“As I said, I wanted to be merciful. But,” he motioned towards me, “things change. Besides, power is a funny thing. Overload everything all at once and you risk creating a shortage.”

“And you’re not worried about that now?”

Are we good to go?

“Since my first visit here, I have been building and growing my capacity. I wasn’t in a position to take everything before.” He smiled toothlessly, in a manner that sent an icy cold trickle of hatred through me to join the angry swirl of bloodfire in my veins. “I am confident now, however, that I can manage to draw it all in. You can be content in the knowledge that your actions are responsible for the extinction of the dryad race.”

Uh, what? This guy wasn’t just a power hungry murderer, he was a wannabe genocidal maniac making absolutely no sense whatsoever.

“So whatever you and the kitty cat are planning in those little heads of yours, you can abandon it now. I will grant you one boon, however.”

“Oh yes?” I said, distractedly.

On a count of three. Three…

“My name.”

Two…

“So you can spend the rest of your pathetic life with something tangible to curse.”

One…

“It’s Endor.”

Now!

Several things happened at once. Both dryads let out abrupt piercing shrieks as Endor outstretched both his arms towards them. Corrigan launched himself from behind, claws flashing in the air as he aimed his great rippling panther body at the sorcerer. I threw my one remaining dagger down and leapt towards the dark point on the ground, fire shooting out from my fingertips and intermingling with the drops of blood that were still welling up at the surface of my skin. The fire and blood mix hit the spot with an angry hiss, sending up a plume of dark steam but, just when Corrigan was scant inches from Endor’s body, he took one swift step towards the portal. I could have sworn there was merry amusement twinkling in his eyes as his entire figure vanished. Corrigan and the dryads thumped virtually simultaneously onto the hard ground, and all four of us let out individual exclamations of pain, anger and frustration. The light that had been surrounding the area winked out, and we were plunged into darkness.

Without thinking, I threw myself at the strange blackened shimmers of the gateway in a desperate bid to follow him, but, for some reason, my passage was blocked and instead I also slammed down to the ground. I smashed my fist in thwarted anguish against the earth, and instead crawled over to Mereia’s friend.

She was muttering something to herself. Literally, as I watched, the colour was draining from her shadowed skin. She reached one hand out to me, and I clutched it, panicking.

‘What’s happening?” I shouted. “What can I do?”

She moaned, her fingers tightening around mine. “He’s taking it all,” he gasped.

With an inarticulate snarl and snap, Corrigan shifted back into his naked human form, and crouched over the other dryad.

“She’s fading, Mack, I don’t know what to do.”

I wrenched my hand away and ran the few steps to the portal, trying to smear my blood on it to close it and stop whatever Endor was doing to the dryads. He had to still be linking to them from wherever he was. If I could force the magical doorway shut then I could break his connection. The wound on my finger had nothing left to give, however. I cast around quickly, my eyes landing on the gleam of the silver dagger gleaming in the weak moonlight that still lit the area. Scooping it back up, I pressed it again into my hand, creating yet another wound. The pain didn’t even register. Then I sprang back to the portal of darkness and shoved my bleeding palm towards it. The shimmers reacted, almost as if they were angry, flickering faster and colliding with each other. The gateway, however, remained open. I cursed and tried again.

“Mack,” said the dryad weakly.

I barely heard her, using the dagger to open up my wound even more. I must just need more blood. Again, I thrust out towards the shadowy shimmers. Again, the portal refused to close.

“Come on, come on,” I muttered desperately.

“Mack,” she said again. “You need to do it now.”

“I’m trying!”

“No, you don’t understand. You need to end it now. Kill us.”

Her words slowly sank in as I looked first at her and then at Corrigan. His face was pale under his tan as we both stared at each other. What the fuck?

“He was right,” she gasped, the pain in her voice obvious. “I can feel it.”

“Feel what? I don’t understand.”

The colour in her eyes was already starting to dim and leak out. “Through us he’s linked to everyone.”

I still didn’t get it. The fog of confused desperation was almost overwhelming.

“He…” she paused for a moment as a wave of agony overtook her, before swallowing hard and continuing on. “He’s using us to get to them all. He was right that we’re all inter-connected. By taking our life-force he’s taking it from every single dryad in the country. He’s used the power he already took from Mereia to somehow force us all together as one and tap into the system that binds us. If you don’t end it for us, then they will all die. Kill us now, Mack. You have to. You can’t let him destroy all of us. And you can’t let him take that much power.”

