“How does it feel, Mother? To be weak? To be at the mercy of someone who should love you more than life itself, but instead wants to see you suffer? To see you die?”
Her mouth pressed to a grim line as Knox and I took a labored step forward. “I could never have loved you.” She somehow spat those words like a royal from her throne and not a captive about to die. Blue flame shot higher into the sky, and I could feel the warmth overtaking me, that comfortable feeling slowly growing painful.
Over the whipping winds, I heard someone roaring my name. Heard something heavy hit the ground behind me. Heard the roar of a feral beast. But nothing could reach me; I was too far gone. I was vengeance and magic incarnate, and not even the fire consuming my body could stop me.
“Then I guess it’s a good thing I never needed you to.”
With a war cry all my own, fire erupted from every part of my body and shot toward the fey queen. Her mouth flew open in a silent scream, the rush of magic drowning out her wails entirely as she watched her precious amulet melt in my grasp—as her life slipped away.
“Goodbye, Mother,” I uttered through flaming lips.
I looked on as her body shone white-hot from within, then began to disintegrate to ash. Piece by tiny piece, the tornado of wind enclosing us carried her away until there was nothing left—nothing but an eerie wisp of magic wavering in front of me. But it didn’t waver long. Like the fey king’s had with Knox, it slammed into my chest and spread through my body like a demon possession. I gasped from the surge of power overwhelming me.
And then it stopped. As did the lancing pain in my side.
I felt the connection between Earth and Faerie begin to dissolve as I staggered forward a step, barely able to stand on my own, and collapsed to my knees where the queen had just stood. Lying on the ground was her golden crown, and the second I touched it, that connection snapped.
Faerie was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Piper!” Merc bellowed. Seconds later, he scooped me up in his arms, my body still aflame, and hugged me to his chest until the fire burning over my skin and through my veins snuffed out, the winds died down, and I fully realized what I’d just done. What we’d just done. “You did it,” he whispered to me, his lips moving against the top of my head. “She’s gone…”
Relief washed over me. “Knox! We did it!” Joy seeped into my weary bones as I turned to face the one whose power had helped me defeat the fey queen. The gasoline to my fire. “We really did it...”
My eyes fell to the ground where the alpha lay only feet away, staring up at the midnight sky as his wolves surrounded him. “Knox?” I called cautiously as I wriggled out of Merc’s hold. But there was no answer. I ran to him and crashed to my knees at his side. All that greeted me were his vacant, empty eyes. “No,” I gasped as I grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “No, no, no…” I dug my fingers into his flesh. “Help me heal him,” I choked out between frantic breaths.
Nothing happened.
“Help me heal him!” I screamed.
Nothing still.
“I am the goddamn queen of Faerie, and I demand that you heal him now!”
But no magic answered my call.
Because even on Earth, I could not heal the dead.
I pulled him into my lap and let loose an unholy sound that rivaled a banshee’s cry. I sobbed and rocked and clutched his dead body like holding onto him would somehow keep him with me—like he couldn't really die if I didn't let him go. Twice before, I’d thought he’d died trying to save me.
This time, it seemed he really had.
“Piper,” Kat called as she slowly crouched down beside me. “Piper, look at me.” With a gentleness that barely registered, she cupped my face and turned me to look at her. When I finally did, a single, fat tear slowly trickled down her face, carving a jagged line through the blood staining it. “He’s gone,” she said, choking on that final word. “Knox is gone…”
I clutched him tighter still.
“But why?” I asked. Another sob broke through, and my body shook as the reality of what he had done slammed into me like the fey queen’s magic. “Why didn’t he stop?”
“Because he knew you couldn’t do it without him,” Reinhardt said as he walked up next to us. “He knew you would need all of his strength to defeat the queen—and that he would likely die in the process.”
All the air in my lungs flew out in a whoosh of breath, and I folded over top of him protectively, as though I could somehow keep his soul from leaving, even though I knew it already had.
“He sacrificed himself,” Merc said from behind me, “to save you. To save us all.”
As the weight of his words pressed down, Grizz, in bear form, inched up to my side and nudged my shoulder with his muzzle before lying down next to the alpha who had taken him in and resting his massive head on his arm.
“But I didn’t really get to say goodbye,” I whispered, pushing the stray hairs from Knox’s face.
“He loved you, Piper,” Foust said. “This was his way of showing it. This was his goodbye.”
I looked up to where Jagger, Foust, Brunton, and Liam stood. The pain on their faces as they looked down upon their fallen brother was too much to bear. A low, keening sound escaped me as I hugged Knox’s cooling body to my chest and rocked.
He’d found me in those Alaskan woods, and from that moment on, he’d done everything within his power to protect me—to keep me safe. But beyond that, he’d pushed me to be what he, above all others, could sense that I was. The force of nature I was destined to be. And even at the end, he’d had my back while he’d spurred me on, even knowing it would mean his death.
And now he was gone.
“You have to let him go, Piper,” Kat said softly as she disentangled my arms from his body.
“But—”
“I understand,” she said, pinning those sharp blue eyes on me. “I understand…”
She freed Knox from me and pushed Grizz away, then pulled me to my feet amid the wolves—Alaskan and New York combined—and other supernaturals now surrounding us. The guilt I felt as they looked at me was worse than any wound I’d ever endured—even my burns.
Then, without prompting, the pack and Kat turned their heads to the sky and let loose a mourning cry that shook the very ground Knox lay upon. As they honored their fallen wolf, my eyes drifted to where the vampires stood at a respectful distance. The look of sadness on Merc’s face was unlike anything I’d ever seen. When the wolves finished honoring their dead alpha, Merc, his brothers, and the surviving enforcers approached, blades in hand. Each pressed the sharp edge to his palm simultaneously and drew it across his flesh. Then they raised their hands high above Knox’s corpse as their king spoke.
“For our fallen brother,” Merc said softly. “As he shed his blood for us, so shall we shed ours for him.”
A macabre red rain pattered upon Knox’s body as the enforcers honored him as they would their own. I could only imagine the snide remark Knox would have made had he been there to see it. How he would have told Merc that he had gone soft. How they would have egged each other on without mercy until Grizz or Kat or I was forced to intervene. Whatever bizarre bond the two had shared had not been broken in death.