Chasing Faete (Beyond the Veil Book 1) (11 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

All hell was breaking loose. Ben and Leo had just snuck into the castle and separated from Donovan when it felt as if an earthquake had hit, powerful enough to nearly knock them off of their feet, the magnitude sufficient enough to make the stone walls of the hallway shake in protest.

“Since when do Fae realms experience earthquakes?” Ben shouted over the fray as he and Leo stood bracing themselves in an archway. And then something dawned on him. He exchanged a look with Leo. “Erica,” they said in unison.

“What the hell does she think she’s doing?” Leo yelled. “She’s not strong enough to hold this for long.”

Ben agreed. They had no idea what Erica’s plans were, but there was no way she could defeat Alefric and his guards on her own, not without some crazy and dangerous plan. He had a sinking feeling that if he and Leo didn’t get to her soon and the cavalry failed to arrive in time, she would be lost to them forever. “We have to hurry, Leo.”

Ben stepped out of the archway, holding on to the shaky walls for support. He ignored the thunderous sounds of protesting walls and chandeliers. His feet moved, keeping him upright despite his near lack of balance. Leo struggled identically right behind him.

Suddenly, alarms blared, a screeching, piercing sound. Ben had time to pull himself and Leo into a hidden alcove in the walls as guards poured out from every which direction. Ben carefully peered out. “They’re heading east.” The guards may have been running, but not without the same difficulties he and Leo had faced just moments ago. They both listened intently to discover that the source of the sound came from that exact direction. That was where Erica must be wreaking her havoc.

They waited until the hallway was clear before making their way over.  The guards weren’t that far ahead of them. As a matter of fact, if anyone of them would turn to look behind them, they would spot Ben and Leo, however, with all of the chaos currently ensuing, Ben doubted they would pay them any mind for now. He and Leo proceeded onward, but with caution. They stuck to trying to blend in with the walls while they moved as quickly as the quaking floors would allow them.

The guards probably should have done the same, Ben thought as one of the large crystal chandeliers came plummeting down from the high vaulted ceiling, landing on one of the guards. The ones who jumped out of the way in time were already picking themselves up off the floor while the rest ran on ahead, none of them paying any mind to their fallen comrade.

Ben and Leo had crouched low to the ground, successfully avoiding discovery. When they had reached the fallen guard, they could easily see that the man’s skull had been crushed. Ben suddenly felt very grateful that the Fae did not turn to ash in their own realm.

They heard another loud boom up ahead. As they carefully moved closer, they discovered the source. Two guards were lying unconscious in front of two large double doors with brass handles. He and Leo watched as two more guards were thrown back on their asses after they attempted to touch the handles.

“We need to get in there,” Ben whispered frantically. “She needs us.” Something was definitely not right. He sensed it in his gut.

“I feel it, too,” Leo agreed.

The quake had been slowly starting to subside. Some of the guards began barking orders to fetch those with more magical powers or sacred objects to be used for breaking spells, and special tools to pry open locked doors. Most of the guards ran off in different directions. Ben and Leo crouched behind a large fallen statue when some of those guards ran back.

Six men were left standing by the door. Leo gave Ben a signal that had both men shifting partially. They took down four of the guards before they had a chance to know what hit them. The other two stared with wide eyes at Ben and Leo. Ben knew what they must have looked like to them with their sharp claws and half-crazed stares, and blood dripping from their elongated fangs. Ben and Leo snarled in unison, ready to rip apart the remaining men who stood between them and their mate—and then the two guards bolted, running off in separate directions.

“Fucking cowards,” Leo half growled. “Reinforcements won’t be far behind, and she’s weakening.”

Ben realized it, too. Though weaker than before, Erica’s power still held steady, but he felt something else weakening, something inside of her. “No!” Something that may not be reversible. “Please, gods, no.”

He and Leo both flew back and landed on their asses when they touched the door handles, but they shot up quickly and tried again and again … and again.

“Wait, brother.” Leo placed his hand on Ben’s chest to keep him from going for the door handle again.

“Leo, we can’t stop. We have to keep trying.” Ben realized how desperate he sounded, but they had no time to think of another plan. More guards would be arriving shortly, but it may be too late for Erica by then anyway.

“Can you feel that?” Leo asked. “I know you can. Just calm down and concentrate.”

