Possessed by a Dark Warrior (53 page)

Two demon males and a fae who had been fighting their way towards them flew through the air as the blast of telekinesis hit them.

Bleu kept his mouth shut, aware that he didn’t need to tell his prince what he was about to do. Loren was royally pissed, angry enough that Bleu could see he already knew what was about to go down.

He closed his eyes, held Loren against him and willed his portal.

Green-purple light chased over both him and Loren, and then darkness swallowed them. When it parted, they were on the hill outside the garrison, more than two leagues from the battle.

“Damn it,” Loren bit out again and tried to shove onto his feet.

Bleu rose onto his and helped Loren stand. Blood pumped down his back, turning the black scales of his armour shiny.

Making Bleu feel sick to the pit of his stomach.

Gods. What if he hadn’t reached Loren? What if he had been too distant from his friend to notice the elf male?

Loren could have been killed.

His blood chilled, but then warmed as Loren’s left arm wrapped around him and tugged him hard against him, causing his chin to hit his prince’s shoulder.

His friend’s shoulder.

He had been wrong.

Olivia hadn’t replaced him. It echoed around his numb mind as Loren held him and he felt how close he had been to losing him.

“Thank you,” Loren said.

Bleu’s eyes slipped shut, warmth curling through him at the familiarity of that voice, at the reassurance that his friend was safe and would be healed soon.

He pulled back and cleared his throat, rolled his shoulders in a shrug that felt anything but casual. “It was nothing. I was just doing my job.”

Loren’s eyes searched his. “As my second in command?”

Gods, Bleu was about to sound like a sappy prick, but he couldn’t stop himself from saying, “As a friend.”

Loren dragged him back into an embrace that only made him feel more awkward. He patted his prince’s back. Clumsily.

“We’re not that close,” Bleu muttered and Loren chuckled and released him.

The smile on Loren’s lips died as his violet gaze drifted away from Bleu, settling on a point in the distance behind him. Bleu looked there, aware of the battle taking place just a few miles from them, feeling an urgent need to return to it and ensure that Vail was safe too, and the others. Three demon kings, a mortal huntress and three idiotic elf warriors fought there, battling an army of demons, fae, witches and other species.

The dragons were yet to make an appearance, but it was only a matter of time before they joined the war.

“Tenak might anticipate our attack if he is using the same tactics.” Loren’s voice was a low whisper, concern thickening it.

Bleu nodded. “It’s still the best plan we have… and we must give it a shot. The time is drawing near. According to Taryn, her brother prefers to have his army weaken the enemy before he enters the battlefield to claim victory. I haven’t scented a dragon there yet, and our numbers are falling. Our time to act is coming.”

He looked towards the squat garrison below him, his senses reaching out to his mate. She had been annoyed when he had ordered her to remain with the others in the safety of the stone bastion, until he had explained that he would return when it was time for them to head out and put their plan into action.

Every instinct he possessed as a warrior said that time was now.

Bleu helped Loren down the hill, his arm slung around his prince’s waist to support him. Loren muttered dark things in the elf tongue beneath his breath, his rage still simmering in his violet eyes. He had no doubt that as soon as he was patched up and healing, he would be back on the battlefield. He wanted to tell him to remain in the garrison, but he couldn’t bring himself to say those words when he thought about Vail alone out there. If it was Iolanthe in his place, and Bleu the one forced to retreat, he would be just as anxious to return to the fight and to her.

The elves milling around outside the garrison, assigned to protecting those within it should the enemy reach them, all jerked their heads in his direction as he approached. Several pairs of eyes widened as they landed on Loren, and then they were rushing towards them. Loren waved them away as they all tried to help him.

Bleu led his friend through the main arched doors of the garrison and into the courtyard.

“Shit!” A female voice rang through the silence and feet pounded the stone flags.

Loren lifted his head, his expression softened and he straightened, tipped his chin up and stood tall despite the pain Bleu could feel in him.

