Burned

“You went with me to Venice, and you knew the real truth of how much of a monster Kalona is before I did. Fire brought you here. The rest probably means something to you if you think about it enough.”

“A double-edged sword . . .” Stark spoke the words softly. The claymore was double-edged. And he’d destroyed as well as released with it. He did know the truth about Kalona being dangerous when he followed him with Zoey to Venice . . . the fire of pain from Seoras’s cuts had brought him to here, a place that reminded him of earth, even though it was in the Otherworld. And Zoey was trapped here, needing to be released. And now he had to follow what his spirit knew about honor to bring this whole thing to an end. “Oh, shit!” He looked at Zoey, ever-moving beside him, and the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “You’re right. The poem is for me.”

“Good, then it shows you how to be free,” Zoey said.

“No, Z. It shows me how to make both of us free,” he said. “Kalona and me.”

Her troubled, restless eyes lit on his face before looking hastily away. “Free Kalona? I don’t understand.”

“I do,” he said grimly, remembering the killing blow that had freed the Other. “There are a lot of different ways to be free.” He tugged on her hand, making her slow down and look at him. “And I do believe in you, Zoey. Even shattered, you still hold my Oath. I will protect you, and as long as I remember honor and don’t ever let you down again, I think anything is possible. That’s what being your Guardian’s all about: honor.”

He lifted her hand and kissed it again before he began walking. He didn’t let her circular pacing control him. This time Stark led her in a straight line directly for the edge of the grove.

“No. No. We can’t go over there,” Zoey said,

“Over there is where we have to go, Z. It’ll be okay. I trust you.” Stark kept walking toward the widening bright spots between the green that marked the grove’s edge.

“Trust me? No. It doesn’t have anything to do with trust. Stark, we can’t leave this place. Ever. There are bad things out there. He’s out there.” Zoey was pulling at his hand hard, trying to get him to change direction.

“Zoey, I’m gonna say some things to you really fast, and I know your concentration is messed up right now, but you gotta hear me.” Stark was almost dragging Zoey with him, but he kept relentlessly moving them ahead, to the boundary of the grove. “I’m not just your Warrior anymore. I’m your Guardian. And that means a major change for me and for you. The biggest change is that I’m bound to you by honor even more than I am by love. I’m not ever gonna let you down again. I can’t tell you what your change is gonna be.” The end of the grove shimmered in front of them. Stark stopped and, following a gut impulse, he dropped to one knee in front of his shattered queen. “But I do believe one hundred percent that you’re gonna be up to it. Zoey, you’re my Ace, mo bann ri, my queen, and you have to pull yourself together, or none of us are getting out of here.”

“Stark, you’re scaring me.”

He got to his feet. Stark kissed both of her hands, and then her forehead before saying, “Well, Z, stay tuned, ’cause I’ve only just started.” He gave her his old, cocky grin. “No matter what happens, at least I made it here. If we get back, we’ll be able to tell the sticks-up-their-asses Vampyre High Council ‘told ya so!’ ” Then he parted the leaves of two rowan trees and stepped over the rocky boundary of the grove.

Zoey stayed within the grove but held the branches open so she could stare out at Stark as she rocked back and forth, causing the leaves to rustle like a murmuring audience.

“Stark, come back!”

“Can’t do that, Z. I got something to take care of.”

“What? I don’t understand!”

“I’m gonna kick some immortal ass. For you, for me, and for Heath.”

“But you can’t! You can’t beat Kalona.”

“You’re probably right, Z. I can’t. But you can.” Stark threw wide his arms and yelled into Nyx’s sky. “Come on, Kalona! I know you’re here! Come get me. It’s the only way you’re going to be sure Zoey won’t get back, ’cause as long as I’m alive I’m gonna fight to save her!”

The sky above Stark rippled, and the pristine blue began to gray. Tendrils of Darkness, like smoke from a toxic fire, spread, thickened, and took form. His wings appeared first. Massive, black, and unfurled, they blotted out the golden light of the Goddess’s sun. Then Kalona’s body formed—bigger, stronger, more dangerous-looking than Stark had remembered.

Still hovering above Stark, Kalona smiled. “So, it is you, boy. You sacrificed yourself to follow her here. My work is done. Your death traps her here more easily than I ever could have.”

“Wrong, asshole. I’m not dead. I’m alive, and I’m gonna stay that way. So is Zoey.”

Kalona’s eyes narrowed. “Zoey will not leave the Otherworld.”

“Yeah, well, I’m here to make sure you’re wrong again.”

“Stark! Get back in here!” Zoey shouted from just inside the boundary of the grove.

Kalona’s gaze went to her. He sounded sad, almost heartsick when he spoke. “It would have been an easier thing for her had you let the human boy do my will.”

“That’s the problem with you, Kalona. You have that god-complex thing going on. Or, no, I guess I should call it a Goddess complex you got. See, just because you’re immortal, it doesn’t make you in charge. Actually in your case, it just makes you wrong for a really, really long time.”

Slowly, Kalona shifted his gaze from Zoey to Stark. The immortal’s amber-colored eyes had gone flat and cold with anger. “You are making a mistake, boy.”

“I’m not a boy anymore.” Stark’s tone matched Kalona’s.

“You’ll always be a boy to me. Insignificant, weak, mortal.”

“Which makes you wrong three times in a row, mortal doesn’t mean weak. Come on down here and let me prove that to you.”

“Very well, boy. Let the pain this causes Zoey be on your soul, not mine.”

“Yeah, ’cause I’d hate for you to fucking take responsibility for any of the messed-up shit you’ve done!”

As Stark knew it would, his taunt pushed Kalona’s simmering rage to boiling. He roared at Stark, “Do not dare speak to me of my past!”

The immortal stretched out his arm, and from the Darkness writhing in the air around him, plucked a spear, tipped by metal that glistened wickedly, black as a moonless sky. Then Kalona dropped from the sky.

Instead of landing in front of Stark, his massive wings swept down and forward, slicing the ground in a perfect circle around Stark. Under his feet, the earth shuddered and then disintegrated, and like hell opening beneath him, Stark was falling down . . . down.

He hit bottom with such force his breath was knocked from him, and his vision grayed. He struggled to stand as he heard mocking laughter all around him.

“Just a small, weak boy trying to play with me. This won’t even be amusing,” Kalona said.

Arrogant. He’s more arrogant than I ever was.

And with the thought of what he had been, and what he’d already defeated, Stark’s chest loosened. He was able to draw breath. His vision cleared in time to see a flash of brilliant light pierce the darkness between him and Kalona, and the Guardian claymore was there, blade driven in the earth at his feet.

Stark grasped the hilt and felt it instantly, the warmth and the pulse of his heartbeat as the claymore, his claymore, sang in tune with his blood.

He looked at Kalona and saw surprise in the immortal’s amber eyes.