Chapter 213: Brothers, Don’t Look— (Too Late.)
The moment she touched him, white light exploded from her body, sending a shockwave through the keep.
It hurt like a bitch and surprised her just as hard. A scream cut out of her mouth before she could kill it.
She heard glass shatter, which she assumed was the windows of the keep. Then she heard the yells of Dark Fae.
"Pull her off the dragon, brothers—"
"The moonpussy is on the ground and ready! Spread—"
"Bad vessel! Bad. Bad girl! I will still breed you—"
"My spine is visible from the outside and my wings are gone!"
"Your wings were ugly anyways."
The fact that they kept roasting one another mid-disintegration was either comedy gold or the most fucked-up thing she’d witnessed tonight. Both leaderboards were stacked.
"I have been reduced to a head and a torso. I maintain my position in the queue. First scent, first penetration—"
"Brother, run. Don’t look at the light! Don’t look at the—"
"I can’t stop looking at the light. It’s beautiful. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever—"
The light surged a second time and left her body the way a scream leaves a throat. Another scream followed it out of her mouth, so the comparison was accurate.
She tried not to put her full weight on him. He was bleeding. He was stabbed. Something still forced her down until her head was pressed to his chest and her body refused every command to move.
"I still call DIBS! One pump for—"
"DORIN just became mist! I just saw it happen!"
"To the portals, brothers! Run! My wings have melted. It’s too late for me—"
"Brothers, I want you to know that I love all of you and I called dibs."
"My seed is gone. The light sterilized me. Now I am turning into particles."
"Same."
"Me too."
The light continued flowing through her body, pouring from her onto Kael.
She heard Gavyn Holt shouting commands.
"MORE INCOMING!"
Her body unlocked all at once. She pushed herself off Kael and looked down at him.
His eyes were still closed.
"Don’t you dare," she whispered. "Don’t you dare die in my Keep."
Her palm moved on its own, pressing onto his chest, and she felt more of the light flow from her into him.
Keeping her palm on him, her head moved on its own. The light was controlling her again, and wanted to survey the damage. She let it.
Chaos was unfolding around them. White light washed over the Keep like sunlight, surrounding every wolf.
Bodies, ash, mist that used to be a person named Dorin, glowing wolves, burning portals, and the faint smell of something she refused to identify. This Keep was going to need a renovation and a goddamn exorcism in that order.
More Dark Fae were pouring from the portal but about half were evaporating before they got near.
She watched one reach for Gavyn Holt’s arm and immediately turn into ash. He looked at his arm. Looked at the ash on the ground. Said absolutely nothing because there were no words.
The pack understood. The light was coming from one place.
"Don’t let them touch her! EVERY FIGHTER, GUARD THE PRINCESS. NOTHING GETS THROUGH," Gavyn commanded.
She had to admit. Kael and Tyler promoted the right guy. He was overlooked by her father, no question.
Wolves moved. Bodies formed a ring around the courtyard.
Wave after wave, Dark Fae poured through the portals, singing funeral hymns for themselves, walking across the ash of their brothers like it was carpet.
The learning curve was nonexistent. The commitment was almost admirable if it wasn’t so fucking stupid.
"VESSEL ON HER KNEES, VESSEL ON HER BACK, FIRST TO SPILL INSIDE HER GETS THE PACK."
"RIPE LITTLE CUNT, READY AND WARM, FIRST LOAD IN STARTS THE SWARM."
Guinevere stood, aware and present, thoughts entirely her own. The power flooding her body was operating on a completely different chain of command that she wasn’t going to fight.
Show me, she thought to the light.
A bow lay on the stone three feet from Kael’s hand. One of the fallen archers’. Her hand closed around it on its own, then found an arrow on the ground beside it. Both hummed in her grip as white runes formed across the wood and steel.
The light spoke to her again.
Your turn. Hit the largest portal in the center.
She nocked. Drew. Released.
The arrow punched through the air in a streak of white that turned the dawn sky to noon.
BOOM.
Bullseye at the center and the portal exploded like a firework.
Every breeding-obsessed, cum-chanting, dibs-calling demon mid-transit turned into mist, joining Dorin.
The remaining rifts blew apart in a rapid chain reaction, each one setting off the next like a final roll call.
White fire consumed the gaps between dimensions and sealed them with the violence of a cosmic door getting kicked shut.
No survivors.
For a moment, there was complete silence.
Guinevere stood in the center of the courtyard, chest heaving. The runes were fading from her skin. The white in her eyes was dimming back to green. Her bow hung at her side.
She was still standing over Kael. He was alive because she had done something she could feel but couldn’t explain with power she didn’t understand.
She glanced down at her hands. They were trembling.
Thank you. You saved my pack, she thought to whatever had taken over her body.
A voice came back through, startling her.
Your pack, as in Lunaris?
She was hearing voices and they were asking her where she lived. Fucking hell.
I just saved your life, remember?
Yes. Lunaris.
Then she looked up.
Every warrior and wolf in the Keep was watching her. All of them were battered, bloody, and exhausted. She could relate.
Gavyn Holt pressed his fist to his chest in a salute, then dropped to one knee first. In unison, every wolf followed after him. One fist to the chest, then they went down to their knees with their heads dropped. Something that they only did for the Alpha.
Dead dungeon heist? Not sorry.
Robbed a prince? Felony complete.
Demon rodeo? Check.
Ending the night with an army and a dragon? Double check.
She needed a stiff drink and a bath, in that order, preferably before the night tried to encore.