Shifters’ Fae Captive by Lacey Carter Andersen
Chapter 20
Phantom
The battle is intense.I watch men fall, both my men and his. In the past, it’s been rare that the king has sent other shadow beasts into this world. I suspect it required more power than he was willing to spend. But, today, there are many of them. Shadow beasts the king has turned to his side, fighting us beside trolls who have no choice but to show their loyalty in battle.
There are forty of us left of the fifty or so we started with. Men who were spread all around the Void, but had come to offer their support when news of Ann, and the whispers of the shadows, were spread. We’re facing more than twice as many enemies. The only benefit from them having brought the fight to the forest is that the terrain favors us, giving us the home field advantage.
A troll who is proficient with his sword steps forward, comes at me, broadsword raised above his head to swipe in a downward motion, an ark that’s designed to sever limbs and end lives. But the movement leaves his center open, and I plunge my dagger into his chest, then wait for him to fall. The resilience of the trolls makes them easy to kill, harder to keep down once they’re dead.
While he’s down, I douse him with flammable fluid and light him up. His leathery skin crackles as it melts from his body and makes a molten pool in the grass.
A few yards away, Onyx is battling two trolls, with another shadow beast beside him, while Dusk is hand to hand fighting a shadow beast only slightly smaller than he is.
A rot monkey grabs onto my leg, I kick it away as hard as I could, working to get closer to my brother and best friend. Dusk is solely focused on his opponent. A punch grazes the shadow beast he faces, by then I spot a troll creeping up behind him
I shout, “Dusk!” But it’s too late. He shoves the shadow beast in front of him away, then spins around. The glint of a blade at least as long as my arm catches the light a split second before it slices him open from nipple to belly button.
He falls to his knees, and I cut off the head of the troll who steps between us, racing to my brother’s side. When the troll that attacked him so cowardly goes in for the kill, I use my sword to chop off the bastard’s hand first. His blood--it’s black and gooey--sprays, and I try to get out of the way, but it splatters my clothes, my armor, my face.
I wipe it out away from my eyes, then take up a braced stance to fight anyone who comes near Dusk as Onyx protects the other side. We’re gaining ground and there are fires lit across the forest where trolls have been put down. They comprise the bulk of the Shadow King’s army.
Suddenly, we see the Void surge in the distance. It crackles, like it’s filled with lightning, and a massive shape explodes out of it. A smoke dragon. Fuck.
The creatures were beyond dangerous. And as far as we knew, couldn’t exist outside of the Void.
I have no idea how the Shadow King managed this. The dragon would need an incredible power source, and I can’t think of any that could bring him here. But what I do know, the king has thrown everything he has at us. If we survive this battle, he will be left weak. It will give us an opportunity.
But first we have to survive.
“Dragon!” I shout at the others.
There’s a chorus of shouts as the other men scream the word, warning everyone in our army of the coming danger. At any other time, this would be the moment we retreated, but we don’t have that luxury now. Even though these creatures and the dragon can’t get far from the Void, with enemies all around us, neither can we.
Besides the fact that if we run, they’ll simply plant the shards, and we’ll have lost.
As the dragon draws closer, Onyx is behind me. He’s trying his best to wrap up Dusk, to stop the bleeding, but I can see the fear in his face. My brother is in trouble.
“We need to get him to cover, where the dragon can’t reach him,” I mouth, unable to sign with my sword in one hand.
Onyx nods and puts his arm around my brother's back.
“You’re going to be okay,” I tell Dusk.
He doesn’t respond and the pain in his face says he can’t.
The shadow dragon is already too close. I hold out my sword, taking deep breaths, knowing that my sword will do next to no damage against a creature that powerful. When… when I see something that makes my blood run cold. Someone is on the dragon’s back.
The Shadow King himself.
Someone shouts, “The Shadow King!”
If there was fear before, it’s a thousand times worse now. I half expect to see my men running in the face of the king and his dragon, but to my amazement, they don’t. If anything, my men close in closer to me, still fighting, trying to offer their would-be king support.
The smoke dragon lowers to the ground not far from us, on the other end of the clearing. The king climbs off his back, hitting the ground. His clothes are all black, as they’ve always been, but his cape moves about him in a way that’s both creepy and frightening. It reminds me that once upon a time this man was a shadow beast like us, but now he’s something else, something terrifying.
The smoke dragon shields the king with its wings, taking arrows and bullets that mean nothing to him. His wings temporarily hide the king from us until the attack stops. And then, the massive creature lifts its wings and lets out a roar that shakes the air around us.
The king raises his hand and the shadow beasts fighting for him stop, moving away from their opponents, then bow their heads. My own men seem to struggle against the need to bow themselves, but I’m proud of them when they don’t. They simply stop fighting, staring, waiting.
He walks toward me, toward Onyx and Dusk. And he smiles. “Your brother is injured.” He cocks a brow, glancing from me to him. “It looks bad.”
‘It is,” I say.
For some reason, my treacherous heart wants to see any sign of concern in his face. Anything to signal that the man I love, the man I admired once upon a time, is still somewhere in there.
But I see nothing.
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” I tell him, again some small part of me hoping to see a soul somewhere inside this terrible man.
He tilts his head, still smiling. “I thought you loved battle.” It’s always been his way.
Battle, yes, but nothing like this. Not my brother gravely injured behind me and shadow beasts fighting shadow beasts. He knows this. He knows everything about me.
Or at least he did, once upon a time.
“You like it too,” I challenge right back.
“I do.” he wags his eyebrows. “But I don’t love battling my sons.”
Sons.Did he even still see us as his sons? Because no father could hurt their children the way he’d hurt us. No father could watch his son in pain, and smile.
“Then stop.” The words leave my lips before I can contain them.
If my father wanted to stop, he’d had a million times before this to do so. And he hadn’t.
The moments before we left our world flash in my mind over and over again. I trusted my father. I never saw his desire for power above all else. There was cruelty, yes, but I never thought he was cruel. Even when Onyx warned me. I never thought any of it could be true.
Until he stole the life from our world to feed his own power. Until the moment my brother had a chance to kill him and didn’t, and only seconds later we realized he should have. That was the first time I knew he had to die. Knew that he could no longer be king.
“Rule with me. We’ll end this ridiculous human occupation and the earth will be ours. You, me, your brother, even the little deaf boy. There’s a place for all of you.” Onyx breathes in deep but doesn’t move. Not because he’s afraid, but because I haven’t given a signal.
And because he doesn’t believe him either. My father is gone. Only the Shadow King remains. And given the chance, this man would kill us all.
The Shadow King doesn’t know the meaning of the word mercy.
I smile and clench my sword more tightly. “I would rather die than rule with you.” I pause, hoping Ann is safe, praying for Dusk to get away, knowing this could be my very last battle. “Father.”
And my father, the Shadow King, smiles. “You’ve grown. Because, no matter how you answered, you were all going to die today. And you actually knew it, didn’t you?”
The dragon behind him roars, and it shakes the very earth beneath us.
I turn enough so that Onyx can read my lips “Get Dusk to safety. There’s nothing else you can do here.”
“Phantom,” my brother says my name weakly.
“I need to do what neither of us was strong enough to do before.”
Not looking back to see if he understands, I clench my sword tighter and start running, blade held out before me.
My father smiles, not even reaching for his sword, and I know. I know this is the moment one of us will die, either way, and this will all be over.
At last.
I picture Ann’s face. This time I can’t hesitate. I won’t hesitate.
My mate needs me to be strong.
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