that he chose to make a hole through it instead of shattering the whole thing. Maybe he was conserving energy for the fight that was still to come?
I silenced my thoughts as I felt the others gather up their magic and prepare to strike. Now that we didn’t have to hide our presence, there was no need to avoid using our magic.
Vayu was the first to move cautiously through the hole in the barrier, and the rest of us followed quickly behind him. We broke into a jog as a group, and the air got colder as we moved closer to the center of the castle. It was a bitter cold that I couldn’t completely block out with a barrier around myself like I usually could. Perhaps because the cold was due to death and not the weather?
Vayu broke through another barrier, and Montu slayed several guards at the entrance of the throne room. Malekbel raised a hand, and the tall doors burst open, revealing the nightmares that lived in the center of the Morrigan’s stronghold.
Shadows obscured the corners of the room, but they didn’t hide the Morrigan sitting poised on a glittering obsidian throne. My heart thudded in my chest at the sight of the pleased smile on the Morrigan’s face. Her dark hair was twisted up in an elaborate updo that framed the glittering black crown on her head. She wore a gown of blood red that only accentuated her snow-white skin.
“Welcome,” she purred.
I felt myself step forward before I snapped out of the pull she was using to draw us close. Venus kept moving forward, almost as if she were lost in a daze, and I grabbed her arm, slashing at the dark web of magic that tugged at her.
Venus came back to herself with a gasp, her eyes wide with fear. “She shouldn’t be able to do that,” she murmured to me.
Dark magic pulsed around the Morrigan, and I stood frozen. Looking into the Morrigan’s eyes was like looking into a dark abyss that was filled with nothing but a black pit of death and despair. Magic surged toward us, and I had less than a second to brace myself before it slammed into me.
A storm of magic swirled around me; it’s chaotic waves threatening to pull me under and tear me apart. I could barely keep standing, but I clung to the core that made me Anna. If I had walked into this room as the terrible goddess that had first emerged from Avalon, I might have lost myself in the power. I dug my mental claws in deep, clinging to who I was. I wrapped myself in the memory of my guys, kept the golden threads of my mate bonds close, and slowly pulled myself into the shelter of my core.
My struggle was so intense that I couldn’t spare a second of distraction or a stray thought toward the other gods that fought beside me. I was desperate to keep from being shredded apart, from being made into nothing but an empty husk.
I was winning, but then something reached out to touch me. There was a tendril of dark magic that caused my concentration to slip. I slid a little closer to the howling storm of magic that wanted to suck me deep into its endless depths, but I frantically threw out my own magic. I was desperate to catch hold of anything that could give me another anchor, something that could keep me from being devoured.
My mate bonds shimmered and strengthened. I could see the battle through my mates’ eyes, feel their own desperate struggle.
We were all losing.
Wolves were falling to the dark creatures that made up the Morrigan’s army of dark fae. Cody had lost his weapons and shifted into his giant wolf form, blood splatter soaking his coat. James was poetry in motion, but shadows flared around him, threatening to overtake him. The twins were fighting back to back, but their arms were tiring, and the enemy kept coming. Austin was shouting out encouragement, giving orders to hold the line, but his voice was hoarse.
A small seed of despair started to grow inside me. How could we possibly win this? We were fighting death and darkness. Fighting something that lurked within all of us.
But darkness wasn’t just sadness and despair. No, it was worse than that. It was hate and anger. The need to destroy and cause others pain. The desire to rip the world apart, cause others to flee in