Chapter 126: Chapter Thirty-Six

**Enid**

I crawled to Leo where he lay gasping for air. His throat looked badly damaged. I could also tell his right arm was broken.

“Leo, Leo,” I croaked as tears spilled out of my eyes.

Even though he was still gasping, he gave me a thumbs up and answered, *‘Bleiz says I’ll be okay.’*

I smiled and grabbed his cheeks softly in my hands so I could lean down and kiss him. I laid against his chest for a moment and listened to his heartbeat.

*‘You did it,’* he said through the link. *’You’re amazing.’*

*‘I’d be dead if you hadn’t been here.’*

*‘He would’ve had to kill me first,’* he growled through the bond.

A large horn sounded somewhere, and I realized the dark elves were retreating. They were gathering in large groups behind the vampires and then disappearing with the help of transportation spells they’d brought with them.

The vampires, however, wouldn’t back down. Vampires could become more in control of themselves, intelligent creatures, but only after a couple hundred years of bloodlust. Normally, they lived in large groups called clans and they kept the younger vampires away from the human world, so they didn’t kill too much and get noticed. These vampires were young, mindless beasts who only served their own hunger. They didn’t appear to have a clan or clan leader to serve.

I watched as they cornered a unicorn mare and started tearing at her. She was saved just in time by two wolves, but was still hurt badly.

I felt sad for the vampires. Not too long ago, they had all been humans. Someone’s loved ones.

But I’d had enough. Enough death. I couldn’t let them go out into the world and wreak havoc.

I stood and scanned the crowd.

*‘Gideon, is there any way we can corral them all into one area? I can take care of all of them if we do.’*

I saw him shift and start talking to people. Other Alpha wolves and the Fae King, as well as Wren and a large black stallion I didn’t know.

Everyone started working together, flanking far around the vampires and pushing them. The unicorns were so incredibly fast and beautiful.

Soon the vampires were concentrated in a giant circle. Maybe two thousand of them left. They hissed at their pursuers and crawled over each other like bugs. I looked at one in particular, a young girl maybe in her twenties, and she had on bright red toenail polish. She was feral, hissing and growling, with no real human emotion present. It disturbed me how normal the nail polish was. A signifier of her life before. A life she’d never have again.

I knelt on the ground and felt for anything made of wood. The shafts of arrows all responded to me, waiting to be manipulated. I focused on all of them at once and lifted them out of the piles of bodies. Some were removing themselves from the dead people. Some arrows were still intact, but many of them had broken shafts.

All around, they rose until an uncountable number hung in the surrounding air. I lifted them up using a combination of earth and air, and positioned them point down over the crowd of vampires.

People stared, open-mouthed and in awe.

Still holding them there, I lit a fire in my hands. Concentrating on the arrows, I sent little fireballs to each in rapid succession until they were all aflame.

I was using a lot of power now, and I could feel it coursing through my body. It felt good to use so much at once. To let it out.

*‘Have everyone stand back,’* I told Gideon in my head.

Our allies backed up several feet.

I looked at the girl with the red toenails one more time.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

I let the arrows go, pushing them down forcefully with the help of air. They all plunged into the crowd of vampires, impaling many of them and burning through the rest.

They screeched and screamed, sometimes sounding too disturbingly human. I winced, closing my eyes and pushing the tears that had formed there down my face.

Everyone cheered. We won the battle. The beast and the army were defeated.

But I felt sick. I looked around at the thousands of dead bodies and more tears filled my eyes. It was awful.

Leo picked up on those emotions and placed his hand on my back.

**Leo**

It was incredible to watch Enid when she unleashed her full power. She’d just killed two thousand vampires in less than a minute.

Everyone was ecstatic. Happy to be done fighting.

But it was a short-lived moment of victory. All around us there were wails as the living searched the dead and found a loved one or a friend. I looked around and found Daro and another young male unicorn, most likely his brother, lifting an elderly man who I knew to be their grandfather out of a pile of dead bodies. Tears ran down their faces and they held him delicately and respectfully.

Gideon and Finn were kneeling next to Lucien, our father’s gamma and Gideon’s gamma before me. He was dead and my brothers were trying to comfort his mate, who wailed loudly over his body.

Scanning, I found Eris and Kat. They stood next to each other in silence and watched the chaos of the after battle. Kat rested her head on Eris’ shoulder and they both looked exhausted.

I breathed a sigh of relief. It was selfish of me, but I couldn’t help but be joyous that we’d all made it. So many were dead, but my people were alive. My nieces and nephews would get their parents back tonight, and I had my mate.

Enid turned and put her head into my chest. She started sobbing, unable to control her emotions any longer. I wrapped my arms around her and crushed her to my chest.

River walked up to us and leaned down, whispering something in Enid’s ear. Enid nodded in response, and then River mumbled something.

There was the blinding flash of the transport spell and when I blinked and opened my eyes, Enid and I were standing in my bedroom.

The images flowed into my mind, and we’d learned over the last two months that she couldn’t control it when her emotions were untethered.

I shut my eyes tightly, wishing they would go away, but in a way I felt it was my duty and my honor to share her pain.

The first ones were of Hades being torn apart in front of her eyes. His last act of selfless bravery to save the person he loved most in this world. Then they were random images of the battle; people dying. A sprite and a harpy having their heads crushed by Sidious. Bleiz and Skadi viciously killing Nox. A vampire girl with red toenails. It was random chaos in my mind and I felt her horror and grief through the bond mixing with my own.

I sat on the bed and held her in my lap, unsure of what I could do. Suddenly, I felt my age. I felt the inexperience of youth. We were both teenagers still, and it was too much to see. Too much to cope with.

The images shifted back to Nox. To the time before when he was touching her. It was obviously something that had deeply scarred her. He had been vile, pure evil, and if I could’ve killed him again, I would’ve.

Rage roiled in my chest and I said, “I’m so sorry.”

I felt like a failure. I hadn’t protected my mate, and she’d had to experience so much horror.

After what seemed like hours, but could’ve been a few minutes, Enid calmed down. She sniffled softly, and the images blessedly stopped.

I stood and carried her to the bathroom. We were both caked in blood and dirt, so I turned on the shower. We stood under the water for a long time in silence before finally washing off. Enid’s long hair had been intricately braided, and it took us a while to get all the little braids free.

The water ran red and brown, swirling down the drain in a little vortex.

I felt a lot better when we were done, but we both gasped when we saw ourselves in the bathroom mirror. I had noticed Enid’s bruises, of course. Her entire chest was purple and black. I didn’t know that my neck was so bad, though. It was a similar color. The bruises were healing quickly thanks to our wolves, but the injuries had been severe.

We laid down on the bed, and our hair was still wet.

I had no idea what day it was. Everything was so disoriented in my head because of the chaos and the time difference. But the skylight was open, revealing a beautiful, crystal clear, winter night sky.

We looked at it for a few moments, and then I felt intense and unconditional love pulsing through the bond from her. It overwhelmed me, my eyes stinging with tears from the emotion. I pushed the same feelings back to her and held her tighter against me.

She pointed up and whispered, “Look, there’s the Big Dipper.”