Her companion joined in, chiming weakly. “I can feel them all fading away. Do it now. You must.”

Atlanteia’s invisible roots. An icy hand of frozen anguish gripped its way round my heart, squeezing tightly. “No,” I whispered. “There must be another way.”

“There’s not. Do it, Mack, do it before it’s too late.”

“No! My blood. If you take my blood then it will heal you.”

I began thrusting out my hand towards her. How much would she need? I’d need to make sure there was enough for both of them. The dryad, however, was shaking her head.

“You can’t. I can’t. It will heal us, but it won’t break the link. The others will still die, Mack. All the others. You need to kill us to save them.” Her eyes pleaded with me.

The realisation of what Endor had meant when he’d said that Corrigan and I would have to live with consequences of our actions hit me. All that stupid power inside my blood and not one single iota of it could help. Dully, I stared down at her, then back towards Corrigan. He watched me grimly, then nodded. Barely able to draw breath, I nodded back. Tears filled my eyes, blurring my vision as I knelt down beside her. Her hand grasped up towards me.

“It’s the right thing,” she whispered.

No, it fucking wasn’t. I took her hand in mine, then reached out with my other one and smoothed down her tangled green hair. Corrigan was beside the other dryad, cradling her head in his hands.

I clenched my teeth. “I’m so so sorry.”

She lifted her eyes to mine, stubborn denial at my words lighting their depths. “Do it. We will have our revenge through you in another life.”

Kill a few to save a lot. To save them all. It wasn’t fucking right. I took a deep breath, moving my hands round the sides of her head. Then I twisted it sharply right and broke her neck.

Chapter Twenty Two

“I brought your clothes, my Lord.” Lucy’s voice wafted over to me. I ignored it and pulled my knees closer to my chest. When both dryads had died, so did the portal, winking out of existence as if it had never been there in the first place. Now there was nothing left to do. I buried my face into the soft fabric of my jeans and tried to block her out.

“Thank you.”

“What happened?”

“It’s a very long story. Gather the others together down by the carpark. What happened here is now over.”

Her footsteps crunched on the ground as she apparently ran off. I still didn’t bother looking up. There was a faint rustle as Corrigan apparently dressed himself. I sniffed, not even bothering to try to stem the silent tears that were creating a damp patch on my clothes.

“Mack.” Corrigan laid a hand on my shoulder.

I remained where I was. His grip tightened and he shook me, gently. “Mack, you should get up.”

I lifted my face up to his and stared at him searchingly. “What did we just do?”

He sighed heavily and crouched down beside me, his fingers tracing the tracks of my tears across my cheeks, then tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “What we had to.”

“We fucking killed them, Corrigan! They’d done nothing and we just did away with them as if they were nothing!”

“He hadn’t given us a choice. You know that.” His voice remained quiet and calm. I didn’t have the faintest idea how he managed it.

Another tear rolled down. I didn’t bother brushing it off. I looked away from him and down at the broken body of the dryads. Yet again I’d screwed everything up and there was a pile of corpses left in my wake.

“Don’t you dare do that!” He took hold of both my shoulders and leaned in. ‘This is not your fault, do you hear me?”

“If I’d shifted then maybe I could have stopped him.”

“How? What could you have done differently? He gave us no choice, Mack.”

“There’s always a choice,” I answered dully, finally pulling away from him and standing up. “What do we do now?”

“We go back home and find out everything we can about this bastard so we can put him down once and for all. At least we now know his name.”

“Know his name? Know his fucking name? Big freaking deal! And what if he comes back here again, Corrigan? How do we stop him? What if he goes after other dryads in other places?”

“Which is exactly why we need to get back to London and get a proper plan of action in place in order to make sure that doesn’t happen. I’ve called in the Welsh pack. They’ll be here in fifteen minutes and will make sure he doesn’t show up again.”

I scoffed. “As if they could stop him if he did.”

“Mack,” Corrigan sighed, looking me in the eyes, “he’s done here. You know he is. He has what he wanted, which is more of the dryads’ power. He’s gone off to goodness knows where. He’s certainly not on this plane anyway. We need to get back and work out what we are going to do next. Staying here is not going to stop anything. Not anymore.”