PREPERATIONS
Querencia (noun): an area in the arena taken by the bull for a defensive stand in a bullfight.
The infected settlement was a sprawling palatial structure, which filled the valley. It was composed of red bricks and arches that were dusted in snow.
In the center of it all, a sprawling courtyard was filled with trees wrapped in twinkling lights.
It was pretty.
Malum swore viciously as he lay on his stomach with binoculars pressed against his face. Jax was beside him in a similar position, frowning as he watched the valley below.
“What is it?” Cobra asked as he squatted under the low-hanging rocks with the rest of us.
Six angels.
Four shifters.
Three devils.
Two demons.
Two Princes of Darkness.
One half-breed.
And one fae queen who’d recently discovered she was an angel.
Twenty people who would never have crossed paths if it weren’t for nightmarish monsters, truant gods, and a controlling, oligarchic regime.
The twins sat behind me, and I leaned back against them with Sadie resting across my side as I inhaled her familiar cranberry scent.
Once again, we were together on the side of a freezing, snowy mountain.
Why weren’t more wars held in tropical locations? That was the real question.
The sun set on the horizon, and the sky was a dark gray.
Horse settled onto my shoulder, his long tail feathers hanging off the side of my arm majestically. At least someone was looking good these days.
“Fuck this,” Malum whispered. “Could one thing go right for us in this blasted realm?”
“What is it?” Scorpius asked, his arm draped over Orion’s shoulders protectively.
Jax and Malum dropped their binoculars and looked at each other. Ever since Dick had started preparing us for war, they’d been sharing silent glances and nodding. Like they could read each other’s minds.
“I’m getting worried,” Sadie whispered next to me.
I blew onto my stiff hands to warm them and replied, “Don’t worry. I’ll save you, princess.”
She stuck her tongue out at me, and I tried to grab it while she squealed.
My head still ached from building my mind palace. My shoulders also hurt, and I rolled them to relieve the dull pain that had appeared after I’d sprouted wings that didn’t work like a demented butterfly.
Life was truly marvelous.
At least I hadn’t been born a man; that would really suck…although, my penis would be huge.
Luka’s hands traced patterns absent-mindedly across my back, and John played with my curls as he whispered something under his breath to his brother. The jewel of death hung heavy against my chest, and a diamond bracelet glinted on my wrist.
I slumped back against the warmth of the twins and cherished their proximity.
Lately, they were one of the few things that staved off the madness.
The perpetual cold inside my bones, headaches, and pain in my shoulders were overstimulating at best and torturous at worst.
Sadie patted my head and sniggered, “Please, I don’t need you to save me—remember, I can enslave you at any time.” She winked. “Plus, we get to battle beside each other in an intergalactic war to save the world. It should be fun.”
I pulled out my pipe and inhaled deeply. “False.” I blew smoke in her face. “Fun is a shopping trip, or when we tried to lose our virginity together at the fae sex clinic.”
We both frowned as we thought about how that day had gone horribly wrong.
I chuckled. “Never forget we both checked yes for elbow play.”
She grimaced and clutched her arm protectively. “I still have nightmares about someone violating them.”
I squinted. “I never thought about it—but how would that work? What is sexual about an elbow? I have so many questions.”
She made a face. “I think it’s pretty clear.”
It was times like this where I worried the most about her.
“What do you mean, it’s clear?” I asked. “Nothing about something called ‘elbow play’ is clear to me.”
The twins made a choking noise behind me, and we ignored them.
“Grow up, Aran,” Sadie said as she shook her head like I was being stupid, then she snatched the pipe from my fingers before I could react and took a long drag. “Damn, I forgot how much this stuff hits.”
I rolled my eyes at her.
Obviously.
I only smoked the best.
“Drugs are not allowed in battle,” a high-pitched female voice said haughtily from a few feet away. “It was stated in the High Court’s informational packet, multiple times.”
Sadie, Horse, and I turned in unison to stare at the gorgeous woman who crouched against the rocks.
Black-lipstick-stained lips contrasted with her cornflower-blonde hair. She was the angel who’d slaughtered the devil and assassin in the Legionnaire Games.
Horse looked away and dug his beak into his wings to groom the new feathers along the tips. He was clearly unimpressed with what he saw.
“What’s your name?” I twirled my pipe with my tongue, and Sadie’s eyes glowed intensely, a scarlet sheen reflected off the snow.
“Rina,” the angel answered through gritted teeth.
“Well, Rina,” I said slowly with a false smile. “The High Court has abandoned us, and we’re all probably going to die at the hands of parasitic monsters.”
She frowned.
“Violently.”
A few feet away from me, the demons shook with silent laughter.
I inhaled enchanted smoke. “Personally, I’m going to keep smoking. If you want to die stone-cold sober, then be my guest. But worry about yourself.”
“You know, I’ve never thought about it that way,” Sadie said as I passed her the pipe. “It really makes you think about things.”
“What things?” I asked.
She stared at the smoke. “Things.” She spoke like she was saying something deep.
There’s my special girl.
“You’re so right.” I nodded in agreement and let her have her philosophical moment. I was nothing if not supportive.
Rina wrinkled her nose. “It’s against the rules for everyone, especially us. We’re the leaders. We need to set a good example.”
