Cole raced down the hallways as the shouts and screaming continued. Another bang shook the floor and rebounded off the walls a second before he burst into the ballroom. He scanned the room as he tried to ascertain what was happening.
And then he spotted a group of lycans, vampires, and dark fae fighting on the other side of the room. The musicians had stopped playing, and Brokk, along with some dark fae guards, were carving their way through the fighters and tossing them away.
When one of them punched his brother in the back of the head, Cole snarled as he sped across the room to help him. They hadn’t survived the war to be taken down by a bunch of assholes in their own home. He’d already lost too many of his brothers; he would not lose anymore.
Brokk turned toward his attacker as Cole seized the vamp by the shoulder and threw him away. Guests scattered out of the way as the vamp skidded across the floor before crashing into the wall.
Dark fae guards surrounded the vamp and hauled him to his feet. Brokk nodded his thanks to Cole, but he didn’t have a chance to speak before the growing brawl drew his attention.
Power thrummed through Cole as he drew on the air surrounding him and pulled it toward him. When a couple of vamps and a lycan lurched toward each other, he held his hands out, turned them over, and pushed them apart with his palms facing outward.
The air around him shuddered as he pushed it outward. The impact of the air shoved the fighters back. They hit separate walls with loud thuds. The air rippled as he held out his palms to keep the fighters pinned against the wall.
Brokk punched a warlock in the face before gripping the back of his head and slamming it onto his knee. Brokk kicked the fighter away and lunged over a witch to snatch a candle from the wall.
Lifting the flame to his mouth, Brokk blew on it. Instead of the fire going out, it surged into a rolling inferno that torched those closest to him.
Immortals screamed as they raced away from him or fell to the ground and rolled as they attempted to smother the flames consuming them. The scent of burnt clothes and flesh permeated the air. The fire wouldn’t kill them, but they’d hurt.
When a vampire lunged toward him, Cole released his hold on the prisoners and spun to face his attacker. Red eyes met his a second before Cole drove the heel of his palm up and into the vamp’s nose.
Blood erupted from the vamp’s shattered nose, and it howled as its hands flew to its face and it staggered back. Lifting his foot, Cole planted it in the vamp’s belly and shoved it away from him.
“What is going on here?” his father’s voice boomed throughout the vast hall. “Who dares to fight in my home?”
Footsteps echoed across the floor and rebounded off the ceiling as his father stalked toward them. Immortals scrambled to get out of the way, and more of the innocent guests fell back. Tove’s fury vibrated the air around him.
“Guards, seize every single one of the fighters,” Tove commanded. “They will all reside in my dungeon until I decide it’s time for them to go.”
“You can’t do that!” a vampire protested.
His father stepped so close to the vampire their noses almost touched. “Are you going to stop me? I helped fund the Lord’s war. I gave him my best fighters, including my sons, and if you open your mouth one more time, I will give you to his dragons.”
The vamp blanched but wisely shut his mouth.
“Take them away,” Tove commanded.
The guards captured the twenty-five or so fighters. The remaining guests didn’t speak as they led the prisoners away. Some of their gazes flicked from the blood on the floor to the king of the dark fae.
Cole didn’t have to look at his father to know he was infuriated; it continued to vibrate the air in the room. More of the guests edged away from the king. He was the most powerful being in this room, and everyone knew it.
“This party is over; everyone go home,” his father commanded. “Everyone is to be out of here in twenty minutes.”
With that, his father turned and stalked away. Cole glanced at Brokk, who stared after their father’s retreating back.
“That was a quick celebration,” Brokk said.
“There wasn’t much to celebrate,” Cole muttered.
And then he recalled Lexi. Turning, he pushed his way through the crowd as it funneled toward the exit. Breaking free of them, he jogged down the hall to the moon room, but she wasn’t there.
“Shit,” he hissed.
He ran back to the main hall, but half the revelers had already left, and more were on their way out. Still, he searched for her amongst those who remained, but she was already gone.
• • •
“I cannot believe they dared to fight in my hall,” his father growled as he paced his solar.
The airy room allowed plenty of room for his angry movements as he stalked to one end, turned on his heel, and stormed past the large table in the center of the room. He reached the window on the other side of the room and paused to look down on the courtyard a few hundred feet below.
Silver sconces hung on the walls, and the torches situated inside them cast shadows across the walls and floor. Tapestries decorated the walls. Most of them were landscapes of different areas of the Gloaming, but one was of his mother, and the others were of all the king’s sons.
Despite the fact half of his sons fought against their father in the war, he would never remove their tapestries from his solar. They’d stood against him, but he still loved them; he always would.
If push came to shove, the king would lay down his life for those sons. They were now hunted as traitors, but he would do what he could to make sure they survived. Brokk and Cole were under strict orders to save them if they could, but they didn’t require any such orders; neither wanted Orin or Varo to die.
Situated in the North Tower, the solar provided a spectacular view of the Gloaming. Cole didn’t have to look out the window to picture the fields full of crops rolling into hills. Though the dark fae mostly survived on the energy produced from sex, they also ate enough regular food to make crops necessary in the Gloaming.
During the summer, those crops would fill the fields, but now they were only half grown. Like Earth, the Shadow Realms had seasons, and the seasons in the Gloaming were similar to Earth’s.
It was June in the human realm and spring in the Gloaming, but they didn’t have winter here. They had a longer spring, summer, and fall. The leaves changed colors and fell in the Gloaming, but new ones sprang forth within weeks of the old ones falling.
Cole’s uncle, Maverick, watched Tove as he paced from his seat at the table. A golden goblet full of wine sat before him, but Maverick removed the silver flask from inside his jacket, unscrewed the cap, and took a gulp. His uncle was more of a whiskey than a wine guy.
Taller than Cole by about two inches, Maverick had difficulty getting his six-foot-nine frame to fit under the table and kept his legs sprawled out to the side. His dark brown hair waved around his broad face, and his chestnut eyes shone with amusement as he watched the king.
Maverick was the alpha of his pack, but he couldn’t stop some of his members from leaving to fight against the Lord during the war. But then, the lycans always enjoyed a fight.
His pack was not the only pack in the Lunar Realm. Others resided there, and before the war, they often argued with each other. They would battle over land, losing bits and pieces to enemy packs only to reclaim it again the next day or week.
Cole leaned against the wall as he sipped wine from his golden goblet and watched his father. It had been years since he’d seen Tove so enraged. Brokk glanced at Cole and raised an eyebrow. Cole shrugged and drank some more wine.
“What started the fight?” Brokk inquired.
“A vampire grabbed the ass of a lycan’s mate. Her mate punched the vamp in the face; someone hit a witch in the ensuing battle. It was a free-for-all after that,” Tove replied.
“You can’t blame a lycan for defending his mate,” Maverick said.
“Maybe not, but they’re all going to spend a week in my dungeons.”
“You cannot blame a lycan for defending his mate,” Maverick repeated.
Tove stopped his pacing and turned to face Maverick. The two men stared at each other.
“They are on our side,” Maverick said. “Some of them are part of my pack. They were wrong to fight in your hall. Let them stew in that knowledge for the night, but set them free afterward.”