Ben did as Leo suggested, and there it was … their link. He could not only feel it but see its bright blue spark inside of him, a spark that grew weaker by the moment. “I see it.”

“Grab on to it.”

When he did, when they both did, they placed their hands—one on each door handle—and pushed the door open easily this time. Ben would not let Erica use her magic to keep her mates out. Never again. He’d fight it tooth and nail now that he knew how to reach her.

“Stop … her,” Ben heard Alefric say weakly.

They walked in on Kheelan writhing in pain on the floor. Alefric was on his knees in front of the throne. His skin looked ashen and pale, and he held his hand to his chest as if trying to stop his heart from jumping out of it. Erica stood several feet away from him, her hands outstretched in his direction, palms out.

“Try … again,” Alefric ordered.

Before Ben or Leo had a chance to intervene, Kheelan had reached Erica and grabbed on to her arm. The room shook harder, and Kheelan was thrown back against the wall with a large thudding sound. Ben could have sworn he heard a few bones crunch. The scum Fae slithered down the wall like the snake that he was, and landed unconscious on the ground.

“Erica,” Leo called her name softly. She didn’t turn, but her shoulders stiffened. He pulled back his half shift to make his voice more even. Ben pulled back his as well. “Baby, please. You need to stop this.”

“I can’t,” she said weakly. “Don’t you see? It’s the only way to stop him.”

Guards poured into the room now that the door had been opened. Neither Ben nor Leo bothered resisting when they surrounded them. One grabbed Ben from behind and another Leo. The hold the guard had on him felt weak, however, like he was distracted. In fact, everyone in the room stood transfixed, watching the scene that unfolded before them. Alefric bowed before the True Queen, involuntarily, of course, looking frail and sickly, while Erica, though her knees looked about ready to buckle as well, stood strong and proud, exerting her power over the False King. Ben had never felt more proud or more terrified.

“Kill … them,” Alefric commanded his guard referring to Ben and Leo. Then as if someone had pressed “play” on a paused scene, the room erupted into action.

Ben felt the grip of the guard behind him get stronger, but just as quickly, the grip loosened and disappeared altogether. He turned to see the cavalry arrive. Gabe and Corrine, followed by an army of wolves, cougars, and bears poured in. More of Alefric’s guards entered in droves as well. The walls and floor still shook, the alarm still blared, but all Ben could think about was his pixie.

“Worry about your mate,” he heard Gabe shout through the melee, as if reading his thoughts. “We’ve got this.”

“She’s killing the King!” Ben heard a guard shout out.

The guard was right. He remembered the white light he saw when Erica had healed herself in the alleyway and the power that engulfed her when she had her nightmare. This was different. The light emitting from her was a sickly looking gray with streaks of black and red, and suddenly Ben could feel it. He could actually feel what she was doing through their link.

“She’s reversing her healing power,” he said to Leo.

Leo nodded. He must have understood and felt it as well.

“She’s drawing his life force from him,” Corrine said, suddenly appearing beside them.

“And she’s using her own to do it,” Ben concluded. There was no doubt in his mind that she would soon kill Alefric, but Erica may not have enough life force to survive after she succeeded.

As their cavalry fought the False King’s guards, with bodies slamming into walls and furniture, with growls, and the sounds of tearing flesh and crunching bones, Erica turned to look at her men. She still held her hands out toward Alefric, never once losing focus on him, but she glanced at Ben and Leo long enough to convey a goodbye through just a look.

A tear escaped, and she mouthed the words, “
I love you,”
before she turned back to finish off her target.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Leo’s wolf clamored to be let loose in the middle of the carnage, but he was terrified to lose control. He needed to focus, find a way to give Erica some of his energy. The room was a mass of chaos. More than half of the shifters were fighting in their animal forms, the roars and snarls filling the air as teeth and claws did their work on the unprepared Fae soldiers. Leo had never seen so many shifters of various kinds working together, and it had a rush of pride filling him at the stand they were all taking for their futures.

He was surprised to see Corrine and his Alpha, Gabe, both fighting against their enemies using Fae swords when they had entered the room. Leo knew that Gabe would stay in his human skin for the battle. As an Alpha, he remained equally powerful no matter what form he chose to wear, but Leo had no idea how skilled he was with a blade. It seemed there were still things he didn’t know about his old friend and Alpha.

