more, slithering around her struggling limbs, twisting them hard, snapping her bones and keeping her down.

‘Sister…' Neve whispers, just in time to see Dorian hack off Dhalia's left arm. Then Shaw takes her leg with a swipe of his sword.

‘NOOO!' my mother screams.

Dorian bites Dhalia's neck. He tears and rips like a savage animal, pulling at her hair and yanking her as she screams in pain.

Neve lets me go with a desperate and despair-filled scream. She reaches out for her sister, dark magic building in her blood-soaked hand.

But too late.

With one final tug, Dorian decapitates Dhalia. He tosses her head to Archie's wolf form, who crushes it between his teeth and then swallows it.

‘No…' Neve whimpers. ‘No…'

The boys face her. Dorian's front is dripping red. Archie licks his lips. Shaw points his sword at her.

‘You're not strong enough without your armies, Neve. And you are certainly not stronger than the four of us. Your turn,' he smiles.

No. My turn.

I slam into her body and tear at her throat, biting and ripping as I drink the blood that gushes forth. She falls to her knees. I fall with her, drinking and drinking.

Such power. Such strength. She's phenomenal. Delicious. My body vibrates as I take her. Her power is filling me.

Darkness. Utter darkness. I'm smiling as she tries to get me off. As her magic attacks and burns.

I pull her hair hard, desperate for better access to her neck. To get all I can.

More. More. More.

The ground around me shakes and splinters. Neve starts getting pulled under. I grip her tight, determined to keep her with me.

To my left, Cole stands with his arm outstretched and determination on his pale face.

He's trying to save her. To save the blood queen.

His free hand grips the open wound on his neck as blood spills freely between his fingers. I smell him. Smell his blood. His life. I want it for my own. To devour it and destroy it. To use it for myself. To make me stronger.

She sinks beneath the earth, but I refuse to let go and get pulled down right along with her.

A deep red mist starts forming around me. A red mist that becomes thick and slow. Becomes blood. It wraps around me. Seeps from me.

My blood.

It makes me stronger. More powerful.

She screams. ‘What in Hel's name are you?!'

‘Death,' I grin, pulling her back.

She looks up at me in horror as I use my own blood as a power source. Her flesh starts to flake and drifts to me. More of her dark power spreads, wrapping around me. I refuse to let go. Cole will not have her. She's mine.

I reach out and, with a demonic scream, hit Cole in the chest with the same dark power Neve commands.

He soars backwards, and his command over the soil beneath us ends.

I return my focus to her, the blood tendrils swirling around me with the same ferociousness as her dark magic.

A sword swipes between us, and the sound of flesh and bone cutting has Neve screaming.

I'm body slammed by Dorian and roll onto my side. Quickly, I return to my feet, ready to end her.

No matter the cost.

Cole has run to her. He holds her, easing her onto her knees as she cradles the stump of her left hand.

‘Don't you fucking dare!' I yell, scrambling back onto my feet. I feel his magic. I taste it. He's preparing to use it.

With a final look at me, they both sink.

Tossing aside Neve's severed hand, I run to the spot they just were.

‘NO!' I scream, clawing at the ground, digging at the dirt till my nails bleed. ‘NO! NO! NO!' I reach out and harness the earth's magic, creating a crater before me.

But they've gone. I can't hear their heartbeats. I can't smell her blood.

He's gone.

She's gone.

Both alive and both fucking gone.

Everything in the forest goes silent. The Unseelie return to the earth, lakes and skies, following their queen into the darkness she flees into.

I stare at the soil. At the earth that stole my prize. My fingers furl into fists, and the ground below shakes as it feels my anger.

The Unseelie have fled, leaving behind nothing but the dead.

Two feet stop before me. The sword's tip drips red from where it cut Neve's hand, helping her escape.

I look up to see Shaw holding the sword. He's panting hard and bleeding from various cuts but stone-faced and fierce as he watches me.

Slowly, I stand. Heat flushes through my body, and every muscle is rigid. He grips his sword harder but holds his ground, never looking away as I return to my feet.

He's all I see at the end of a tunnel of rage. He's all I smell. All I taste.

I growl, filled with a deep need to make him pay for freeing her.

For standing aside as I died for them, over and over and over and over again.