Reclaimed (Shadow Beast Shifters, #2)(97)

I placed my hand on his arm, both of us needing the fortification. “This is why you never found any information,” I breathed. “This world was blocked from the Library of Knowledge, making the realm the perfect place to contain it in secret.”

He shook his head, squeezing his eyes closed. “But it was stolen by fae. By a family friend who tricked us all into thinking they were on our side.”

“Ixana,” I growled, “is the queen of deception. Of illusion. And she alone has controlled the spell on the door that kept the realm barred from the other worlds.”

There was a decent chance, that even Kristoff was part of her elaborate scheme to get us exactly where she needed us, to ensure all of this would happen. He was probably dead, despite what the others had seen.

“Why didn’t she just collect all the creatures herself?” I wondered out loud. “She obviously had the time and power to get it done.”

Angel’s wings shot out behind her as her face darkened into furious lines. “She was trying to, but even with her considerable power, there was one part always off limits to her. The land and creatures near the Nexus.”

And I’d come along and just handed them all to her on a silver platter.

Flames of my fury licked around me, and it took concerted effort not to rage and kill everything in this room. That would be a little counterproductive to what I wanted to achieve here today.

“How do we stop her?” Reece bit out, his hands clenched at his sides. He was watching for Shadow, that much was clear as he scanned that unbroken lavafall through which the beast and the bitch had disappeared.

At this point, I was done waiting. Shadow hadn’t been destroyed by the fire, so I had a shot. A shot was enough today.





48





I didn’t ask permission because I knew they’d stop me, especially Angel. None of them had been born of the mists like me, so there was no way they could cross the threshold. I had to do this alone, without my mist, because down here, Midnight was the enemy.

Sidling away from the group, I found they were thankfully occupied with the intensely bright sunburst stone, trying to calculate if touching it would kill them all.

Calling my flames, I felt the singing in my blood as more heat filled the air. My wolf leant me her strength as well as I literally stepped through a barrier of boiling lava. It burned at first, and I screamed at the unexpected jolt of agonizing pain. In the same instant, my flames surged to the surface, cutting that pain off so I could finish crossing unscathed.

My flames counteracted the burn of this lava. Protecting me. Healing the few burns I had received.

On the other side, my creatures howled and brayed at me, the noise near deafening. Angel and the guys were calling to me as well, and while I couldn’t hear them through the lava barrier, I recognized their body language, and could lip read well enough to know they were not happy about my rash decision to go lava diving.

Eh, we could deal with that later.

Drawing on my bond to the creatures, I filtered through their energies, my heart hurting at how scared they were. These were intelligent, feeling beings, and they had been standing in line waiting to be slaughtered. Even worse, watching as their brethren were killed in front of them.

Death was not good enough for Ixana. She needed to suffer for an eternity.

Ten fucking eternities.

I was surprised to find a lot of the creatures here weren’t bonded to me, so as Angel had surmised, Ixana had been gathering them on her own as well. The ones she could get to anyway.

Before I could figure out how to bond the rest to me, I was jolted by another creature death, and since Ixana was still occupied with Shadow, I had no idea how the creatures were still dying.

It wasn’t until I pushed through the abervoqs to get to the edge that I saw about five of her furred people throwing my creatures off the cliff.

“NO!” I screamed, my energy rippling from me as I sent Ixana’s minions freefalling straight off the side and into the lava below. Now it was Ixana’s turn to scream and rage, and I heard her from in the depths of the lavafalls. Shadow’s rumble followed, and at least I knew he was alive.

Now to save everyone else.

Knowing that all of this was tied to the stone, I decided that was the key. I needed to break the connection it had to Ixana and the mists, removing her true advantage.

But how to do that and survive?

Len would probably know if grabbing the stone would destroy me, but since he wasn’t here, and I couldn’t hear them through the lava, I’d have to do what I did best: wing it.

What could possibly go wrong?

“Lift me, please,” I said to an abervoq, one of the largest of the creatures.

It understood me, reaching down to haul me up, holding my body above its head. I had to wiggle myself around, but after climbing up its arm and standing on that large, meaty paw, I was just about the right height to jump for the stone.

Crouching, preparing myself mentally for what pain might come from this, I shot one last look at my friends, finding all of them staring at me in horror.

No, wait… They weren’t looking at me. They were looking behind me…

I spun in time to find Ixana right there, smashing into my side, knocking me down off the creature. As we hit the ground, my flames and wolf surged up, shredding through my clothes as we tore into her without thought of consequence.