Radiant Shadows (Wicked Lovely 4)

“Devlin’s what you need. Go with him.” Irial looked away from her then. His gaze was only for Niall. “Trust yourself. I…” His words faded as a spasm of pain shook him.

Niall pulled off his own shirt and pressed it to the bleeding gashes. “You’ll be fine. Just—”

“No. Listen.” Irial wrapped his hand around Niall’s wrist. They seemed to forget that there were others in the room, that War was there, that a battle waited outside their shadowy barrier.

Irial kept his hand on Niall’s wrist and whispered, “Wish I hadn’t been king when we met.”

“Iri—”

“Get them gone. Safe. Not here.” Irial let go of Niall and pulled himself away. “You too. Get out of here. Now.”

The expressions that crossed Niall’s face were ones Ani didn’t dare name, but she tasted everything. Irial wasn’t the only one wishing things had been different. Hoping they still could be. The Dark King stood. Niall’s softness was only for Irial—and Irial had asked him to repress that tenderness. The shadows in the room shuddered as Niall crossed the barrier that they’d formed.

Ani started to stand, but Irial took her hand in his. “Not yet.”

Niall was every bit the King of Nightmares in that moment. The rage that played under the edge of his emotions welled up like black tar. Ani thought she would choke on it—the loss, the fury, the vengeance. Here was the true Dark King.

“Twice now you’ve struck what is mine.” Niall bit the words off as he stalked toward Bananach. “The girl Tish was mine to keep safe. Irial is mine.”

“Was,” Bananach pronounced. “He’ll not survive the fortnight. He knows it.”

A roar filled the room as Niall gave voice to the rage and grief that they’d all felt. He punched Bananach, shoved spikes of dark light into her skin. “You do not hurt what is mine.”

She stayed motionless, said nothing.

Niall didn’t look away from her as he spoke. “Leave here. Leave Ani alone. You are banished.”

Bananach tilted her head, looking inhuman, but her words were calm. “War cannot be banished. You know that, Gancanagh. You aren’t going to win. One by one, you lose. I grow strong as you fall.”

Niall didn’t take his attention from Bananach. “You gave me a vow of fealty. I could kill you for—”

“No, you couldn’t,” Bananach crowed. “My betrayer told you. Sorcha will die, and then all of you will die. Kill me, and I still win. Is the little Hound worth it? Is your anger over Irial reason enough?”

Then Gabriel’s voice whispered inside Ani’s mind: Go to Faerie.

Ani looked up and saw her father in the doorway to the kitchen with Rabbit and Seth. They were opening a path for her exit.

Ani, Gabriel snarled inside her. Get them out of here.

She felt it then: the Hunt was here. The Hounds filled the too-small house.

Now, Gabriel added.

Seth, Devlin, and Rabbit weren’t making much progress against the Ly Ergs, but they were keeping the tide from reaching her and Irial.

“Please, pup?” Irial said. “The Hunt won’t fight as well with you and Rab here.”

“Come with—” she started.

“No.” He had pulled himself to a sitting position with the aid of several abyss-guardians. “I stay with Niall…. Can’t really run right now anyhow.”

Gabriel and Niall were in a blur of violence with Bananach. In the hallway, Ly Ergs and other faeries Ani didn’t know were already fighting with Hounds. One Hound toppled a shelf onto a cluster of Ly Ergs. The red-handed faeries were scurrying everywhere like vermin. Several thistle-fey accompanied them. One female Hound grabbed the fire poker and speared it into the leg of a thistle-fey, pinning him to the floor with the brass shaft.

Ani made her way toward the kitchen, where Devlin was launching knives from the kitchen block. His aim was still precise one-handed, and despite the blood running down his other arm, the look in his eyes told her that he’d rather fight.

If they didn’t get Seth to Faerie, there soon wouldn’t be a Faerie. If they stayed, they wouldn’t all survive. This wasn’t a fight they could win.

But it still took every once of control, more than Ani thought she possessed, to say, “Let’s go.”