“Devinshea!” I shouted his way. “You do not want to do this. She’s your wife.”
His eyes were unfocused and I knew the stone was working its magic.
I could handle Donovan now that he was human. I walked right up to the man and did something I’d kind of wanted to do since I’d met him. We were friends and all, but he’d been an asshole in the beginning. So I punched him in the face.
See, the reason I never had before was because he would have told me it tickles, and I take deep pride in how hard I can shove my fist through a dude’s face.
Now he just passed out.
One down. A Fae god to go.
I looked to Erna. “He’s not exactly mortal. You want to help me out here?”
Erna sighed and her hands came up as though ready to put the whammy on the fertility god. Normally I would take issue. Now I would cheer her on.
“Dea meam audiunt…” She’d barely started her incantation when a big vine shot up and tossed her across the yard. Her body flew past the place I knew the invisible barrier was and the witch was still.
Damn, I hoped he hadn’t killed her.
“Hey, I’m trying here.” Dean was holding off four vines, but he was losing. And he didn’t notice the one snaking its way toward him. The grass was growing around the queen’s feet. “Erna’s strong. She’ll be okay. We have to stop him before Zoey gets dragged down. Is he really trying to pull her into the ground? She won’t be able to breathe.”
It was one of Dev’s go-to moves. That grass would take her under, and I wasn’t sure I would be able to get her back. I wasn’t sure how long she could survive, and we didn’t have vampire blood to save her. For the first time in a long time I felt some panic threaten because Devinshea—for all his male model looks and posh ways—was a badass, and I wasn’t sure I could take him down without killing him.
Or hurting myself.
This was what it meant to be pregnant. I was hesitating and I couldn’t. I had to have some faith in my abilities or we would lose the queen. If I lost the queen, I lost the king and Dev because they could never live with the guilt.
But I wasn’t sure if I could survive knowing I could have protected my child.
“Devinshea,” the queen was saying. “Devinshea, please don’t do this. I love you. You have to be in there somewhere. You don’t want to hurt me.”
The queen was being wrapped in grass and vines, and I watched the moment she started sinking slowly into the ground, into her grave.
Dean was too busy fighting his own vines to help the queen. They wrapped around his legs and he flung them off, but just as quickly they were back, taking up all his time and effort.
“Please, Devinshea.” The queen was weeping, trying to turn to see her husband.
She was asking mercy from the wrong person. I might have gotten lucky in the fact that I could knock out Donovan, but Dev had an off switch, too. “Bris, I need you to take over the body right now.”
Dev didn’t share a mind with the ancient god he shared a body with, and it was obvious Bris hadn’t noticed the thrall stone. Their personalities were different and that affected how the thrall stone worked. It didn’t on Bris. I had to get to Bris.
The queen’s slow descent paused. She was in to midcalf, dirt and grass swirling around her legs.
I had his attention. The question was how far gone Dev was.
“Bris, I need you to fight because that parasite inside of Dev’s brain is about to kill your goddess,” I said.
“And me.” Dean was now half cocooned. “Uhm, I would like the weird god thing to save me, too.”
Yep, we would be training. A lot. If we survived this particular adventure. I moved closer to the queen. I couldn’t let her go into the dirt. “Bris, do whatever you have to do but take over the body now. If you don’t we lose her. You can’t lose your goddess. Devinshea wouldn’t want you to lose her. It’s all up to you.”
Dev’s eyes flashed to pure green. “I am trying, Hunter. He is very strong.”
I felt Zoey start to go under again. “Try harder. You’re not merely fighting to save her. Your host needs you. Devinshea needs you. I need