“The hell is this?”
Trevor’s voice cut through the vision, snapped Aidan back into the bloody, broken present.
Aidan knelt there, besides Calum’s seemingly lifeless body, Tomás at his side and Kianna unconscious behind them at Trevor’s feet. Aidan looked from his former co-commander to the two Kin before him. He knew what this looked like.
The trouble was, things were exactly the way they seemed.
“Aidan,” Trevor said. He hesitated in the doorway, three hunters flanked behind him, their hands on their weapons and Spheres blazing. It was clear they had been ready for anything. Anything but this. Trevor kept looking at Kianna. The flick of a finger, and one of the Hunters broke off to kneel at her side. Earth opened in the man’s stomach as he probed Kianna for wounds.
As he did what Aidan should have done.
Why did everything suddenly seem so cold?
“What did you do to her?” Trevor asked, his voice shaking with anger. Then he looked to Tomás. “And what the hell are you doing with that?”
Tomás snarled, but he didn’t attack like Aidan expected. Instead, he stayed at Aidan’s side, hand digging into his shoulder, as though Aidan were the attack dog and Tomás the holder of the lead. Aidan couldn’t move; his hand was still pressed to Calum’s chest, his fingers frozen and tingling, the rise and fall of Calum’s ragged breathing reminding him that he still hadn’t done what he had come here to do.
This close to Calum, he felt his Sphere being pulled, felt the Howl vainly struggling to sap out Aidan’s heat, his strength. It was barely more than a chill. It didn’t account for the cold in Aidan’s bones. The feeling that things were going irrevocably to shit. Fire faltered in Aidan’s chest.
That was the problem.
Aidan pulled deeper through Fire, and the ache and the doubt burned away. He was the sun to Calum’s shadow. To Trevor’s disapproving stare. He could burn it all away.
“Aidan...” Trevor said, and though his voice was a warning, Aidan didn’t know why.
He stared at Calum. Stared at the runes that whispered through his mind of secrets and succumbing, their words somehow stronger in the wake of the vision. Almost, but not quite, he could read what they were for, could sense the strands that tied Calum to the world of the living, that allowed him to be raised from the dead.
Fire burned through him. And even though Calum had been one of the Dark Lady’s creations, he heard her voice in the char of flame. Kill him. Prove your might.
Prove yourself to me.
“I’m doing what I promised I would do,” Aidan said. To Calum. To Trevor. To the darkest whispers of his soul.
He reached back. Slipped a serrated dagger from his boot. And stabbed straight through Calum’s chest.
It wasn’t an easy cut. Calum’s flesh was thin, but his bones were strong, and even though the Howl didn’t fight, his scream echoed through the room as Aidan hacked and sawed, his hands coated with frigid blood. But not just blood. He felt it, as Calum died. He felt the Howl’s Sphere fade. No, not fade. He felt the power flow, bleeding from Calum’s heart to Aidan’s hands, sinking deep beneath Aidan’s skin. Filling him. Completing him. As Calum died, Aidan felt himself becoming more whole. Felt Fire burn with satiation.
Satiation, and then silence.
Silence, and then the cackle of Tomás’s laughter.
Aidan stood, slowly, the dagger embedded in Calum’s chest. A flag. A marker that this land was now his.
Trevor and the other Hunters looked on, horror or perhaps awe splashed on their faces as he righted himself, as he curled flame around his fists, blood burning and charring against his skin. It reminded him of Vincent’s burning scent. And this time, it didn’t turn his stomach.
“Well done, my king,” Tomás whispered into Aidan’s ear. Heat curled around the two of them. Heat pulled them together as the sun draws in the stars. “Scotland is now yours. Well...” He turned his gaze to the Hunters before him. “It will be, as soon as you get rid of them.”
“Aidan—” Trevor began, but he didn’t finish the sentence. He knew there was no point.
For the briefest moment, Aidan reconsidered. He had killed Calum. That had to have been enough.
“He commands Glasgow,” Tomás said to Aidan. He crossed his arms over his chest, everything in his posture and tone nonchalant. Tomás already knew the outcome. He’d set up his game pieces, and they had fallen in place exactly as he’d wished. “So long as he rules the Guild, you will never have your place as King. So long as he knows you have helped a member of the Kin, you will never walk free. Look. You can see it in their eyes. The doubt. The fear. Well, they should fear you. And they should doubt.”
Tomás gestured to the throne beside them. When he curled his fingers around Aidan’s, Fire roared in Aidan’s ears. Fire, and Tomás’s words.
“This is all that matters, my prince. My king. This throne. This kingdom. This moment. Your past is but a burden. A shroud. Burn it away, and embrace your new destiny.”
Aidan looked to the throne. To Calum. To Kianna. And finally, he looked to Tomás. Guilt should have churned in Aidan’s chest. Fear and worry. Dread. But in the light of Tomás’s eyes, in the promise of their shared heat, he felt only purpose. He was meant to rule. He was meant to rule it all.
He looked back at his former co-commander, his former lover, and all he could see in Trevor’s face was the slam of his office door, the frustration in his eyes as he exiled Aidan from the only home he had left. As Trevor damned Aidan to a life of nothingness.
As Trevor tried to make Aidan less than what he was destined to be.
No more.
Fire burned through Aidan, chased away the doubt, filled him only with anger. With a blinding, blistering destiny.
Scotland was his. His. Trevor had tried to take it away. Even after everything Aidan had done, everything he’d sacrificed, everything that had been stolen from him in this damned land, Trevor had declared it wasn’t enough.
“Aidan, don’t—” Trevor reasoned, his voice softer. He took a step forward, hand raised, weapon lowered, while the other Hunters behind him readied for attack. “Don’t listen to him. The war’s over. We did it. We won.”
“No.” Aidan said. His voice rang clear and assured through the hall, burning with Fire’s heat. “I did it. I won.”
“Please—”
Yes, Fire hissed. Bring them to me. Bring them...
“—Aidan—”
They will defy you. They will turn against you. Again.
“—you don’t want—”
Trust no one. Trust no one.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Trevor,” Aidan said. Fire burned brighter in his chest. He barely heard his own words over its incendiary roar, barely felt the cold of the room through the heat that threatened to tear him apart. The heat, and the power. The hunger.
Scotland was his. His. And he would never let these fools take it from him.
“I do want,” Aidan continued. “I want it all.”
He looked to Tomás.
“And now, I think I will let myself have it.”
Tomás smiled. In that smile, Aidan saw his future.
Aidan didn’t move a muscle when he lashed out, when Fire burst from the pores of his three former comrades. Just like Vincent. Just like the unconscious action that had dragged him to this outcome. Only now, he was awake to hear all of their screams. Wanted to hear their screams. Their short screams, as flames filled their throats and stilled their words.
Leaving only Trevor. Trevor, whose eyes ran with tears—from smoke or fear, Aidan didn’t know. Or care. Trevor and Kianna, who lay unconscious in the dust of her troop mates.
“Why are you doing this?” Trevor asked. His voice hitched.
“Because...” Aidan began. He pulled through Fire. Squeezed Tomás’s hand. The Kin’s skin was cold compared to his own. “...I can.”
He made it quick.
A burst of fire that filled Trevor’s lungs, seared through his heart. No great pyrotechnics, no pillar of flame.
One moment, Trevor stood there. Alive and broken.
The next, he crumpled to the ground beside Kianna, smoke curling like regret from his lips.