Chapter 382

It is so, so short a time later when I’m in the back of a transport, racing to the front line of the battle with Jackson and Rafe and Roger by my side. My hands tremble a little as I watch Roger fasten on the earpiece that my father gave him, so that he can use to communicate back to the base.

Because dad’s not here – he wanted to come, but sending the King to the front along side the heir and the spare? It just…we decided against it.

Dad – he held me for so, so long before he lifted me onto the transport truck. He didn’t say anything – I don’t think he could, not at that moment. But the way he and mom looked as Roger climbed in behind me – their faces pale and serious, their eyes locked on me and my brother.

I knew, in my very soul, how much they love us. How they would never, ever send us off to the front like this unless they had to.

I clenched my jaw now as I remember it, determined not to cry again. Jackson just gathers me closer into his lap, resting his chin gently on my head, cradling me against him. He doesn’t say anything or send any emotions down the bond – he just holds me and lets me have a little private moment to vent my exhausted heart. But he’s there – always there – just in case I need him.

God, I love him so much.

I look up at him now, steady next to me, and nod, letting him know that I’m all right.

“We can do this,” Jackson murmurs, running a hand over my cap, my hair. “No one can do it but us, right? So we’re going to do it.”

“Yeah,” I whisper, giving a tremulous smile, believing him as I secure the earpiece and let my hands fall to my lap on a shaky exhale of breath. “We’re gonna do it.”

“And then,” he murmurs, dropping his head low to speak into my ear, our own private moment. “I’m taking you away from all of this for a few days, and we’re going to get you all marked up.”

I burst out in a shaky little laugh – because honestly, I haven’t thought of anything in the future. Anything beyond getting to this front, and unleashing my power, and sending these Atalaxian forces straight to hell for everything they’ve taken from me. For Tony, and Juniper, and Jesse…

If, even, that’s who took them.

God, I just…I don’t even know.

But I let Jackson’s promise root me because a few days away from everything and alone with him sounds just right.

The transport slows to a stop and I take a shaky breath, looking over at Rafe and Roger, who are already hopping out of the truck. Jackson helps me to my feet and I follow, my hands shaking as I lift myself down to the ground.

My breath stills in my lungs as I look around. The Moon Valley forces stretching out on either side of us in a long, steady line, but it isn’t the sight that stuns me. The noise is…incredible.

All the guns, and the shouted orders, and the sounds of heavy machinery as my people work hard to hold back the Atalaxian forces. Slowly I turn towards the Atalaxian front, freezing and sucking in a great deal of air when I see the extent of the enemy stretched out before us.

There are just…so many of them. Lines and lines of soldiers, and tanks, and guns, and planes and helicopters. God, how have we held them back for so long?

How have we –

“Hey,” Roger snaps, making me turn hastily to look up into his serious face. All signs of the mourning father whose son is missing are gone as he presses a gun holster into my hands. No, he’s all General now. “You don’t worry about them, okay? You leave the worrying to me. You just do your little magic show, baby trouble. We’ll handle the rest.”

I nod to him, glancing down at holster with the single handgun already loaded inside. I mean, it’s a nice gun, but… “Can’t I have a bigger one?”

Roger bursts out laughing as he shakes his head at me, as Jackson smirks and kneels down to strap it onto my waist.

“Think of it as your little emotional support gun,” Rafe says with a happy sigh, strapping a whole arsenal of weapons to his own broad body. “I told dad you’d want it.”

“Unfair,” I mutter, drifting a hand passively over Jackson’s cheek as he stands up. “I’m a better shot than all of you and I just get the little one.”

“Because you are the weapon, trouble,” Rafe murmurs, looking over at Jackson as my mate, too, begins to load himself up. “You ready?”

“Yup,” Jackson says, nodding steadily to my brother and my uncle as he drapes weapons all over his body. Rather a nice sight, if you ask me. Jacks senses my thought and sends me a fond glance. “We’re good. Let’s go.”

Roger nods once and the four of us fall into a line, moving out towards the front to join the fight.