“That’s not really our thing,” Sadie mumbled as she smoked, and I nodded in agreement. We had a reputation to uphold, and it involved drinking excessive amounts of demon brew and making questionable life choices.
Rina’s pretty face contorted. “I wasn’t talking to you, half-breed mutt.”
Stunned silence.
“What did you just call my mate?” Cobra’s voice was serrated, and there was a loud schhhhhhk as Xerxes pulled out his knives.
I started to stand up, but Sadie pulled me back down.
No one stopped Cobra.
He stalked across the narrow rocks and glared down at Rina with slit pupils as black shadow snakes slithered across his exposed skin.
The hairs on the back of my neck prickled.
Danger intensified.
Knox moved in a blur until he stood nose to nose with Cobra. One of his eyes gleamed black, while the other glowed yellow, and his expression was cruel.
A low hiss erupted from Cobra’s chest.
Knox’s features smoothed into a pleasant expression, and he took a step back. He relaxed his shoulders like he wasn’t a threat and said suavely, “She doesn’t interact with grounders often, forgive her. She’s forgotten her manners.” He glared down at Rina, who visibly cowed beneath his censure.
“Grounders?” Vegar asked.
The blond man kneeling next to Rina tilted his nose up. “It’s what we call people who aren’t angels.” He was equally gorgeous and gave off the same haughty air. I believed his name was Arthur, and they were clearly siblings.
“We mean no harm from it. Excuse us,” Knox said smoothly as he bowed his head.
His words fell on deaf ears. Tension expanded across the outcrop as the legions sized each other up.
Eyes narrowed as everyone realized at the same time that the angels were prejudiced against other species.
A headache pounded in my temple.
Working with them would be fun.
Not.
Xerxes cleared his throat and turned toward Jax and Malum pointedly. “Why were you two swearing? What did you see?”
The obvious attempt to change the topic worked because Knox backed away from Cobra and everyone focused on why we were freezing our butts off on the side of a mountain in the first place.
“We can see people in the courtyard,” Jax said slowly.
I squinted, but it was too far to see without binoculars.
Malum frowned. “These people, who we’re calling the infected, look like the villagers we’ve fought before.”
“That’s good,” Vegar pointed out, and Zenith nodded in agreement as he said, “Those people were mostly powerless and seemed primitive—”
“We should worry,” Malum cut him off.
Jax exhaled roughly and dragged his fingers through his long braids, gold chains tinkling as he said, “Their architecture is advanced, and they appear to have technology.”
His words sank in.
“Still, they could be mostly peaceful, and we could catch them unaware like we did in the other realms,” John said hopefully as he tugged on my curl.
Jax and Malum looked at each other.
Fire spread across Malum’s bronze head, and the flames reflected in silver eyes. His baritone voice was soft as he said, “Every woman and man who has walked through the courtyard has a long sword on their hips. They glow with blue enchantments. Every single one of them.”
No one spoke.
There was nothing to say.
Nauseousness made my head light because enchanted steel could slice through anything.
The slur on my back burned.
Enchanted weapons were extremely rare because metals naturally repelled enchantments. They were next to impossible to forge and extremely expensive.
I breathed unevenly.
These weren’t primitive, unarmed civilians like the ungodly we’d previously fought on mountainsides.
“What does this mean?” Rina asked.
Scorpius’s milky eyes stared off, far away, as he sneered, “It means we have to kill armed civilians and then the ungodly.”
“We can’t fight them like we have before.” Malum’s mouth pulled tight with worry.
Lothaire had insinuated months ago that the ungodly we fought were weaker than others.
Had he known?
Even back then?
Suddenly it made sense why he’d only let us fight with daggers.
It had been a warmup.
“We’ll use our powers and our weapons strategically,” Knox said as a broadsword of ice formed across his back. Six more crackled into existence on the backs of the other angels.
The air temperature dropped several degrees.
Frost burned my nose.
I silently stared at my frost-covered fingers and imagined a sword forming.
Nothing happened.
I was useless.
Flames spread down Malum’s head, across his shoulders, and he stared at Orion and Scorpius. “Yes.” His voice was rough like broken glass and whiskey. “We’ll have to use our powers.”
Silver liquefied into molten steel.
He exhaled roughly.
My heart rate increased, and I struggled to swallow as the leader of the kings pinned me with his gaze. The reason the High Court mandated group weekly therapy sessions was suddenly disturbingly clear.
They’d known the enemy had enchanted weapons.
Sweat dripped down my sides even though the temperature was freezing.
They’d known what we’d have to fight against.
I remembered the fear.
Petals swirled as Orion sang and entranced. Scorpius’s third eye opened wide and revealed the secrets of souls. Malum pulled a dagger from his flesh, and his red flames incinerated.
Bile scorched the back of my throat, and I pressed harder into John and Luka’s warmth. Arms wrapped around me and held me close.
I’d been pretending I had a choice.
Subconsciously I rubbed at the space on my hip where an enchanted tattoo used to be; like a fool I’d thought I could cut it away and be free from the kings.
I couldn’t even leave their presence because bond sickness still strummed through my veins.
The men who were instruments of mass slaughter depended on me because I was the only one who could stop them once they started killing.
The High Court had known all along what I’d have to do in this war.
They’d known my soul was tethered.
They’d known I would never escape.
Because at the end of the day, nothing had changed.
I was still enslaved.
To monsters.
