When I moved it away, she grabbed it again and held it. I offered her whatever comfort I could then, so fucking glad I could give her what I never received.

Solidarity. Understanding. Love.

The very things I’d once begged the Fates for. Reaching a hand to the skies to save me from the prison of Vagach’s house. Gripping the earth like I could dig my way to my home and away from the torture of being married to him. Shrieking into a pillow as my family perished one by one.

And all they’d given me was their backs. Silence. Stillness.

Until now.

A tear carved down my cheek. Another coated the back of my throat in salt. I choked on them as savage, repressed emotions clawed up from the depths of my being.

Rokath appeared in my mind like a beacon in the dark. “I’m so sorry you suffered, Assyria, and that I played a part in that during our initial encounters. I hope my devotion to you now shows you all the love you desire and more. I will spend every day proving that you are not just wanted. You are cherished.”

“It does,” I told him, my voice weak. More hot tears swept from my eyes. “Never stop.”

“Never,” he swore. “You’re mine. To protect even if I must rip the world apart for you. To crave like I do my next breath. To possess until all you know is my name. In this life, in the next, and the one after, where I will find you bleeding and broken and burn whomever dared to make you feel that you are anything less than a fucking alter upon which to worship.”

His words rewound time and pieced the fractures of me back together. Overcome, all I could do was send warmth back through our bond before the tide dragged me out. Wave after wave crashed through me—of grief, of rage, of trauma. Kiira held my hand tighter, and together, we wept for everything we’d lost. Everything we’d had to suffer because of our sex.

“United, we are stronger,” I murmured through a throat thick with emotion.

“We are,” she whispered back.

“Xannirin freed the fallen,” I rasped. “He made rape a crime punishable by death.”

She turned over then, and I mirrored her. Her eyes were puffy and red, no doubt a reflection of my own. “He did?”

I nodded, another wash of tears dripping onto the bed. “Apparently, many volunteered to join those going to the wall.”

A half-smile tugged up the corner of her mouth. “Who wouldn’t? When the alternative is being forced to do something you don’t want.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying all along,” I laughed, the sound coarse and watery.

We hugged each other then, silent witnesses to the changes occurring because of our insistence. Because we were tired of being used, abused, and broken, all for the male’s gains. When we separated, I dried my eyes. “Fuck, I really need to wash my face now.”

Kiira laughed, pushing herself upright. “And your mouth with soap. You curse like the soldiers who have served for decades now.”

I couldn’t deny that. “At least once a day, I realize I sound exactly like Rokath. Barking orders, making thinly veiled threats, intimidating the soldiers.”

Kiira followed me into the bathing chamber. A deep tub stood against one wall, while a basin and mirror greeted us straight ahead. Between the two was a chamber pot, thank the Fates. I’d had enough of latrines for my entire lifetime. I turned the taps and filled the washbasin so we could both wipe the grime and tear stains away.

“He’s starting to sound like you too. Stopping to consider others’ feelings on the matter,” Kiira commented, finding another cloth to dry her face and tossing me one too.

“I guess that’s the point of a mating bond, isn’t it? Two souls becoming one.”

“It brings out the best of both of you. Holds the rest of us to a higher standard. Shows the world what true devotion is. Makes us believe in sacred bonds.” Kiira listed off a litany of other repercussions to our blessing.

My mind flashed to the portrait Kiira had insisted Rokath and I do before our departure. The copy I had in my bags. The moment stood so clearly in my mind, I didn’t even need to look at it again to bring back the feelings that standing over the bloody battlefield, staring up at my mate, had evoked.

That drawing was supposed to spread the mythos of the two of us like wildfire. I sincerely hoped it did. It was so different, wanting to be seen, rather than trying to hide.

I squared my shoulders and looked at myself in the mirror.

The girl who once sought refuge among the garden plants, praying for her violent husband to pass her by, flickered behind my reflection. But I didn’t look away. I saw her, acknowledged the part she played in my story. Thanked her for never giving up.

Because if she had, I wouldn’t be standing here, on the precipice of winning a war, with my mate by my side.

You’ve got this, Assyria.

It was time for me to display the true fire that lay inside me. To bring the males of this army to their knees in veneration of my power.

But most importantly, it was time to make the Angels fear me too.

This time, I wouldn’t just survive; I’d lead. With Kiira, with the former priestesses, with the fallen…we’d carve a new future in blood.

“Ready to take our rightful place as leaders during this war?” I asked the High Priestess, who had suffered as much as any of us for Xannirin’s ambition. For the war waged against the Angels. For being the only female to stand against her two male cousins.

“I am,” she replied, shaking her hair out. Then, she twisted it around her finger and secured it at the base of her neck with a leather strip. “May the Weaver open wide our path. May the Giver bless our magic so that it never fails us. May the Reaper turn her eye onto the Angels. May the Fates witness our rise and bolster our success.”

Each prayer, struck like a war drum, reverberated in my bones. “May your thread hold strong, High Priestess.”

Kiira’s answering grin was as vicious as my own. “May your gift never fade, Szélhámos.”

With disjointed groans, Grem and Zeec rose, shaking out their fur. Their nails clicked as they landed on the floor. Kiira and I pulled on our boots, and I secured my helmet again, before we slipped into the hall.

Shouts dragged us outside like a rope around our waists. This transition, yet again, would not be an easy one, but we’d already done it once, and we’d certainly be able to do it again.

They’d buried us before, thinking we were weak.

Not realizing they were planting fire-mouthed, thorny seeds.

And now, we’d bloom by their side in battle—sharp, devious, and wicked.

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48

“I’ve been fighting in this army for ten years. Survived too many battles to count. All without a female ‘watching my back’ with her magic,” a Vezető snarled down at me.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “You will speak to me with respect. I am the Szélhámos,” I hissed. Kiira stood by my side, her posture similar to my own as we faced off with this group of detractors. Grem and Zeec flanked us, the latter raising his hackles at the offending male.

Rokath and Rapp were elsewhere, dealing with messes of their own. Apparently, in all our time away, many had forgotten my mate’s departing decree. Factions had formed within battalions, those more welcoming of additional aid, while others, like this stupid male, were seasoned and hardened against the violence. They’d been in so long and so deep they couldn’t see anything outside of swinging their blades.

He scoffed, a sharp, derisive sound that made me want to curl my lips back from my teeth and bite. “A leadership position you did not earn. You were merely given it because you fucked the Halálhívó.”

Fury ravaged the last scrap of my patience. “That’s it,” I muttered under my breath. Vicious obsidian burst from my hands, swirling around us in a frenzied display of my power. One section lashed out and wrapped around the male’s throat, lifting him off the ground. His feet flailed through the air. “I am the mate of the Halálhívó. And you’ve been serving long enough to know that his wrath is not something you want to incur. Not that I need him here to protect me. I am certainly capable of that on my own.”