She was cheating…or maybe using her natural-born gifts to her advantage. She was using her magic to let the arrows have farther distance and accuracy. The Indres were the real threat. She needed to cut them down before they overrode the entire army.
“You too, Aubron Wellesley,” she shot back.
He laughed at the mention of his middle name. It was amazing that anyone could laugh under these circumstances. From here, she could see that they simply did not have enough troops. Even with Sarielle and Halcyon helping, the beasts and blood-magic soldiers were cutting their people down. And, like Cyrene had warned, the soldiers who had sliced through the front lines were now getting picked off on both sides.
She drew another arrow, not liking how few she had left in her quiver. She shot arrow after arrow after arrow. Taking out only prime targets. Not wasting a single shot.
“Cal!” Aubron cried. “Your right.”
Her attention wavered, and she whirled to her right. Just in time to raise her bow to break the fall of the sword. She heard the bow make a sickening crunch, and she winced. That had been her bow from home. One that she had made by hand two summers ago under her father’s instruction. Even though her mother hadn’t wanted her to have another bow after she outgrew the last.
Useless now.
She pushed the attacker back and discarded the bow. She withdrew a sword that Cyrene had personally handed to her out of the arsenal. It was well balanced for her height and strength.
She had never been more glad that she had spent every second she could training with Reeve to become nearly as good of a swordsman as she was an archer. The attackers were strong, but they’d clearly thought that the element of surprise would win them out. That a young girl would be the easiest target.
They were going to find out how wrong they were.
She swung her blade like a professional with the training of a High Order. Her steps were smooth and flowing. Her movements as enhanced by her well of magic as her shooting had been.
Cal matched her opponent, feeling the light weight of her blade and using that to her advantage. She severed the man’s arm before stabbing him in the stomach and kicking him out of her way.
She cut down another opponent. Engaged a woman who had not had enough practice with actual fighters. Then she took down another man. Three more women.
She knew that she was too young for this. That she shouldn’t be killing people at her age. That no one should have to do this in fact. But it was what she had and all she could do. The soldiers were still coming. And she had to hold the line.
These soldiers must have been snuck into the mountains under the cover of darkness so that they could disrupt the archers and cut off retreat for Cyrene’s army if it came down to that.
Now, it was them against her.
One girl to stop an army.
Adrenaline coursed through her. Her magic boosted her. Her sheer determination never wavered.
But she couldn’t hold out with this forever.
And the people on the field needed her bow and arrow.
Aubron stepped up to her side, and together, they did all that they could.
Even though they both knew…it wouldn’t be enough.
64
The Alpha
Ahlvie
Horrified, Ahlvie slowly turned in a circle on the battlefield.
They were losing.
That much was immediately obvious.
They could not sustain the combined force of the soldiers and blood magic and Indres and Braj. They hadn’t been trained well enough or prepared well enough to take on magical creatures like this. So few of the soldiers had enough magic to do anything against an Indres. He knew firsthand how easy it was to slide into their ranks and destroy them. He’d been forced to do it for Malysa.
He closed his eyes as the pain of that memory sliced through him.
Every action he’d taken as a slave to her was etched into his mind. He couldn’t just forget what he’d had to do. The things the beast had reveled in. The blood and torture and death. It had been him partly as much as the beast that Malysa had controlled.
It was why he hadn’t shifted since Cyrene healed him. Except for that one time to confirm that he could.
But fear bit at him.
Remembered trauma was etched into his skin like a tattoo of his horrors.
Still, he could see that they were failing.
That the water seekers could only hold out against the Indres for so long. That the Commander and his Guild were pitted against their own kind. The Honorary might be dead, but there were still hundreds more to dispatch. That Malysa had sent another army to stop their retreat. That, even now, Cal and Aubron were fighting to survive.
He could see it all.
And yet, he did nothing.
Nothing but raise his sword and take on more.
Nothing that really mattered in the grand scheme of things.
He could keep fighting like a human and lose.
Or he could embrace that part of him that he feared and detested…and maybe have a chance at survival.
He opened his eyes.
Stared down the nearest Indres.
They felt wrong. That was the first thing he had noticed when they appeared on the battlefield that morning. He was their alpha. He should be able to command them with ease, and yet he could no more than sense their presence.
Malysa had done something to them. Something to reprogram them so that he wouldn’t be in control. She’d had a backup plan for him. For everything. Of course. He should have known she wouldn’t make it easy on him.
But then he heard the words that Cyrene had said to him last night before they all tried to go to sleep.
“I know what I am asking you. I know how it haunts you. But the fact that you regret what happened and are tormented by it proves that she has no hold on you any longer. That you are as much human as you ever were.” Cyrene had touched his cheek. “We need you. It’s now or never, Ahlvie. I believe in you now, as you have always believed in me. Without question. You can do this.”
She was right.
He had always believed in her.
Had always seen something in her that, sometimes, she did not even see in herself. The strength and determination to succeed.
And he needed that right now.
To put the past behind him and do what needed to be done.
Ahlvie straightened his back, took in the scene of destruction before him, and then gave in. He shifted effortlessly. As easy as breathing after all the training he had done with Sonali in Kinkadia. Not healing like she’d promised. There had been no cure. Just torture. Torture only to be kidnapped and enslaved.
As he shucked off those horrors, his snarl could be heard for miles.
He reeled it all in, pictured the beautiful face of his wife—thankful that he’d had another day with her after everything—and then reached for all of his Indres. Because they were his and not Malysa’s. They had always been his. Since the moment he had defeated the previous alpha in the gardens of Aurum.
He felt them all. Every Indres on the battlefield.
They were wrong.
That was for sure.
Malysa had her hold on them.
The darkness that controlled each and every one.
But Ahlvie was their leader, and he was no longer of darkness. Malysa might have made these Indres. She might have had control of their leader for millennia. But Ahlvie was now of the light. He was full of Cyrene’s light. The Indres no longer belonged in the darkness either.