Queen of Death

Brace yourselves folks, we’ve come to the penultimate chapter!

this is the last chapter before epilogue <3

— — — — —

Solana

~ present day ~

I knew from the moment my blade hit Elena’s shoulder that it was going to be a painful and bloody fight.

Her gift did not disappoint.

I split myself in half trying to kill her. I felt every single slice of my blade through her skin like it was slicing through my own. Which I guess in a way it was, because I was cut open.

Still, my only regret was that I couldn’t prolong her torture. Doing so would have been counterproductive to my own life. I’ve suffered enough on behalf of that woman, I wasn’t going to subject myself to more.

She’s lucky her gift was reflection. She’s unlucky that I’m just crazy enough to cut her the fuck in half anyway.

Elena and I weren’t the only ones who were torn apart. From our bond I can feel how tormented the guys have been feeling. I think that’s why they stayed away as much as they did while I was healing. Or maybe it was Ace who told them to stay away. Either way, having them all visit me when I woke up helped heal me as much as Griffin, Ember, and the rest of the medical team did.

It feels like our prologue has ended, this search for my safety. Now that Elena’s dead I want to go home with my mates and start our life without anything holding us back.

It’ll probably take some time to convince the guys that I’m not made of glass, especially when this fucking nurse won’t even let me use the bathroom in peace.

“I’m perfectly capable of peeing on my own. I don’t need a fucking entourage just to use the bathroom.” I spit at the nurse who’s hassling me. I’m leaving any minute now, what does she think is going to happen once I get home? Because I sure as shit am not letting any of them follow me into the bathroom unless it’s to pin me against the shower wall.

“You’re not used to being on your feet, we don’t want you hurting yourself.”

For fuck’s sake. Now she’s just patronizing me.

“I’m going to hurt you if you don’t get the hell out of my way.”

“Is this a bad time?” Ace’s voice cuts through the tension of the room.

“Not at all Mr. Harrington,” the nurse says to him way too sweetly. “Maybe you can talk some sense into her.”

Ace attempts to hide his amusement because he doesn’t want to condone my behavior but he knows it won’t get him very far.

“Has everything been cleared with Dr. Ember?” He asks.

“Yes, sir. She’s all yours,” the nurse muses whilst patting him on the shoulder like she feels sorry for him.

In a minute she’s going to be sorry she put her fucking hands on my mate. I watch her leave, imagining all the ways I could punish her for touching what’s mine. Break all of her fingers one by one, cut them off at the knuckles with wire cutters, dip them in my hellfire and watch the skin melt off her bone...

"Solana,” Ace purrs, breaking me of my daydreams.

"Alpha,” I smile back innocently.

“You know she’s just trying to do her job, which happens to be making sure you’re healthy.”

“I didn’t realize walking 10 feet to the bathroom is now considered a perilous journey,” I argue back. “It’s not like anyone has died from going to the bathroom.”

The growls and snarls from all five of them makes me think it’s just a tad too soon to be joking about dying.

“That’s not funny, Solana," Ace hisses.

“Actually, I’m wrong. There was that one guy, Elvis something or other...”

Ace slams his mouth down against mine, swallowing the rest of my witty retort. “What am I going to do with you, Princess?"

Several scenarios flash through my mind and it’s all I can do not to mount him right here in the room. “I have a few ideas, but you’ll need to take me home first.”

I snuggle up against Ace, basking in his scent and his warmth. I’ve missed this so much.

“Where to, my Queen?” Ace purrs in my ear.

There’s only one place I want to be right now. “Take us home.”

***

This is not home. This is the exact opposite of being home. It’s like waking up from a dream only to fall into a nightmare. I’m paralyzed. My mind is processing a billion different thoughts that I’m unable to move or form words.

Why would he bring me here? Is the first coherent thought that I have. I’m not even aware that I’m projecting my thoughts to each of the guys until Hunter gently rubs my back, easing himself around me with no sudden movements.

“You’re safe, Sunflower. We’re here, and you’re safe.” Hunter whispers to me between gentle kisses from cheek to cheek.

“Why?” Is all I manage to bite out. I’m oscillating between terror and rage, trying to shove the memories of what happened here back down into the bottle.

Ace looks at me with love and sympathy at first, then his eyes darken with more sinister intentions.

“This is where it started,” he says in a hushed tone. “I’m offering you the chance to overwrite history. I know nothing will erase what happened here four years ago. But that doesn’t mean we can’t reclaim this place for ourselves, on our terms.” Hunter moves to stand behind me so Ace can stand in front of me and cup his hand against my cheek. “On your terms.”

Tears swell in my eyes and threaten to fall. I left this place once before thinking I had lost everything, and now here I stand surrounded by my mates, cocooned in their love and protection, being offered everything I thought I lost and more.

So I blink away the tears, roll my shoulders back, and decide I’m not going to let my past get in the way of my future any longer.

