Heir of Night (The Thorne Hill)

“Good thinking. I need more sleep than you, so you might as well pick something out that you’re more than willing to sit in for hours, rocking our daughter back to sleep.”

Lucas puts both his hands on my stomach. “I want you to get a full night’s sleep as often as you can, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to the sleepless nights. I’ve walked this earth for nearly two thousand years. The two years we’ll face with a baby is nothing.”

“It’s going to go by fast, I know.” I stand on my toes and kiss him, feeling calmed again. “I’ll get my book and read in the living room. Not sure what you’re doing, but you’re welcome to sit by me and keep me company.”

“I have emails to reply to,” he tells me. “I’ll meet you there.” He moves his hands to my butt and gives my cheeks a squeeze. “I love you, Callie King.”

“And I love you, Lucas King.” I smile and give him a quick kiss before breaking apart. He speeds into the office, and I rest a hand on my stomach, going from the living room to the foyer and out the front door. My book is on the swing, and in my haste to greet Betty, I didn’t mark my page. I stand soaking in the remaining sunlight as I flip through my book, trying to find my page.

I’m still flipping through pages when the sound of hoofbeats comes from the gravel drive. I close my eyes in a long blink, telling myself to get it the fuck together, but the sound rebounds off the trees. Snapping my head up, there’s no mistaking the rider in front of me, who’s fully in this world and not half-hidden on the astral plane.

It’s War, and he brandishes his sword, dark eyes meeting mine for a heartbeat. And then he charges.

Chapter 33

“Ignis,” I shout, thrusting my hands out, throwing a ball of red-hot fire at War. The red roan horse slides to a stop and rears, but the Horseman remains seated in his saddle. He’s only paces behind the first warding line. The horse stomps his hoof, and War holds up his sword again, bringing it down against the warding with a harrowing clank that reverberates through my entire body, high-pitched ringing so loud it sends a searing pain through my head. The ringing gets louder, and the sound of a hundred voices screaming, crying, and begging for mercy surrounds me.

He hits the warding again, and I cover my ears as I fall to the ground, crying out in pain. It’s like a stake is being driven between my eyes. Images of refugees running through a barren landscape flash before me, and I feel a mother’s fear and desperation. She’s clinging onto a toddler, coughing from the dust kicked up by others’ feet.

“Lucas,” I pant, pushed down by the weight of the screams. It’s suffocating, and another jolt of pain webs through me, hurting so much I think I might throw up. I drop to my knees, and I’m there, in the desert, watching everything unfold.

The mother is stopped at a tall fence, with a crowd of others just as desperate for an escape as she is. There’s a truck on the other side of the fence, loaded up with people trying to escape.

“One more!” a man shouts. “I have room for one more!”

“My daughter!” the mother cries. “Take my daughter.”

“Callie!” Lucas grabs me around the chest, picking me up. The door slams shut behind us, and some of the screams start to fade. “Callie, look at me.”

I force my eyes open. I’m home, in my living room, not in the desert. “War. He’s outside.”

“I know.” Lucas cradles me to him. “I saw.”

That means he really is here on the physical plane. Julian was right: they were planning something big. Heart pounding, I snake a shaking arm around Lucas’s broad shoulder. “I don’t know what to do.”

“It’s gonna be okay,” he tries to assure me.

“Don’t lie,” I quaver. “He’s outside, Lucas. And I don’t think the wardings are going to hold.” War hits his sword against the warding again, and the high-pitched ringing rattles my head. Scarlet is at the front door, barking and growling like mad.

“You don’t hear that?” I say through gritted teeth. “It’s like a million bells screaming at me that the end is coming, and it is, it is coming, Lucas.” My familiars shadow around me, and I grab Lucas’s arms. “It’s right outside our door.”

Lucas holds my gaze, deep blue eyes saying what he doesn’t want to. We have to strike now. If we don’t, War will. We knew this was coming, and we were kidding ourselves thinking we could get out unscathed.

“I’ll distract him,” Lucas says. “Get to the Covenstead.”