My jaw tightens. “Yes.”
Understanding flickers through his expression, slow and reluctant.
He exhales. “How inconvenient,” he murmurs.
The prince waves his hand through the air, the chains binding Roxy flare once, magic shivering along their length before fracturing into glittering shards that dissolve into nothing.
Gasps ripple through the court.
Roxy doesn’t run, she walks toward me, steady and deliberate, the void-pressure bending around her instinctively as if recognizing something it refuses to harm. When she reaches me, I fold one wing around her without thought, shielding her from the lingering tremor running through the room.
The prince watches closely. “Youhavechanged,” he says at last.
“Yeah,” I reply. “That’s the fucking point.”
For a heartbeat, it feels like the court might surge forward again, pride warring with survival.
Instead, the prince steps back.
Just one pace.
A concession so subtle most mortals would miss it, but to the fae, it might as well be a bow.
“Take her,” he growls, his voice steady but tight with restrained fury. “And leave my realm standing.”
Scar lets out a low, satisfied laugh. Wreck’s hollow smile widens, shadows curling lazily at his feet now that the tension has shifted.
I don’t release the pressure immediately. Instead, I meet the prince’s gaze, letting him feelexactlyhow close his court came to ending.
“If youevertouch what’smineagain…” I say quietly, “… I won’t think twice about sending your entire realm into whatever is waiting on the other side of this… what did you call it?”
“Voidfire,” he softly replies.
“Because that sounds like areal shitty place. So remember that’s what awaits you if you come after my girl or my club again!”
His eyes flicker with something like respect. “That…” he replies softly, “… I believe.”
Only then do I let the collapse ease.
Light rushes back into the throne room. Sound returns in a slow, trembling wave. The invisible weight lifts, leaving behind a silence filled with wary recognition. I shift back slowly, wings dissolving into skin, scales fading as Roxy remains anchored against me, her presence steadying the fire and frost beneath my ribs.
“About time you showed up,” she mutters against my shoulder, voice rough but warm.
Scar claps my back and hands me a pair of jeans. I slide them on as we stride toward the door. “Nice exit, Prez. Very apocalyptic.”
I huff a quiet laugh, tightening my hold on Roxy’s hand as we walk from the throne room.
And this time…
The Seelie Court doesn’t move to stop us.
Chapter Twenty-Six
RAZE
My brothers move in formation around me, bloodied and burned but unbroken, each one bearing the marks of fae magic and seelie steel with the kind of pride that comes from winning wars nobody thought we could survive.
Scar limps on my left, flesh still smoking where the prince’s lightning carved through vampire resilience, while Wreck feeds on the lingering terror saturated into the very ground beneath our boots, growing stronger with each step away from the court.