Gleam (The Plated Prisoner 3)

Queen Kaila screams, her people trying to get her out through the back, only to stop short as an unlucky Highbell guard runs through the doorway and is

immediately swallowed by a waterfall of gold that drips from the wall, consuming him in a metallic splash.

Guards start fleeing, but my own Wrath come directly to me, tightening around me in a protective circle. Osrik, Judd, and Lu have their swords ready, but what can that do against this? My eyes cut over to my brother Ryatt as he comes to stand beside me too. He’s careful to keep Digby propped up at his side, though it’s an awkward hold with the spikes attached to his armor.

“What the fuck?” Ryatt says, as we all watch the gold strike. In both liquid and solid forms, it plunges people beneath its glossy depths, piercing others through, attacking left and right, while we’re left to watch the melee.

“Rip...” Lu cautions, her hold tightening on her hilt.

Through the panic of the room, I watch Auren. Watch her aura flare brightly again and burn my eyes like I’m looking directly at the sun.

“She snapped,” Judd murmurs, flinching when the damn ground comes up twenty feet away from us, opening like the mouth of a bird, beak swallowing a Highbell guard whole.

My attention is intent on Auren, on the way she’s moving, on her expression. Her power is killing everyone in the ballroom, and now she has Midas pinned to the wall.

The gold isn’t attacking us, but the hysteria of her flashing aura worries me.

“Go,” I order the others.

Lu gapes at me. “Rip—”

“Auren isn’t fully in control right now, and I don’t want any of you getting hurt.”

“What about you?” she volleys.

I shake my head. “She won’t hurt me.”

The gold takes that moment to kill a Highbell guard right in front of us, his armor crushing his chest in with an audible crack.

“You sure about that?” Judd asks dubiously.

Osrik curses, drawing my eye back to Auren, and we all go still as we watch her place a kiss on Midas’s cheek. I might’ve gotten jealous if it weren’t for the fear in his eyes.

When she pulls back, the press of her lips leaves a mark behind, and my own power surges up. I watch in rapt fascination as Auren’s gold slithers and moves, and then, it starts to devour him. It’s a reveling fiend, shoving in his mouth, binding his limbs, holding him hostage until his struggles go still, his body adhered to the wall.

Shock courses through me at how fast it happened.

Midas is dead, trapped in the metal he coveted.

My breath hisses between my teeth as a barrage of emotions crashes over my head like thunder. Surprise, pride, guilt, it all rushes over me, soaking me through.

I’ve wanted that fucker dead since I found out he kept her in a cage. I’ve imagined rotting his spine and leaving him paralyzed on the ground for the birds to peck. The moment he laid hands on her, I wanted to lay hands on him.

But I didn’t need to.

I’m so fucking proud of her. She destroyed him so spectacularly that my chest swells, even as I feel guilt that she was put in this position in the first place.

You did it, Goldfinch.

I knew she could burn brighter than the sun if she only stepped out of his shade. But fuck. Even my faith in her strength didn’t match up to just how magnificent she really is.

That’s my girl.

“Shit, she killed him,” Osrik exclaims, doing nothing to hide the glee in his voice. “She actually killed him. Fucking amazing.”

“Good,” Digby spits, the colors of his bruised face darker with his fierce expression.

Lu snorts. “Alright, how about we make sure she doesn’t kill us before we start celebrating?”