“Here’s the deal,” Roger murmurs, glancing down at me from my right. “Cora’s got a storm coming in from behind the Atalaxian front that should do a great deal of work towards distracting them. Plus, they won’t be able to get many aircraft off the ground with what she’s got brewing.”

“Oh,” I say, my eyebrows going up as I consider that that is, indeed, going to be help. I think the stars again that I have a powerful weather goddess as an aunt.

“What we need from you,” Roger continues, shifting his eyes to the wide front of Atalaxian forces before us. “Is to take out as much of this as you can. We’ve managed to enter after the battle has already started, so hopefully no one has taken note of one transport truck delivering four soldiers.”

“But considering that they always seem to have eyes on us,” Rafe murmurs, also glancing at me, “who knows. So, we need to move fast.”

Roger nods as he taps his own earpiece. “I’ve got your dad right here, Ariel, to direct the battle. But mostly we just need you to…take ‘em out, in whatever way works for you. We’re here for guidance and for cover. But…whenever you’re ready, kid.”

“Oh,” I say, my eyes going wide. Because…I just…go? I think I was expecting more preamble than that. I glance up at Jackson, anxious, and he takes my hand, looking steadily down into my eyes.

The power begins to flow between us, itself a powerful encouragement, making me feel full of energy and ready to blaze.

“You ready, baby?” I whisper.

His face bursts into a smile at the pet name – the first I ever called him, the one I think he likes the most, though he’d hate it if others knew it.

“Ready when you are, tiny,” he murmurs in reply. And I watch as he physically restrains himself from leaning down to kiss me.

Because we’re at war. And there’s no time for that.

But still, the impulse makes me grin, and I exhale a long breath. “Okay. Let’s go.”

I step forward and join the battle.

I press all the thoughts and worries from my mind – all of my sadness about Tony, and my worries about Juniper, and my horror for both Jesse and Daphne. I tuck it all away, as Roger has done, and instead just look for something to burn.

Because a girl’s got to start somewhere.

My eyes catch on a plane soaring high above the Atalaxian forces, heading right for our troops, probably to drop some bombs and steal away even more Moon Valley lives.

“You good if I start there?” I murmur to my uncle.

His eyes move upwards. “The plane? Um. Sure.”

“Cool.” My mouth turns down into a frown as I concentrate, pulling on Jackson’s power. It’s only a moment before the plane bursts into flames above the Atalaxian lines. I smirk, imagining the way that surprise must have made them all flinch.

But my joy is short-lived as I begin to I concentrate, pulling on Luca’s sputtering wind and Jackson’s raw power to grow the fire in the air even as the debris of the plane falls to the ground.

Slowly, the flaming whirlwind forms in the sky above the Atalaxian troops. Even as I miss Jesse and his shadows, there is something so…so magnificent about the bright flame against the dark sky that thrills within me. I take a moment, not destroying anything else, just…letting the conflagration hang in the air, a clear message to the enemy that reflects all of the rage and pain in my heart.

That I’m here now. And their time is short, because the fire is coming and I’m going to burn them all to ash.

But there’s only so much time I can dedicate to a message. And so I begin.

The inferno lengthens, reaching to touch the ground for the first time, and then begins to move. I allow it to tear through the forces closest to it, moving westward in my vision and destroying everything in its path. I squeeze Jackson’s hand as I concentrate, wanting his comfort as well as his strength, because…the magic is wilder than it was before. I’m just not used to the way the wind moves now. It’s not a dance anymore, but a furious rampage.

I loose a shaky breath, working to manage the flames even as the destruction continues forward.

Jackson squeezes my hand right back and his confidence fills me. A perverse joy sings through my veins as I direct the fire to move, consuming everything it touches and fueling the fire of my rage, my pain, my desire to destroy this horrible army that seeks to take everything from the people I love.

“Holy fuck,” Roger murmurs beneath his breath.

“I told you,” Rafe says back, sighing in a satisfied way.

But I barely hear them, concentrating as I am on the firey path that I’m blazing through the Atalaxian foe.