Chapter Fifty-Eight

The shock on King Louis's face morphed almost instantly into disdain. Walter's force field had snapped back into place around the vampire. He believed he was protected. He'd watched her get through his wards, and he still believed in Walter's force fields.

"What are you going to do with that thing? Surely one little girl can't wield the Spear of Lugh."

She could in fact wield this spear. Though she was bucking under the strain of its power.

"Surely your master told you what you hold?"

Oh, she knew. Graves had her reading all of those assignments to prepare her for this moment. And she had walked right into the answer about the spear. Not that it had actually prepared her to hold the thing.

But that didn't matter. All that mattered was that it felt right in her hand, and nothing Louis said was going to change her mind.

"The Spear of Lugh," he said for his audience. "Slaughterer. One who has never been defeated in battle." He taunted her. "A little girl can't hope to harness the power of the gods. You're not powerful enough."

It was a god's weapon, but that didn't change its purpose.

At the end of the day, it cut all the same.

And the person she wanted to destroy stood before her with Torra beside his throne and two victims at his feet. Two in a line of hundreds or even thousands.

Humans who hadn't had an option to escape. People he would just throw away for a meal. Kierse could have been any of them. Jason was his own monster and had abused her beyond comprehension, but even he didn't have a long line of dead people in his wake. If she let King Louis live, how many more people would end up like Torra? Like Mafi? How many more would suffer at his hands and the hands of his pathetic Men of Valor?

No, she had promised Torra that she would kill King Louis.

And she kept her promises.

The spear latched on to her thoughts, saw into her heart, and knew what she wanted. This time, she didn't dispel it. She didn't ignore its sinister voice, because it matched her own.

"You are no king," Kierse said, taking a step forward. "You are a puppeteer, pulling strings. Your reign ends today."

Kierse lifted the spear, muscle memory from hours of training kicking in. It had never felt as comfortable as a knife or a gun in her hand, but that was because she had been waiting all of her life for this spear. The perfect weight in her hands, the dark voice in her ear. She knew what to do.

She stepped through the force field, watched the shock register on Louis's face, then raised the spear and thrust forward. Louis dodged just barely as an alarm blared to life around them. His guards hurtled for her, but she slashed the spear blindly toward them. She felt the sickening crunch as she sliced through bone. Heard the squelch as it sank through flesh. Barely altering her focus, she was on Louis again.

He brought his arms up to dodge her strike. She sliced deep grooves of dark blood into his arms. He cried out as the world fell into pandemonium behind them. His hyper speed kicked in as he tried to backpedal, but Kierse went instantly into slow motion, pulling it over her like a blanket. And suddenly, Louis was swinging his arms as he backpedaled.

He was within reach a second later as she came out of slow motion. His jaw opened, revealing the gleaming white fangs. His eyes were wide with shock and a satisfying amount of fear. He couldn't win this, and for the first time, he'd realized it. She had outmaneuvered him. A little human woman with nothing and no one to help her.

"How?" he gasped.

"Magic."

With all the force of her training, she drove the spear deep into the vampire king's heart.

King Louis fell to his knees as she yanked it from his chest. "Who are you?" he muttered as blood poured out of his mouth.

"I'm the monster in your nightmares."

Then she slashed the spear sideways, decapitating him.

Louis's head fell off of his body to a chorus of screams. The rest of him toppled forward, blood sputtering onto the white marble and soaking the white of her lingerie.

Her eyes rose to the monsters before her. Walter had already vanished in the crowd, among the rest of Louis's followers, his pathetic Men of Valor. The scum that he empowered with his propaganda. These monsters had spent their entire lives oppressing humans. They deserved a similar fate.

Then a figure appeared on the dais.

Graves.

He assessed the state of the world as it had just shifted off its axis to accommodate her. He took in her bloodstained clothing, the wicked grin on her lips, and the spear held firmly in her grasp. He nodded once, a slow smile coming to his devastating features. The power pulsed relentlessly through her, between them.

She lifted her chin to meet that gaze. She'd accepted her place as a monster. A monster at his side. And he accepted that in a glance.

No, not accepted. Reveled in it. Devoured it. As if it were destined from the start.

He took a few long strides across the dais, ignoring the remaining carnage. Stepped through the blood of the dead vampire king, slid his hand to the back of her neck, and kissed her with the hunger of a predator. She met him where he was, refusing to give even an inch. A fight, a challenge, a sundering.

Because she had never been kissed the way Graves was kissing her, standing in the blood of their enemy.

Their mouths fitted together. Tongues volleying for dominance. Power coursing through them like a conduit igniting and blazing for everyone to see. Their magic met. A gold glow that twined around each other, not quite melding but mirroring.

