Page 50 of Renegade Queen

“Kill me,” whoever was inside the armour begged in a whispered plea. “Please, just end it.”

“No,” I gritted out. “I’m saving you whether you like it or not.”

I saw the despair and the regret lingering in his gaze, and I wondered how aware he’d been when he’d done the things he’d been forced to do. Was he a silent passenger in his own body, powerless to stop whatever had control and was slowly feeding from him?

And that was when my anger finally took control. Not just at what this poor man had been through, not just for the woman and her children who’d been ripped from their homes in the night, and the only person who dared to fight for them left dead in the street.

But, finally, for the first time in decades, for myself.

For all the people who’d died at the hands of the man who wanted what he didn’t deserve. For my family. My court. For every second of my life that had been stolen from me. The dreams I’d never seen come true. The years of solitude.

And I was so fucking angry.

The scream that ripped out of me then was like one from a rabid animal, and I felt something crack inside me. Power like I’d never felt before rushed out of me, and The Endless finally dropped to his knees, the man inside the armour screaming with me as he fell.

It stopped as quickly as it had started. That void was just gone. I didn’t feel it break or pull away. It was just gone. And in its place, there was an actual person.

As I pulled away, unsure what to do next, he collapsed backward, and I gently laid him on the ground. My eyes locked with The Endless that had been fighting Dean and Maddox, and it stopped, staring back at me. Uncaring about the two men that circled it.

Whatever was inside that armour, it wasn’t the body that occupied the same space. Those blue eyes flared, a silvery magic filling them instead. And I recognised the vile bastard like it hadn’t been decades since I’d last seen him.

“I’m coming for you,” I seethed, slowly climbing to my feet. “I know you’re watching. You know who I am. You’ve seen what I can do. You should have come for me when you had the chance, Arik. Because this doesn’t stop until you’re dead. And I’m going to enjoy stripping everything from you and watching you bleed at my feet.”

It didn’t respond. I didn’t know if it was even capable of it. But that silvery light flickered until the blue flooded back into its gaze, and then it turned and walked away.

I looked around the clearing. Ryder and the prisoners were gone. Hopefully, Fizzle was leading them to the caves already. Tank’s bear was unhappily chuffing at the now dead Endless under its paws, and then my eyes met Dean’s.

“You are in so much fucking trouble right now,” he seethed before he turned and walked away from me.

Yeaaaaaah. That wasn’t a conversation I was looking forward to.

Chapter 23

Maddox

No one said a word as Alyssa led us to the caves she’d mentioned before. I hadn’t realised we were so close to the shoreline until we were practically upon it. There was no sound, and the sea sat motionless, as still as a lake.

Alyssa frowned at the water for a moment before she turned and followed a barely noticeable dirt track down to a small inlet.

I huffed as I hitched the unconscious guy further onto my shoulder. It didn’t help that Tank had his other side and was nearly a foot taller than me. In reality, he was probably carrying most of his weight, which I was more than grateful for. Who knew armour weighed so fucking much?

Dean hadn’t offered to help. He was so far in the black mood that had consumed him that he’d literally grabbed our packs from where we’d left them and stormed away. Alyssa had to call after him when it became apparent he was going the wrong direction. It didn’t help that he also had Tank’s change of clothes. I didn’t particularly want to stare at this guy’s junk for any longer than I had to because I was beginning to feel inadequate at the sight of it.

It would have been nice to get that little piece of information before we’d been changed into shifters. It didn’t even occur to me to think about the whole ripping-through-your-clothing problem we’d be facing.

That was probably the least of our problems when you thought about it. If we survived this place, we’d essentially given up our entire lives. We wouldn’t be returning to the army, and I had no idea what our next move would be. Living through this was probably more than enough to worry about for now.

Back there at the inn, I’d felt the lion for the first time, and I didn’t know how to reconcile the emotions in my mind. At least it didn’t happen again this time. I’d put on a brave face, trying to be all business when we’d been talking about storming into that fight to rescue those prisoners, but deep down, I was shitting myself.

When we’d heard that scream, when Alyssa had leapt from her seat, and that bartender had tackled her to the ground, I’d felt it. The need to kill. To tear into flesh and taste his blood coat my tongue. It was my lion’s need to protect Alyssa, but I’d never felt anything that violent inside me before. And now I had an animal occupying my body that didn’t think like a human. It saw a need to protect, and it wanted to do that in the only way it knew how, with violence and blood… and it liked it.

And it scared the shit out of me because, for a second, I actually agreed with it.

Following the small cliffside path, we turned a corner taking us out of view, and a small sandy beach came into sight. It was so tiny that it would easily be missed if you weren’t looking for it. Footsteps marked the sand leading up to the cave mouth, and an uneasy part of me settled when I saw the reassuring sign that Ryder had already made it here.

“What are we going to do with the prisoners we freed?” I asked, mainly because I couldn’t take the silence much longer.

“You should be more concerned about this guy,” Tank grumbled.