*Isla*
“You were supposed to be gone! You were supposed to take her back!” Antony screams, his face red with fury. He points at Poppy, who is sitting shell shocked and tear stained in the bed in the infirmary. The nurses removed the twins from the area when Antony stumbled inside bleeding all over the place and screaming at the top of his lungs. I am grateful for it, especially since Maddox seems dead set on letting Antony die.
I don’t let that happen, of course. A few of my tears has Antony back to his usual self, and he’s pissed off. Livid. At us.
“You were supposed to get her off this fucking island, Maddox! You worthless–” Antony is cut off by Maddox’s fist making contact with his mouth. I yank on Maddox’s arm while Poppy loses her Goddess-damned mind behind me.
“Stop!” I try to say, but now Antony is on his feet and nose to nose with Maddox.
“You lied to all of us–”
“You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about–”
“Where the fuck is the heirloom–”
“Take my mate and leave–”
Poppy is trying to get out of the bed now, her expression twisted with pain and fear as the storm picks up speed, rattling the castle. The power flickers, then everything goes dark, just as Maddox and Antony start throwing punches again.
I push Poppy back into the bed and launch onto Maddox, throwing my arms around his neck. I swat at Antony and claw the side of Maddox’s face. I’m just trying to get their attention, but not easy to separate two Alpha males. Idiots, both of them.
Maddox tries to shrug off me, but I dig my nails into his cheek and pull, making him yelp.
“Isla!”
“Both of you shut the fuck up right now!” I shout, reaching out with my free hand to smack Antony soundly across the cheek. My voice radiates through the room, matching the electric energy brought on by the storm that penetrates the walls.
I don’t let go of Maddox until both men take a breath. I slide from his back and immediately turn to Poppy, who is sitting on the edge of the bed with her face in her hands.
“I’m sorry, Poppy–”
“You have what the Goddess wanted us to find, don’t you?” she snaps, looking at her mate. “Don’t you?”
“I do not.”
“But you knew… you knew this entire time that–that–”
“Yes,” Antony says calmly, but his voice shakes. He makes no moves to close the distance between him and his mate. He only stands there, inches from Maddox. “I tried to return it months ago. It was why we needed to come back to Maatua so early, Poppy. But the heirloom, the diadem my ancestors turned into a necklace… it wasn’t here.”
“Who would have taken it?” Maddox asks, his voice a cool, icy echo in the room. Lightning flashes through the window, lighting up the space with blue and silver.
“I don’t know.”
“Then what do we do?” I ask softly, dread welling in my stomach.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he says to Poppy in a near whisper, his voice thick with raw, unfiltered emotion. Turning to Maddox, he says again, “You should have left and taken her.”
“I tried,” Maddox hisses, his voice just as broken. “You should have told us how bad things had gotten–”
“I couldn’t say–I couldn’t repeat what I was told to give him in lieu of the heirloom,” he cries, his eyes locked on Poppy. “You shouldn’t be here–”
“What happened, Antony?” I say, clutching Poppy’s hand. Poppy is beyond words right now, unable to do more than stare at her mate.
“He wanted an end to my line, so I offered myself to him. He said no at first, and I thought we’d come to some kind of truce, maybe he’d changed his mind. I didn’t hear from him for months. There was no chatter of dark magic or boats going missing in the isles between our islands. He just faded away, and we lived in peace. But then Poppy neared… her time. For the birth. Last week, the storm began. Now?”
He shifts his weight, sighing deeply as his yellow eyes flick away from Poppy’s and lock with Maddox’s. “I went to him. I told him to take me, to kill me and take over my kingdom. I offered him everything I had, but it wasn’t enough. He wants… our son.”
“No,” Poppy says weakly, her voice shrill with shock.
“How did you get so hurt?” Maddox asks.
“His magic turned my own warriors against me. They were out of their minds. I… I don’t know what else to do–”
“Where is the heirloom,” I ask, suspicion prickling over my skin as I meet Antony’s eyes. “Why does he want it so badly?” I briefly explain that his mother had told me everything. Everything we should have known from the very, very beginning.
But he ignores me.
His eyes move back to Poppy, a look of grief touching every plane and curve of his face.
“Poppy, please. You have to take our children and go–”
Shouts ring out through the castle, echoing through the walls alongside the crashing of thunder.
“What’s happening?” Maddox asks, whirling around to the door. Footsteps thunder down the hallway as screams pierce the air.
“The babies!” Poppy cries, but Maddox is already moving toward the door.
I look at Antony, glaring. He knows more than he’s saying, I just know it.
“Maddox,” I say with all of the authority of the Luna that I am. “Take Poppy. Gather the twins and regroup with Elijah. Send Emery to me.”