When the kiss ended, the world felt as if it had tilted back and this was how it was always meant to be.

"My Wren," he said.

"I got the spear," she said, hoisting the thing up.

His eyes flickered to it and back as if he'd been so blinded by her that he hadn't noticed. "Good. We have to go."

"We have to get Torra."

Graves reached for the spear, but she couldn't let go. The spear didn't want her to let go. So, she left Graves facing down the impending monster horde and fell to her knees before the vampire's throne. "Torra. Torra, we have to go. We need to get moving."

"Kierse," she said, her voice unsteady. "I don't think I can move."

"You can. I'll help you."

She put her weight underneath Torra and lifted her slight form off of the ground.

"You killed him."

"I told you I would," Kierse said.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"We need to go," Graves said, swearing under his breath.

"Then fucking help me."

He swore under his breath and then swept Torra into his arms as if she weighed nothing.

It had been a matter of seconds between killing their king, Graves's kiss, and freeing Torra, and already the monsters were forming up to come after them. That wasn't good. The spear was powerful, but she didn't know if it could take on a vampire army.

Do not underestimate me.

She shuddered at the voice in her head, uncertain if it was her own thoughts or... the spear's.

"This way," Graves said.

They ran.

She tucked the spear to her side. The weight of it felt right. No, perfect. Impossibly balanced and like an extension of herself. She understood why she'd dealt with all of the training to get to this very moment.

Graves had been busy while he was gone. Every guard between her and the exit had been efficiently incapacitated. Seeing the carnage was not just impressive but terrifying. They came across only a handful of frightened guards as they made their escape toward the secret tunnel out of Louis's residence. Some fled from the sight of her. The others, Kierse made quick work of. Torra fell unconscious at some point as they got away.

They'd just turned toward the secret tunnel when they came face-to-face with none other than Walter Rodriguez wearing a loaded-down backpack and looking panicked.

His jaw dropped open. "Graves?"

"Hello, Walter," Graves said.

"You," he said to Kierse. "You... you walked through my force field."

"And reached through your wards," she said with a dangerous smile.

His gaze shifted frantically between Graves, Kierse, and the spear as if he couldn't decide which was the bigger threat. She could smell a faint scent of incense and rainstorms when his shields strengthened at their perceived anger. He'd just admitted that she could get through them, and still he reacted by instinct. "Wh-what are you doing here?"

"Using your exit," Graves said smoothly. "What a clever little mouse."

"How do you know about that?" He glanced behind them, inching backward.

"I know everything you've been doing for King Louis. But you chose the wrong side, Walter. Your master is dead."

His eyes widened. "I didn't choose a side. You discarded me like old garbage," he said, his voice quavering even as he stood up to Graves. "I went for the next highest bidder, and now I'm getting out of here."

"We don't have time for this," Kierse said. "We need to leave."

"He's a threat," Graves said.

"No, please," Walter said, backing away. "I just want to get out of here. I don't want to hurt anyone."

"You heard him. He got roped into this," Kierse said, blocking Graves. "And you did discard him after not seeing his potential."

Graves met her gaze with what looked like admiration. He'd come to the other side with Mafi. And for the first time, it seemed like he had realized his mistake with Walter as well.

"I did," Graves said. "You're done working for the Men of Valor?"

"I'm done," Walter said frantically.

"We don't have time," she said. She pushed past Walter. "Graves, let's move."

For a second, she thought that he wasn't going to listen to her. But after staring at Walter another beat, he followed Kierse down the exit. Then they took off at a run.

The tunnel was long and winding, but she remembered the way through. The entire time, she held tightly to the spear, its constant hum a reminder of how very alive and deadly this thing was.

"What the fuck am I holding, Graves? I know you said it was the Spear of Lugh, but I didn't know that it was going to feel like this." She shook her head. "The gods," she muttered under her breath. "This is a god's spear."

"Yes. I already told you that it was. This was why we had to get it from Louis."

There was a difference between knowing and knowing. If all of it was true. If the spear was literally a magic spear from the gods. If all of the stories she'd read from her assignments weren't just a kernel of truth but fact—then what was she? What was Graves?

He used the holly as his symbol. Of course he would see the wren as part of him. He hadn't said anything, and yet she knew it. Maybe she'd always known it. Because they'd been twined by that first night. As soon as he'd seen her wren necklace. The moment she'd glimpsed his library. They'd been tied together like their magic in that kiss—an inextricable link.

But she still had to say it.

"You're the Holly King."

His throat bobbed before he nodded. "And you're my wren."