“Put him down,” I ground out, but my voice was little more than a hoarse whisper, the stone’s will still smashing down on mine.
Billy didn’t heed my advice, but Rutherglen did. The guys shouted at Billy to run or something as he rose from the floor with that fucking unnatural snap that suggested extra joints or something. He brushed off his shirt as Billy struggled to return to us, flicking his hand out and sweeping my lover off his feet and slamming him into the wall so fucking hard, fine cracks formed on the concrete.
“Fuck!”
I watched drunkenly as Jake and Mark got to their feet, struggling to approach Rutherglen at speed, but they went sailing through the air before they’d even gotten a few steps, falling like tossed dolls around the room, their faint groans the only indication I got that they were still alive.
So all this time, all these fucking alliances, all these connections are for what? I snapped at Lilith. The trials, the ascension?
This is the first one. If you fail it, you and your lovers will not survive and the Rutherglen will thrive.
What? Are you fucking serious? What was the point of all this ‘important work’ if it was just gonna end like this two minutes into trying to help people?
This is a war, and this is the first battle. There was no way to train you for this because there is only one outcome where you succeed. Only one of you who can get you out of this.
“Luc!” Liam shouted, answering the question that was rising inside me. “Mate, I know you’re fucking scared, but this is the only way.”
“No…” That deep voice, that steady tone was destroyed right now as I watched Lucas edge away, the chair making a horrible sound as it dragged along the concrete. One of many horrible sounds to come. “No, no, no!” He shook his head wildly as Rutherglen strode towards Jake. Said, “Nononono,” when that hand went under Jake’s jaw, forcing his eyes to meet Dave’s.
“You stupid fucking cunt,” Jake snarled. Never one to be cowed by a beating, he was way too familiar with the many gradations of pain, and it could not keep him down. “You can kill me, and it’ll make no fucking difference.”
“What a splendid idea,” Rutherglen said, his face a mess of blood and insanity.
He could have snapped Jake’s neck in a second, but as my lovers struggled to their feet, most failing, his fingers pinched down. If that wasn’t bad enough, I heard her scream, of defiance, of affront, of horror from beyond the door. It was muffled, but I knew Aen’s voice as sure as my own.
“Kira…”
Marlow hissed at me to get down, but I rose, hunched over from pain and being strapped to the fucking chair, straining against my bonds but unable to move them even an inch. I was the opposite of the catlike vicious creature I’d been the last time I was here, but I made my crab walking way towards them.
“Luc!” Liam cried. “Please, mate. He’s slipping, they’re all slipping. You can feel it.” Tears streamed down his and Lucas’ face as they watched Jake get slowly choked to death. He had no more smart mouth comments, reduced down to a hoarse, gagging sound.
Marlow tore past me, barrelling into Rutherglen to throw him off, but he was thrown to one side, giving me a chance as the Rutherglen’s attention diverted for just a fucking second.
I slammed into the fucking bastard’s body with everything I had, which admittedly wasn’t much, a ragged scream forcing its way out of my body. One that was echoed around the room.
“Stupid little cunt.”
Rutherglen’s words were a clipped statement right before he pushed me off him, sending me flying up, only to slam into the ceiling.
Fuck, I wasn’t gonna survive this fall. The chair would dig into my neck at force when I fell, snapping my spine as we hit the concrete.
“No!”
I heard Luc’s voice slow and distorted, everything moving so damn fucking slow. I closed my eyes, tried not to hear the screams now coming from beyond the door, and just felt it.
He hadn’t managed to take this—this bond, this connection that throbbed through the lot of us, even Mark. Being human wouldn’t help him escape this. We were going down, and we were going down together. My heart hurt more than my face ever had, burning brighter and brighter with what we’d forged together. We were a fucking dysfunctional family but I loved every single one of them, and I sent that down the bond as best as I could. I didn’t want that to shatter when I went. I wanted them to carry that through whatever Dave was gonna do. Gravity reached out and pulled me into its arms, ready to finish the job Rutherglen had started.
“NO!”
Luc’s word was a sonic boom that threw everyone back. There was no other power that could exist here, none but his. I felt the moment the stone popped, as every red power stone in the fucking world popped, and what they contained returned to its owner. Because he was the true heir. He always had been, growing up under his father and his tyrannical rule, and shying away from it. This was what Lilith meant, the only way out of it. Tears formed in my eyes as I was set down gently, the bonds falling away like nothing, the physical pain and injuries healing, but not the psychological ones. I got to my feet, everyone did, whole and complete now, the door swinging open to admit a shaken Aen clinging to a shredded dress that was replaced too. Everyone was OK, but one.
“No, no, no,” Rutherglen babbled, a pathetic imitation of Luc’s denial, because that’s always what he was, wasn’t he? We might be pawns moved around on the god’s board, but Rutherglen? He was nothing, and now his purpose had been fulfilled, he was gonna be swept from it.
“Please, please…”
“Has that ever worked with anyone who pleaded with you for mercy?” Jake asked, his eyes shining like lasers. “With the women, the fucking kids?” He was my bright, avenging angel right now, the light radiating from him like wings as he lifted his boot and stomped it down on Dave’s chest to the musical sound of his ribs cracking.
“You stupid fuck,” Billy said, prowling with that catlike grace of his towards the prone man, flicking his hand to send a cloud of black smoke at him. Dave begged for mercy as it shot up his nose, in his mouth, in his ears, before he started to scream.
“Fucking kill him,” Johnno ground out, the earth below him beginning to shake. “He’s not worth this shit, and I’m hanging on by a thread.”
“Johnno…” Liam said.
“Now.”
“This fuck, he…”
Mark moved through the cluster of fae with a kind of efficient swiftness none of us would have managed. He pulled his gun out as they argued, then shot Dave point blank in his head, his heart, and then his head again, the body jumping with each bullet.
“We need to get out of here,” Johnno said as the world began to shake.
Everyone streamed for the door, everyone but Aen, who just stood there, blank eyed and still clutching at the fabric of a dress that was now whole. I took her hand, her eyes sharpening, her body shifting form as I did, then he pulled me after them.
The Rutherglen estate was falling apart as we ran, chunks of plaster crumbling from the walls, people screaming, paintings smashing to the ground. We were forced to play leapfrog, jumping from one stable piece of flooring to another as that broke up as well, winding our way through the fucking maze of the estate until finally we reached the front door.