Olivia’s hands fluttered as she reached them and she checked her mate over, her dark eyes wide and brimming with tears. “What the fuck happened?”

It wasn’t like Loren’s princess to swear, and it caused half of the elves in the courtyard to stop and stare. Loren growled at them all, flashing his fangs, and they hurried away, leaving the courtyard quiet and empty save him, Bleu and Olivia.

And Taryn.

She rushed out of the building in the centre of it and raced over to him, her striking eyes filled with the fear that he could feel flowing through their link. He smiled, hoping to show her that the blood all over him wasn’t his and that he was fine.

Olivia took Loren from him, and Loren threw him a pained and pleading look as she led him away, chastising him and talking about administering elf medicine. Loren had little love for the medicine she spoke of, just like Bleu, but he knew his prince would stomach it this once so he could quickly return to the battle.

If Olivia would let him go.

Bleu had the feeling he was going to have to break Loren out of the infirmary in order to get him back to the battlefield. Olivia was already talking about days’ worth of bedrest, despite her mate’s protest that it was just a knife in the back and he would be fine with a little fluids, his hungry gaze hovering on her neck.

Taryn collided with him, knocking the air from Bleu’s lungs, and he didn’t have a chance to speak. Her lips clashed with his, arms holding him so tightly that it bordered on painful. He wrapped his around her, pulled her close and kissed her back, letting her know that he had missed her too and soaking up the comforting feel of her in his arms.

“Gods, I was worried about you,” she whispered against his lips in the dragon tongue and pressed her forehead to his. “I can hear the battle… I have been watching from the walls but cannot see what is happening. The reports coming back with the wounded say that we have heavy losses… I need to be out there. I have to stop this madness.”

Bleu gathered her closer and pressed a kiss to the tip of her nose, and then claimed her mouth again, savouring the kiss as she instantly responded, a sweet desperate edge to her kiss. She really had been worried.

“It is time,” he murmured and drew back, his eyes leaping between hers as he reached for their bond, strengthening it so he could feel whether she was ready, truly prepared for what they were about to do.

Her resolve came through loud and clear, but there was pain and fear there with it.

He lifted his hands and framed her face, kept her eyes locked on his as he brushed his thumbs across her cheeks, absorbing her beauty. His mate.

His ki’ara.

“Are you sure about this?” he whispered, unable to stop himself from posing that question, needing to give her a chance to go back on their plan. He would go alone if she did, would fight her brother for her.

The resolve in her eyes grew stronger, shone so brightly it was dazzling.

His strong, brave, beautiful little dragon.

She nodded.

Snarled.

“I will end this.”

Taryn surveyed the battle stretching below her from her perch on the side of the nearest mountain, struggling to focus on the clash of the two armies as her neck throbbed close to her shoulder, Bleu’s recent bite demanding she give him and the hunger he had roused in her all of her attention. He stood beside her, his violet gaze on the warriors far below them, looking for all the three realms as if his focus was there.

She knew it was really on her, on the need that had sparked inside him the moment her blood had hit his tongue.

Desire that had been a low simmer in her blood over the past day or so, steadily climbing towards a boil at times. Every time fate would intervene and ruin their plans. She needed her mate and he needed her, it was there in his eyes whenever he looked at her, in their bond if she focused just a little on it, strengthening it.

Gods, she needed him.

Her eyes scanned the warriors as they fought, swords clashing, bodies slamming, fists smashing and claws slashing. It was brutal, but she needed to see it. She had witnessed demon wars before, but they had never been on this scale and the males involved had never been so vicious, violent beyond compare.

Her brother had caused this.

Bleu had informed her that his madness had even reached a terrible peak, his disease infecting elves and turning them against their own kind.

Her gaze picked out Prince Vail where he fought, his brother Loren close beside him. They were near the back of the battle, forming a line with a mixture of demons and elves meant to cut down any enemy forces who had made it that far and were close to breaking through to reach the garrison.

