Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass #5)(162)

“I’ll kill you both,” Lorcan swore. “I’ll kill you—”

Elide looked at her arm.

There was a piece missing. From her forearm. There was blood gushing into the burnt remnants of grass. White bone jutting out—

Maybe she started screaming or sobbing or silently shaking.

“Don’t look,” Lorcan snapped, squeezing her face again to draw her eyes to his own. His face was lined with such wrath she barely recognized it, but he made no move against the males.

His power was drained. He’d nearly wiped it out shielding against Aelin’s flame and whoever had borne that other magic on the field. This shield … this was all Lorcan had left.

And if he lowered it so they could heal her … they’d kill him. He had warned them of the attack, and they’d still kill him.

Aelin—where was Aelin—

The world was blackening at the edges, her body begging to submit rather than endure the pain that reordered everything in her life.

Lorcan tensed as if sensing the oblivion that threatened. “You heal her,” he said to the gentle-eyed male, “and then we continue—”

“No,” she got out. Not for this, not for her—

Lorcan’s onyx eyes were unreadable as he scanned her face. And then he said quietly, “I wanted to go to Perranth with you.”

Lorcan dropped the shield.





It was not a hard choice. And it did not frighten him. Not nearly as much as the fatal wound in her arm did.

Fenrys had hit an artery. She’d bleed out in minutes.

Lorcan had been born from and gifted with darkness. Returning to it was not a difficult task.

But letting that glimmering, lovely light before him die out … In his ancient, bitter bones, he could not accept it.

She had been forgotten—by everyone and everything. And still she had hoped. And still she had been kind to him.

And still she had offered him a glimpse of peace in the time he’d known her.

She had offered him a home.

He knew Fenrys wouldn’t be able to fight Maeve’s kill order. Knew Gavriel would stay true to his word and heal her, but Fenrys couldn’t hold out against the blood oath’s command.

He knew the bastard would regret it. Knew the wolf had been horrified the moment Elide had jumped between them.

Lorcan let go of his shield, praying she wouldn’t watch when the bloodletting started. When he and Fenrys went claw-to-claw and fang-to-fang. He’d last against the warrior. Until Gavriel joined back in.

The shield vanished, and Gavriel was instantly kneeling, reaching with his broad hands for her arm. Pain paralyzed her, but she tried telling Lorcan to run, to put the shield back up—

Lorcan stood, shutting out her pleading.

He faced Fenrys. The warrior was trembling with restraint, his hands clenched at his sides to keep from going for any of his blades.

Elide was still sobbing, still begging him.

Fenrys’s taut features were lined with regret.

Lorcan just smiled at the warrior.

It snapped Fenrys’s leash.

His sentinel leaped for him, sword out, and Lorcan lifted his own, already knowing the move Fenrys planned to use. He’d trained him how to do it. And he knew the guard Fenrys let drop on his left side, just for a heartbeat, exposing his neck—

Fenrys landed before him, swiping low and dodging right.

Lorcan angled his blade for that vulnerable neck.

They were both blown back by an icy, unbreakable wind. Whatever was left of it after the battle.

Fenrys was up, lost to the blood fury, but the wind slammed into him. Again. Again. Holding him down. Lorcan struggled against it, but the shield Whitethorn had thrown over them, the raw power he now used to keep them pinned, was too strong when his own magic was depleted.

Boots crunched on the burnt grass. Sprawled on the bank of a little hill, Lorcan lifted his head. Whitethorn stood between him and Fenrys, the prince’s eyes glazed with wrath.

Rowan surveyed Gavriel and Elide, the latter still weeping, still begging for it to stop. But her arm …

A scratch marred that moon-white arm, but Gavriel’s rough battlefield healing had filled the holes, the missing flesh and broken bones. He must have used all his magic to—

Gavriel swayed ever so slightly.

Whitethorn’s voice was like gravel. “This ends now. You two don’t touch them. They’re under the protection of Aelin Galathynius. If you harm them, it will be considered an act of war.”

Specific, ancient words, the only way a blood order could be detained. Not overridden—just delayed for a little while. To buy them all time.

Fenrys panted, but relief flickered in his eyes. Gavriel sagged a bit.

Elide’s dark eyes were still glassy with pain, the smattering of freckles on her cheeks stark against the unnatural whiteness of her skin.

Whitethorn said to Fenrys and Gavriel, “Are we clear on what the hell will happen if you step out of line?”

To Lorcan’s eternal shock, they lowered their heads and said, “Yes, Prince.”

Rowan let the shields drop, and then Lorcan was hurtling to Elide, who struggled to sit up, gaping at her nearly healed arm. Gavriel, wisely, backed away. Lorcan examined her arm, her face, needing to touch her, smell her—

He didn’t notice that the light footsteps in the grass didn’t belong to his former companions.