Mab smiled and touched her younger cousin’s face. Aaibhe knew that no one ever balked at what Mab did any longer. She was her senior by thousands of years and her experience and wisdom was legend.
Mab said softly, “You with all your wisdom and life challenges have much to learn if you are to survive creatures such as Banzar. He, like Gaiscioch is only concerned with his own needs and puts his entire race at risk to achieve that. The others following him have forgotten who they are and what they owe you. I am glad you have not forgotten the respect due to yourself, but in this I shall overrule you. They can rot in the realm I have sent them, for they are no longer trustworthy.”
“Still I can not allow that.”
“We shall talk again later, for now…” Mab waved her hand and her sacred Orb appeared on the nearby round table and she said, “Look here…and concentrate with me to infuse our warriors with power. They are gravely outnumbered.”
Aaibhe felt a lump in her throat when she looked in the Orb and discovered hordes of Unseelie converging on her Royals and the meager number of warriors at their backs.
There were less than a hundred, but the Unseelie numbered nearly five hundred. Some evidently had already multiplied.
Matters were dire.
~*~
“They are overrun”, Trevor heard his Queen say as he took his mate’s hand. “We are for Killarney.”
Jazz wondered if Fae ever got tired. She sure didn’t feel tired. They had left Inverness swept clean of Unseelie, and then Edinburgh as well. Could they just keep going at this rate? She thought of those humans who had been tortured and eaten whole. The survivors would all tell the same tale and the military would no doubt institute a search for the origin of these creatures.
They had not left any bodies in the streets for authorities to investigate and Jazz knew investigators would not be able to solve this ugly attack—yet.
Deaths like these would sweep the globe, sooner or later, if they couldn’t send them back to the Dark Realm soon enough. The authorities would start sharing information and draw their conclusions. She could only imagine what those would be.
This was a problem for another time, for as they stepped out onto the grassy knoll overlooking the lower lake and the giant Monoliths, Jazz caught her breath.
The Royals and the warriors were surrounded by the worst of the Unseelie Fae, the ones that were problem solvers. Their numbers were such that she could only think, that their first feeding had allowed them to multiply in astounding numbers!
She could see Deimne flying overhead and bombarding those numbers with deadly magic, laying them on the ground for the Seelie Warriors to destroy with their Death Swords.
The mass of creatures were jumping on the backs of those brave warriors as Trevor and Ete rushed in to help. Jazz realized they needed more than Death Swords and more than Deimne from above. Why hadn’t she remembered what she could do? She could Slam. She was a Fios Slammer long before she had been infused with Fae Blood.
She zeroed in on twenty murderous monsters attacking a lovely blonde Fae female, and an immortal who was not a Fae. They were in trouble.
She began in her Fios style, taking the magic of the Dark Fae. Even as she drew their magic out of them, she realized something inside of her had changed. Her power had changed. Not only could she take their magic, she was able to merge her Fae magic with her Slamming ability. The result was going to be phenomenal.
She stood with her legs apart and concentrated as she felt, then saw the air shift. Her magic traveled like a rocket, splintering as it grew in size. It took out the twenty abominations without effort.
They were on the ground helpless, unable to move. The Royals only paused a moment to give her a shocked expression before they fell on the beasts and began decapitating them one by one.
Here was how she could really help.
She could lay them down in groups, which would allow the warriors to slaughter them quickly and move on. She began systematically doing this. She didn’t know how long they would be unable to move, but the royals were fast. Killing and shifting continuously as the grassy field became covered in green, yellow, and black goo.
As she turned to attack another group of Unseelie, she felt a sensation. She looked up and there was Pestale!
Pestale had positioned himself well out of the battle at the top edging of one of the rolling foothills of the neighboring mountains. He was far enough to be safely out of the battle, and yet close enough to oversee it.
Before she could react, he shifted in and put his Death Sword to her throat.
~*~
Trevor had watched his mate with a swelling of pride which was as illogical as it was profound. She was a swirling whirlwind of quiet strength. She took on dozens of grotesque Unseelie, knocking them over and out with her Fios might.
And then the world stopped.
Time stopped for him as he heard none of the din around him. He saw nothing but his beloved caught in Pestale’s deadly grip. He had to think, he had to act. Here was Pestale who had killed his Lana so swiftly and without a thought.
Now he had Jazmine Decker. Pestale had her with the blade of the Death Sword at her delicate neck.