She shifted her eyes right, to the middle of the mad throng, where King Thorne of the Third Realm of the demons fought hard beside his mate, the two working in a majestic symphony as they twisted and turned, backs pressed together one moment and breaking apart the next. They seemed to always know where the other was without looking. Their bond was strong. Beautiful.

A bond similar to the one she shared with Bleu. She had been able to feel him on the battlefield when she had been back at the garrison with Loren’s mate Olivia, trying to help the mortal doctor as she patched up the wounded teleported away from the front lines. Olivia’s worry about her mate had been infectious, sinking deep claws into Taryn, making her tense and cranking her fear higher with each dull echo of pain on her body that had come from Bleu and her connection to him. She had been so relieved when he had returned.

She lifted her hands to her chest and pressed them to her heart, a heart that beat for him now.

Bleu’s warm hand settled on her bare shoulder and she glanced at him, reassured him with a smile when he looked concerned. He returned it, his lips curling at the corners, his violet eyes sparkling with love. She absorbed the warmth of his caress when he brought his hand away from her shoulder and brushed his knuckles across her cheek.

Her eyes began to slip shut.

A mighty roar rose above the din of the battle and her heart leaped, her gaze seeking the source of the sound.

Her brother?

The pounding of her heart eased when she found the male and saw that it was Tegan who had unleashed such a vicious and feral noise.

The Second King of the demons.

The burly black-haired male fought right at the front and centre of their side, leading the charge, an impressive sight with his black horns flared and his huge obsidian wings on display. He hacked down any who dared to attack him, his broadsword a silver blur and his bare chest stained crimson with the blood of his foes.

She had never seen anything like him.

He was brutal as he swept through his adversaries like a wraith, his black wings assisting him as he dodged blows meant to cleave him in two from swords as huge as his own wielded by demons from many different realms. He towered over them all, a formidable and deadly male, his eyes fixed straight ahead as he ploughed a course through his enemy.

Demons from the second realm followed on his heels, dispatching any he had injured and left in his wake, tackling the fae and demons who tried to reach their king from the sides as he constantly cut a straight line through their brethren.

Her gaze tracked their leader. He held nothing back, led the charge and never hesitated. He roared again and the enemy forces seemed to still for a second as it rolled across the land, all eyes drawn in his direction. They feared him. She could understand why. It was as if one of the Devil’s demons had come to war with them, not a male from a peaceful kingdom.

She tore her gaze away from him and looked towards where he was heading, charting the path he would take if he remained on his current course. Her blood chilled as she saw the large black tent near the edge of a ruined settlement, surrounded by smaller red ones.

As she saw the male emerging from it, his eyes on the battle playing out in front of him.

Tenak.

“Damn,” Bleu bit out beside her and her eyes darted to him. His were fixed on the battle below.

Taryn looked there and wanted to echo him as she spotted the Second King on his knees, a blade sticking out of his chest and a demon towering over him.

The male pulled his broadsword free and spun on his heel, and Taryn didn’t want to watch as he aimed it at King Tegan’s throat, but she couldn’t take her eyes off him. Chills raced over her skin and she swiftly prayed to the gods that his men would reach him in time, even when she knew they wouldn’t.

The blade reached the Second King’s throat.

Taryn’s breath caught.

A female appeared between the two males, shoved her arm against the enemy demon’s one and caught it in her hand, stopping him just as his blade was about to slice through King Tegan’s neck.

The small female leaped at the enemy male, and Taryn’s breath left her in a painful rush and Bleu’s muttered curse swam around her head as the female didn’t attack the male as both of them had expected.

She kissed him.

Was the female involved with that demon?

Taryn shook that thought away. No female would throw herself at a lover during a battle, especially when he had been about to claim a victory the size of the one the demon warrior had been close to seizing.

But nothing else made sense.

Until the demon male fell to his knees, the female nimbly leaped away at the perfect moment to land on her feet beside him, and watched as he crumpled onto his side. She levelled a hard kick at his head, turned and stilled.