Wrath

No! I yelled at him.

“Come on out, Dorian,” Lucas yelled louder. Everyone behind us stilled; their sobs and whispers fell silent. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mom rise to her knees, staring at Lucas with confusion. Sasha wriggled in Lucas’s arm, but he held her tightly. “Come see what has happened on your behalf. Come look at all the death and lives ruined because of you. But truthfully, it’s only your mother and father who love you, son. Everyone else blames you. And even your mom and dad will come to despise you one day.”

Don’t listen to him, Dorian, I told him. He lies!

“They’re going to tell you that I say nothing but lies,” Lucas said, his voice still carrying across the grounds. “But it’s they who lie! I want to take care of you. I can make you a king. I can give you everything you’ve always wanted and more! But they . . . your mother and father and everyone else you know will blame you for everything. For Katerina’s death! See your great-grandmother’s body lying on the ground? She’s dead, Dorian, and they blame you. But I don’t!”

“Mom?” Dorian’s voice called out from the shadows. “Rina’s really dead?”

At the sound of her master’s voice, Sasha squirmed harder in Lucas’s arms.

“Come with me, son. Let us go before they take their revenge out on you.” Lucas’s voice had grown more and more agitated the harder Sasha struggled. He became more demanding of Dorian even after telling us he had little need for our son right now. But he lied. He needed Dorian to be able to keep Sasha. And he needed her blood. Lucas yelled, his voice booming in the night: “Come on, Dorian! I’ve had enough of this!”

“Who are you?” Dorian demanded as he stepped out of the abbey. At the sight of him, Sasha sprang out of Lucas’s arms and by the time she landed on her feet, she’d grown to her size large lykora protective form, wings flapping and lips lifted in a growl, baring long fangs.

Lucas’s thought hit me at the same time his hand twitched: He was about to force Dorian to him.

“Sasha, protect,” I yelled.

The lykora attacked Lucas.

Her jaw snapped at his face as her huge paw swiped at his chest. Her claws drew fat lines of blood in his shirt and skin.

“Soldiers, protect,” Lucas ordered. The Norman soldiers all lifted their guns again and aimed them at us. “No! Get this mutt off of me!”

But the huge soldiers refused to obey. Would they not attack Sasha whose blood flowed through their veins?

Lucas growled, the sound not quite as ferocious as Sasha’s, but pretty near Tristan’s. His icy eyes found me.

“Fine,” he said as his arm swung out and smacked Sasha hard in the side, and she tumbled away from him. “Let’s see how you feel, Alexis, when they’re all your children.”

What? I didn’t understand what he meant.

“Soldiers, aim,” Lucas ordered, and all of the barrels in front of him as well as those belonging to the eighty or so soldiers who hadn’t been killed or injured aimed toward the center of the grounds. Toward Julia and Solomon who still hovered over Rina’s body. Toward Vanessa who now stood protectively in front of Dorian. Toward Charlotte and Owen, who were just now beginning to stir. Toward Mom, who rose to her feet between her dead husband and her dead mother, her eyes wide and her head tilted as she looked questioningly at Lucas.

“I see you enjoyed my gift to you,” he said to her as his eyes flitted to Winston’s black body before returning to her face. He laughed at her expression, but only once. Sasha flew toward him again. He gave one final order before he disappeared from sight:

“Soldiers, fire!”

For the third time in ten minutes, gunfire tore through the night. I spun around as each soldier let off a single round this time. Only one. That was all. That was all that was necessary.

I hadn’t realized it, but Lucas had aimed all of the guns only at Mom. Her brown eyes filled with fear as she swung her gaze toward me. Her arms lifted, and she reached out for me. Her mouth moved, and she called out my name. As though she thought I was the one being shot, even as her own body jerked in all different directions with each hit she took. She tried to run for me and stumbled a few times, but she kept moving. Kept going. Kept yelling my name.

“ALEXIS!”

And then she fell one last time.

“MOM!” I screamed.

“Mimi!” Dorian yelled, and Vanessa threw her arms around him and held tightly before he could fly into any more danger.

Rage filled me. The urge to kill every single one of those soldiers surged through my body, and I trembled as the pressure built inside me. I no longer cared that they were Normans. That they were merely humans under someone else’s control. That they were the souls I was supposed to protect. The murderous rage I felt the first night Dorian disappeared burned like fire through me, consuming any rational thought.

“How far will you go?” Lucas whispered in my mind.

And I knew that’s what he wanted. He wanted to see me unleash the wrath I’d kept so tightly balled inside me. He wanted me to lose control. To cross the line. To ignore my values and beliefs—to trade them for his. He wanted me to prove to myself and to everyone else that I was his daughter.

But I wasn’t.

I never would be.

I was my mother’s daughter. And I ran for her now.

“Mom,” I cried as I skidded on my knees next to her. I scooped my arms under her shoulders and pulled her into my lap. “Stay with me, Mom. Please.”

I could barely see through the tears in my eyes. I swiped at them angrily.

“Mom, please,” I begged. “Heal. You’re healing, right?”

Mom’s head moved slightly in my now blood-streaked arms. “I can’t, honey. It’s too much. I’m not as strong as you.”

“Of course you are! You’re the strongest woman I know. Tristan!” I yelled again. Could this really be happening for the second time tonight? No. No, no, no. It couldn’t be. “Tristan, Mom needs you. Help her heal. Please, hurry!”

He came around to Mom’s other side, and his mouth turned down as his eyes took in all of the bullet holes riddling her little body. Charlotte crawled over to us, with Owen right behind her.

“Honey,” Mom whispered, “it’s time for me to go, too.”

“No. It’s. Not,” I growled. “You can’t leave me!”

“Don’t you do this, Sophia,” Charlotte ordered as she gripped Mom’s hand.

“It’s your time, Alexis,” Mom said, her voice growing fainter. “Your time to lead.”

“No.” I shook my head vehemently. “I’m not ready. You’re not supposed to go yet! Mom, please. Don’t do this to me. You both can’t leave me!”

Mom’s eyes glassed over and then they closed. The corners of her mouth turned slightly up.

“They’re . . . calling . . . for me,” she gasped.

“No, Mom. Sophia. I can’t do this without you.” I crouched further over her, sandwiching her between my thighs and upper body, trying to hold on as tight as I could because they couldn’t have her, not yet, it was too soon. I needed her here, the Amadis needed her, they already had Rina, why my mom, too, why, why, why?

“You . . . can. You are . . . so . . . strong.”

Tears flowed down my cheeks as I pulled back. “Mom, you must fight this. You can make it through this. Please don’t give up. Please.”

Rain began to fall again, leaving streaks in the dirt and blood on Mom’s face. Tristan brushed his hand over her forehead and wrapped his other arm around my shoulders.

“Mimi,” Dorian cried as he fell to her other side. “Don’t die, Mimi.”

“Help her, Tristan. Please help her,” I begged.

“I’m sorry, ma lykita,” he murmured as he huddled over us, pulling me closer to