Ace gestures for us to follow him through the abandoned tattoo parlor, down the stairs I’ve descended only once before. I’m not sure what is waiting for me in this basement, but I’ve trusted Death with my life this far...I’m not going to start doubting them now.

On admittedly shaky legs I walk deeper into the unfinished concrete basement. A single light bulb in the center of the room illuminates a frail, spidery man chained to a chair, seated over the blood stain I left behind after Griffin answered my plea for help.

I recognize him as the same man that was in the room with Elena when I was the one chained to a chair. My, how the tables have turned.

Hunter squeezes one hand and Dean squeezes the other. Eli rubs my shoulders, nuzzling my neck and purring for me. Ace and Tate stand just in front of us, again easily and naturally surrounding me and shielding me from harm.

My head snaps to the left at the sound of boots on the ground approaching us. Ace grunts a begrudging hello and shakes hands with Alec, one of my dads’ best friends.

“Alec?” I breathe with slight disbelief.

“Hey sweetheart, it’s good to see you up and about.” Ace growls in warning but allows Alec to give me a hug. His arms band around my shoulders like how Xander or my dads would hug me.

“What are you doing here?” Last I knew he was still a suspected accomplice of Elena’s, but now he’s cordial with Ace — who, last time they were in the same room, tried beating the shit out of him.

“Do you want to tell her, Ace?” He asks gently and takes a few steps back sensing that Ace’s wolf is on the edge of his restraint.

Ace peeks at me from over his shoulder then drops his gaze to the floor. “My father —our father — is not a good man. I told you about how he bought my mother at an auction and then discarded her just as quickly. But I never told you that he discarded me when he finally met his mate and had my half-brother here.”

Ace stalks slowly towards the man in the chair and begins to circle it as he continues. “We had every reason to believe he was dead. Especially considering I watched them lower his coffin into the ground. But it turns out that this filthy worm sold his soul in exchange for cheating death.”

“He built the trafficking ring we’ve been hunting for the last few decades.” Tate’s voice is as cold as Eli’s ice. “The Elders supplied him with elixir and turned a blind eye so long as he fattened their wallets.”

“Elena’s sons were going to sell you to him.You would have ended up in that facility, auctioned off to the highest bidder.” Hunter tells me like the words are glass in his mouth.

“Elena got off easy,” Tate says with deathly calm. “The Elders I tortured while you were...resting confessed that Elena killed Elder Rimori and blackmailed them into voting her in instead of your grandmother. Once she was inducted, she had all the resources and cover she needed to put a bounty on you.”

“She’s the one who’s been feeding them your whereabouts,” Eli growls. “How they got into the Grove to poison you, how they knew you were being protected by us. It’s just as well that she’s dead because no amount of suffering would have been sufficient.”

“But he’s not dead,” Dean whispers maliciously, nodding towards Alec Sr. slumped over in the chair.

I let all this new information settle, taking time to reflect on what I’m feeling and what I want before speaking. “Neither of you want to do the honors yourself?” I look between Ace and Alec. After all this is their father. They have just as much of a reason to want to see him suffer as I do.

Ace shakes his head and takes a hold of my hand, pressing a kiss to the center of my palm. “This might be the first thing my brother and I have ever amicably agreed on. He’s yours to deal with as you see fit. You can end it all here in the place it all began.”

I grab a fistful of his shirt and pull him to me. He reads my intentions immediately and kisses me like I wanted. Not tenderly or lovingly, but rough. Like he knows I can’t be broken.

Stepping closer to their father I yank his head back, forcing him to look up at me. My wolf snarls and snaps in my mind, itching to tear his head off. But that would be far too merciful.

“Please,” he wheezes and sobs silently. “I don’t want to die.”

I press my hand to his heart and smile sweetly at him. “I have no intention of killing you.” I allow him five seconds of relief, letting hope begin to blossom before I incinerate it.

Green flames burn beneath my palm, branding the skin where my hand still rests over his heart. My sigil carves itself into his skin using my green fey fire as ink. It’s a wound that will never heal.

He grunts and hisses in pain as the final strokes brand the pattern onto his skin with green flames. “You and Elena stole four years of my life. Now the final four years of your life belong to me.”

He whimpers as the pain dulls slightly and turns into a constant pain rather than a sharp sudden one. “Let me explain to you what will happen to you in the next four years. These flames circling my sigil will begin to radiate outward, eating away at your skin. Then they’ll begin consuming the flesh off your bones. Inch by painful inch you will turn to ash. And on the last day of the fourth year, when you’re well past begging for death and think you can’t possibly experience more pain, they’ll head straight for your brain. It will boil inside your skull, and only then will I grant you death.”

He begins thrashing in his seat, wailing like a banshee begging me to end it now. Apologizing over and over as tears stream down his hollowed face.

I turn around to find all five of my guys eyeing me intently. Ace stands in the middle with two guys on either side of him. Their eyes are blacked out, and the scent of their arousal bowls into me.

“Now we can go home,” I command. The guys encircle me, and with one final nod to Ace we leave this past behind once and for all.