When they found Erica at the front of the room, Alefric on his knees in front of her, the impact of what she was doing to the False King hit him like a freight train. She was literally using her own life force up to vanquish the darkness in her enemy. Her healing gift had never been meant to be used this way, and the goddess would not let it go without a price.

“We can’t let her do this,” Ben whispered as they tried to break through the force surrounding her and Alefric, but the same magic that had tried to keep them out of the throne room was pushing at them once again. “We can’t lose her this way, brother.”

When Corrine briefly appeared beside Leo again, slashing one of the guards about to pounce on him unsuspected, he pleaded for the woman to give him a way to keep Erica from draining all of her life force. “She’s keeping us out, Corrine. What can we do?”

“Give her a reason to stay,” she replied, a frightened look on her face as she gazed back on Erica.

“Erica, love.” Leo placed both his hands on the barrier in front of them. When Erica turned her head in his direction, he looked into her strained, bloodshot eyes and said, “Please don’t leave us. We need you. I need you.”

Leo could feel both Erica’s and his brother’s pain through their link as they all longed for things that fate looked to take from them. Their future, their family, it all seemed to be slipping away faster than they could control. When Erica finally mouthed the words, “
forgive me”
towards them, Leo’s entire universe seemed to implode. She was telling them goodbye.

Just then, they felt the flickering of the barricade lower. Erica pulled on it so hard, the force of it dropped both him and Ben farther back and onto their knees. Leo knew what she was doing. He could feel it. She was gathering her magic and going in for the kill.

Then a thought occurred to him. They were connected. He and Ben could feel her using her magic, and if they could both feed her some of their combined energy, some of their life force, together they’d be strong enough to take Alefric’s life-force without any of them losing their life in the process.

He began to draw on his energy, knowing that Ben would immediately feel and understand what he was doing and follow suit.  But before he had a chance to connect with Erica, he saw out of the corner of his eye, a blur of a guard’s uniform lunging forward, sword extended towards their mate’s back. It was that bastard Kheelan. With her current weakening state, her shield might not be strong enough to keep him out. Leo gasped. He and Ben were too far away to stop him.

“No! You won’t touch her!” Corrine yelled as she stepped in front of Kheelan’s sword. Everyone stopped fighting and focused on the sacrifice that had just been made.

“No! Corrine,” Erica called out, dropping her hands in a moment of panic.

Corrine seemed to be the most surprised when she looked down at her chest and saw the long blade protruding from her, but then she turned her head towards the man at her back.

“I’ve longed to take your life since the day you took my Queen, Kheelan,” she said weakly. “You are a traitor to your people and will die a traitor’s death.”

“It seems you are the one who will die, bitch,” Kheelan sneered right before Corrine smiled back at him, causing first an expression of confusion to cross his face. Shock replaced it with her next action.

“We both will,
ud’ran
,” Corrine whispered with satisfaction as she plunged her own sword right through her stomach, impaling both herself and the traitor.

Leo felt Erica’s draw on their power halt abruptly as she screamed and lunged forward, reaching Corrine and Kheelan’s bodies as they collapsed onto the stone floor. It was all he could do to not go to his mate. Her devastation at losing Corrine had finally been the straw that broke her, but his wolf knew that they needed to eradicate the threat before they comforted her.

“Ben,” he called out to his brother, nodding towards the King who was now bending on only one knee, already beginning to recover. “Let’s end this.”

They both shifted into their wolves and were on Alefric in seconds. His screams as they went straight for his throat, ripping and tearing at his weakened body, only drew them further into the bloodlust. They’d end him, the False King, who thought to harm their mate, who thought to take what was theirs.

Finally, the soft sobbing of the woman they loved broke through the haze, and Leo realized that the False King was truly dead beneath them. He willed the wolf back to its cage before turning to see to his mate.

Gabe was now beside Erica. They had separated Corrine from Kheelan’s lifeless body, and she looked so small lying there in their Alpha’s arms.

“Please, Corrine, don’t leave me. Gods, please don’t leave me,” Gabe pleaded frantically as he tried to stop the flow of blood from the gaping wounds in her torso and chest. Leo finally saw that there was more to the relationship between the Fae woman and his leader than the pair of them had admitted. Maybe they had yet to admit it to themselves.

Gabe’s gaze lifted to their mate, the pain that swirled within his eyes almost too painful to acknowledge. “Heal her, Erica. Please.”