“What–”
“Please,” I whisper, looking eyes with him. Can he see the power dancing behind my irises? That electric blue light I haven’t called into being for months? Can he sense how strong it is, especially now that the very baby I carry in my womb has made it… stronger, somehow?
I’d known I was pregnant with her within hours of it happening. That magnetic pull, the thrumming line of electric power between us hummed into being the moment she did. I’d known she would be a girl, and I know with everything that I am that she will inherit these gifts from me.
Why? I don’t know. But now we are in danger. Now, a man with a centuries long vendetta is waging war on Maatua, my people. I look over at Antony, my cousin, a man I’ve come to cherish and trust.
And I know he is lying as much as I know that these powers within me might be the only thing to stop this fucking wizard from sucking Maatua into the sea.
“Come,” I tell Antony, then push past my mate. Maddox, to my great surprise, steps out of my way and lets me pass through the door and into the darkened hallway leading out of the infirmary and into the recesses of the castle.
“I’m going with you,” Poppy begs, but I turn to face her, shaking my head.
“Go to the falls,” I say. “We will meet you there.”
* * *
“Why the falls?” Antony asks as we hurry through the hallways of the darkened, chilled castle. I’ve never felt cold like this in Maatua before. It’s a wet, sticky cold that smells sharply of ozone–like lightning. Like salt. Like the sea itself is being lifted above us in preparation to flood everything, and wash away everyone.
“So I can drown you,” I grind out, “before bringing you back to life to do it again.” Maids rush past us, skirts billowing. I pray that Poppy and Maddox can make it out in time.
“You think I’m lying–”
“I know you’re lying about the heirloom,” I cut in, baring my teeth at him. “What I don’t know is why. But that doesn’t matter now,” I snap, just as we turn a corner and the air is ripped from my lungs.
Droves of boats hug the shore–blackened and funneling mist…ether…something unholy and entirely wrong.
“No,” Antony whispers, backing up a step. I grab his arm and pull him out onto what's left of the terrace that overlooks what was once a sweeping, golden beach and crystal clear water beyond.
“Yes,” I hiss, power beginning to heat the tips of my fingers. “Where is it, Antony? We don’t have much time–”
“You don’t understand–”
“Then help me understand!”
A snapping, frigid wind whips past us as the already darkened horizon fades into nothing but black. I feel moisture on my skin, chills licking up and down my spine as I suck in a breath and find the humidity in the air damn near unbearable.
It’s like we’re in a cloud. I think we are.
Figures burst through the mist enveloping us, and I act without a second thought, sending a spray of white-hot power rushing through the air. Screeches cut through the fog descending on us, followed by a shrill, choking laugh.
“What the fuck–” Antony cries, his back pressed against mine as we move in a circle. I can’t see anything past the terrace now. I barely know what’s up from down.
Emery runs past me in a blur, two knives poised and ready in her fists as she disappears into the mist again, followed by screeching and bodies hitting the tiled ground.
“What was that?” Antony snaps, then gasps as a warrior, one of his warriors, rushes towards us with a sword. Antony swings, knocking the warrior to the group and grabbing the sword and ripping it out of the subdued man’s hands. The warrior is facing us, but his eyes are… wrong. All wrong. His irises swirl with ether, just like the black mist that had taken over the shoreline.
“They’re–they’re possessed–” I stammer, fear inching up my spine as more figures move out of the darkness. Emery’s voice is lifted as she moves around us, shouting and killing, but I can’t see her.
“I told you,” Antony exhales, sounding exhausted.
“You have one more chance to tell me where the heirloom is and why you’re lying,” I whisper as the mist suddenly starts to recede. My clothes flutter, pulled towards whatever force is calling back the strange mist. “Antony–”
“The stone is all I have to protect my people from Alatar,” he whispers. “It is all I have to protect Poppy.”
“So you do have it–”
A shadow passes over us, leaving a chill in its wake. I have just enough time to reach out and grab Emery by the arm, yanking her to stop before the man towering above us steps up and over the terrace as if he’s walking on air.
Alatar stands before us cloaked in what I can only describe as… electricity. The same force he uses to stoke the thunderheads that have wrecked Maatua.
He is not what I’ve been expecting. Tall and lean, yes. But his face is… familiar. Almost handsome. He is young, too. Ageless.
“I had hoped I’d get a chance to meet you,” he says, his silver eyes meeting mine as he gently bows his head to me in greeting.
What the fuck. What–
“The Goddess’s chosen one. How odd. How rare.”
“What do you want?” I ask although I already know the answer. The heirloom, of course.
The wizard leans against the terrace in a stance that is so casual I almost can’t believe it.
“It’s simple, really,” he says coolly, shrugging a shoulder. “But I think… I’ve changed my mind on what it is I want, now that you’re here, Isla.”