Fuck, was she going to rip out the opal?

Blinking several times, she put a hand to her throat. “She did kill the Child Empress. Rylee, I knew you’d come for me.” Tears streaked her face alongside the rain and she stumbled to her feet, ran to me.

Was this really happening, had it worked? I caught her in my arms and we dropped to my knees. She sobbed into my shoulder, her arms tight around my middle. “I knew it. I knew you would save me.”

I didn’t try to stop the tears, just held onto her, Berget. Finally, after everything we’d been through. After all the years. I smoothed her hair and held her. My belief validated.

Love won this round.

A hand struck out, driving a wedge between Berget and me.

“What the fuck?” I snapped as I rolled to my feet. Faris stood between us, crouched and ready to leap.

“It is a ruse, Tracker. I have seen this so-called soft side of Berget before. She lulls you in, so you will not kill her this day, only to end your life when you least expect it.”

Berget sat on the ground, looking up at him. “Faris, I mean none of you any harm. And I will prove it.” She swept her hair back offering up her pale neck. “Take my blood, see the truth of what has happened.”

Faris let out a low growl and before I could say yes or no, he’d slammed her against the rock, his fangs buried deep in her neck. Her eyes found mine over his shoulder, and I saw the edges of a smile.

“It’s okay, Rylee. He needs to believe and this is the only way.”

I ran toward them. “Let her go, Faris.” I lifted my sword, ready to force him to drop her when he p hto bdid so on his own, stumbling back. He swiped a hand across his lips and shook his head.

He looked stunned. “I have underestimated you, Rylee. You and Berget both; you kept your oath.” He shook his head again. “Though I barely believe it, there is no denying the madness is contained.” He continued to shake his head, finally reaching out to touch Berget on the cheek, and then jerking his hand back as if burned. “Truly, I did not think it was possible.”

Berget smiled up at him. “Faris, you would have been a fine leader, far better than me, trapped as I was.”

Ah, there was my little sister, always believing the best of people. And in this instance, it smoothed things over. Eased tension, though not all of it.

Doran and Jack eyed each other, but Jack spoke first. “Well then, old man, are you taking the throne then?”

We all looked to Doran, the only one who could take the throne, and I had a sudden thought, a whisper of a prophecy I’d read while in London. Though I asked, I already knew the answer, felt it in my gut.

“Doran, the prophecies said I would bring the teeth together. Do you understand what that means?”

A smile flitted across his face and he shook his head slowly. “The teeth are the two branches of blood drinkers. The vampires and the Daywalkers. If I take the throne, they will finally be united and the prophecy fulfilled. And you are the instrument of it all.”

There was silence except for the pounding rain, and then Faris lifted a hand to the sky. “If we are going to do this, then we need to leave now.”

Berget stood and helped me stand. “Faris is right, we should hurry, the equinox will pass soon and then there will be trouble.”

We headed toward the cave and within seconds were plunged into darkness. “What kind of trouble are we talking about this time?” I put a hand to the wall and let my Tracking guide me.

“If there is no leader by the close of the equinox,” Faris said, “the vampire nation, which includes the Daywalkers, will go mad and unleash on the world in an epic meltdown.”

I grimaced and kept walking. “Sounds like fun.”

Doran laughed and the sound flexed around us, echoing in the cave. “Fun, yeah, not so much. I saw it happen once; I do not recommend that happening again. It not only decimated the human population, it decimated our own. That is why there are so few of us now.”

There seemed to be a light growing ahead of us, though I couldn’t be sure. “Anyone else seeing this?”

“Rylee, you are fucking kidding, right?” Jack grunted. “You’ve got the bloody worst fucking eyes of the bunch of us, and you want to know if we see glowing shit ahead?”

That was the Jack I knew. “Yeah, well, you aren’t always that observant.”

Laughter tripped through the group, but it ceased in a sudden biting halt as we stepped out of the long tunnel and into a cave.

Thirteen shamans (and yes, I was sure they were shamans because one of them was Al) sat in a circle around a fire. On the walls petroglyphs depicted what some might say was the past. Humans with oversized fangs, winged serpents, lines shooting out of people’s hands. Made sense to me, and I wondered what the humans made of it.

Doran stepped forward. “I am here, to claim the throne.”

Just that? That was it? No way, that was too fucking easy.

Damn me for being right.

Pain was far too weak a word; pain was a fly bite compared to a body being skinned alive. He couldn’t stop the screams, the howls erupting out of him. The magic they used, it burned like fire, like a thousand knives jabbing into his organs, the brutal pain of bones snapping and splintering, and then played with. At some point, they’d forced him to shift back to human form. Or had he done that on his own? He couldn’t be sure what exactly happened. Everything was a blur beyond sending Pamela and the others away.

At some point, the assault stopped, and a voice whispered in his ear, male, but high pitched like a young boy’s voice. “You are a stubborn one. I will give you a single chance to join us, wolf. And if you do not, we will kill you. It is apparent you are far too capable of slipping bonds. How you got the collar off, I would truly like to know, though, will you tell me that much?”

Liam focused on his breathing. There was no going back. The equinox would be here soon enough and there would be no stopping Ingers or the Black Coven. Maybe he could fool them though, stop this long enough to—

“And believe me, if you lie to me, wolf, I will know.”

He drew in a deep, burning lungful of air. “Go fuck yourself, witch.”

“Ah, I thought that might be your answer; then let us end it, end it right now, yes?”

A voice rang out. “I think not, Jaron.”

The smell of roses and magic wrapped around him, and he knew Milly had come back. But he also knew she couldn’t jump them both out of there. Not with his inability to cross the veil unless it was a physical crossing. Like a doorway in the castle.