Another time, I would have sent Ambrose to find Remy, but I couldn’t afford to be without him.
“Choose your sacrifice from among the witchborn fae.” Natisha kept her jaw tight. “Give me the seventh heart, and I will consume it fresh. Touch not my daughters, and I will consider your bargain fulfilled. You will be free of your debt to me. Do as I bid you, or your mate will become the first to taste my curse.”
Oh, sure.
Now she was onboard with my murder plan.
With one death, I could do as she asked, fulfill our bargain, and be done with her. But I would be the one doing her the favor. She was offering me nothing. Sparing him in this place didn’t mean a thing if she unleashed her curse upon his family as soon as she escaped. Midas would die either way.
To give her the final heart was to condemn my city, my friends, and those I considered family.
I was the future potentate. No matter the cost to me and mine, I had taken a vow, and I would honor it.
“Canthrig will crush your mate if you disobey me.” Natisha smiled then, certain she had won. “You would not allow harm to come to him. You are soft, as I once was, but I will do you this favor and teach you how to survive.”
“I’ve survived fine on my own, but I appreciate the offer.”
“Canthrig?” Natisha snapped her fingers. “You have my permission.”
The creature squeezed Midas in her fist, and small pops rang out as his bones were broken.
“We…will…not…bend,” he wheezed. “Atlanta is…ours.”
“How do we take her down?” I kept my voice low for Ambrose’s ears alone. “We’re both crackling with magic. You can’t have much room left.”
“We must unleash what we have stored,” he agreed. “We must perform a rite of magnitude.”
Magnitude.
There was that word again.
It must hold more meaning than my limited magic know-how could assign.
“Such as?”
“I consumed the latent magic of the other gates,” he reminded me, “which destroyed them.”
“Yeah, I was there.” I resisted the urge to roll my hand to get him talking. “What about it?”
Ignoring my impatience, he continued, “Had I channeled that same power back into the gate…”
Finally, the light dawned. “You would have opened it.”
“This gate was meant to be opened by a coven,” he warned, “not a single person.”
“Good thing you’re not a person.” I slapped him on the back. “Get started.”
“Have you considered…” he wet his lips, “…you might be as trapped here as Natisha without the hearts?”
“Can you circumvent the spell on the portal and get us through?”
“I will do my best.”
“That’s all any of us can do.” I blew out a long breath. “I’ll distract Natisha and her goon.”
The question was in his posture, but he didn’t ask how I planned to accomplish my half of the objective.
Allowing his shadows to thin and swirl, Ambrose slinked toward the gateway, which was easily five times larger than the previous, and set about his task. That kind of magical output would draw notice. Fast.
We had to be ready to run when the faegate activated. And by we, yeah, I meant Midas, Remy, and me.
Somehow, someway, we were all blowing this toxic popsicle stand together.
It was one thing to stand before Natisha and uphold my vows to the city with righteous fury.
It was another to allow her and her minion to hurt my mate while I looked on, unbending.
I wasn’t all that strong, not really. I didn’t want to find out how easily I would break. How easily Hadley would break. She was more resilient than Amelie. But at the end of the day, I was still me, whoever that was, and I loved Midas more than I had ever loved anyone.
“Choose your dinner.” I gestured to the fallen women. “Who looks tastier?”
“The women with the talon pendants on their lapels are mine. You may take any other you choose.”
“Okay.” I had done this, and I could do it again, but goddess, I didn’t want more blood on my hands. “I’m partial to blondes, so I’ll hack up the brunette. It’s a mercy killing, really. Do you see how much eye shadow she’s wearing? Smoky eyes are one thing, but she looks like a raccoon who got dumped the night before prom.”
“You waste my time.” Natisha glanced toward the creature, and it flexed its fingers. “Do you want him dead? You are mated. Your place as beta is secure. You will inherit the pack from his mother if you do nothing, as long as you can hold it. He has given you no heirs, but otherwise, his purpose is done.”
“I’m not so hot on having kids,” I admitted. “This bonkers vendetta of yours is not making me regret that choice. Like at all. Not even a little bit.”
Between the dangers of my position, both with the OPA and the pack, and my upbringing, I couldn’t picture me pushing a stroller. Pretty sure my mother wrecked the whole procreation thing for me when I was still a child myself.
“Children are a blessing.” Her lips thinned. “They are also a curse.”
A bloodline curse for a cursed bloodline.
Fitting to use your own blood to wipe out a line you helped birth.
You know, if you were a banana sundae with extra bananas.
“Mmm-hmm.”
“I have never loved as I loved my first daughters, and you see what misery that bond has wrought.”
Movement snared the corner of my eye, but I couldn’t afford to shift my focus off Natisha.
“I see a woman who got dumped by her man, who has held a grudge for goddess only knows how many centuries, and who would rather burn a city and its people to the ground than move on with her life.” I shrugged. “You’re pathetic. You’re bitter. You’re miserable. Basically, you’re my mother made over. Except she was content to ruin my life. You’re not going to be happy until you wreck everyone else’s.”
A flicker of light passed through the gate, and Natisha’s neck twitched as if she and it were connected.
“What kind of person holds a grudge for this long?” I kept pushing her buttons. “Not a sane one.”
“You dare?”
“I do.”
As I took a bold step forward, a white-sequined blur of motion punched her in the face, right in the nose.
The element of surprise toppled Natisha, and the ancient fae cracked her skull on the unforgiving stone.
Remy had thrown herself into the fight. Several of her. And all of them appeared to be in one piece.
Thank the goddess.
“You…” Natisha rasped, “…will…pay…for that…”
Already, the healer was sitting upright, shaking off the headshot.
“Hadley,” Ambrose yelled, the faegate core rippling as it came alive with power. “The time is now.”
“I’m not leaving without Midas,” I shouted back. “Hold on.”
The giant spun until she made me dizzy, trying and failing to keep her eyes on the Remys swarming her.
Swords in hand, I blocked out her struggle and settled in to play distraction for Natisha.
We had to get Midas, and to do that, we had to go through the giantess first.