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“Kasha!” Rycon coughed, trying once more to push up from the floor before his entire body shuddered and his limbs finally failed him. Ash Nevra turned her sights to him and Conrad, who was unnervingly still next to him, blood still pooling from the wound in his neck.
“They soon will be dead,” The Siren remarked, looking down her nose at them. Ash Nevra nodded in agreement. She turned away from my dying friends and set her eyes on Amon.
“No sword to protect you, my dark Prince,” she sang as she stalked towards him, tracing her finger down his chest. She opened her palm flat against him, and looked up at him like he was something to eat. “What should I do with you? Should I kill your mate here, and make you watch?” She asked, curling herself around him. She rubbed her hands over him intimately as she looked back at me.
“Or would it be more fun to enslave you and let her live? I’ve always wanted to see what would happen if you separated mates.” Watching me, she pressed her lips against his ear and pulled his earlobe into her mouth briefly, before continuing. “Do you think she’ll be able to stand it? Do you think she’ll be able to handle knowing that I will be riding you, while she combs the Dominion, trying to find us?” She kissed him softly on the cheek. “How many centuries do you think she will look before she gives up?” She asked him, and his face was so white, he looked ill.
“I…will…kill…” I finally managed to get out, and the smile on her face widened.
“That seemed to get a reaction out of her,” she purred, fingering The Flute in her hands. “What was that, Raven? You’re going to kill me? It doesn’t look to me like that is very likely. Not while I have this little toy you brought me.”
With a ‘crack’ she snaked a whip of power out and my whole body convulsed, as the slavery bond wrapped around my mate like a shackle. Amon succumbed to the bond, and I felt as if I might die.
“Say goodbye, Prince Amon,” she cooed, picking up his immobile hand and forcing him to wave to me. Amon and I stared at each other, helplessly, as The Siren stepped closer to them. My power was roaring in my ears. I slammed against the curse that bound me again and again. No matter how hard I tried, I could not move.
Ash Nevra snapped her fingers, and suddenly, they were gone.
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The moment they were gone, The Flute’s spell broke, along with my heart. The pent-up screams exploded from my lips and my aura immediately tore through the throne room.
I had felt like this once before when I had watched Clair die in my arms. My control over my power slipped, and an ancient drumbeat sounded deep within my chest. I felt my eyes go black with power and I knew I needed to get a handle on myself, or it would consume me. Every inch of me wanted to reduce the palace to rubble. I wanted to tear apart the Dominion with my bare hands until I had them wrapped around Ash Nevra’s throat. I wanted to flood her veins with fire and squeeze her neck until she fucking popped. I wanted to watch the light die from her eyes as I killed her. Most of all, I wanted her to know she was going to die, and I wanted her to know I was the one who ended her.
I struggled to get a handle on myself. Rycon and Conrad lay on the floor before me, neither of them were moving. The sight of their lifeless forms was enough to pull me back from the mindless rage that had been threatening to consume me. Not yet. I couldn’t fall apart yet. I needed to get them to Meredith.
I dropped to the ground next to them, pressing my fingers into each of their throats, carefully avoiding Conrad’s wound. I let out a sigh of relief when I was able to locate their heart beats. They were weak, but they were there. They didn’t have much time.
Kieran and Ash Nevra had been able to use their magicks to escape the palace. I attempted to do the same. I tried to gather my shadows to shadow walk us away, but an inky stain was coating the air around me. Ash Nevra’s magickal grip on the palace prevented me from shadow walking. I had that strange feeling again, that this palace was mine. This place should have been my home. The walls around me groaned as I slammed my power against Ash Nevra’s lingering magick and I realized that if I tried to, I might be able to take this palace back. It was loyal to me.
I filed this piece of information away, to examine more closely later. Right now, I needed to get Rycon and Conrad out of here. I asked the matter around them to lift them up off the ground. My own feet rose off the floor, and I pulled them through the air behind me. I just needed to make it out the front door then we could shadow walk home. As soon as they were safely with Meredith, I could figure out how I was going to get Amon and Kasha back.
Fffshhh fshhh fshhhh
My ears pricked and I frowned. It was a faint scuffling, coming from the hallway. A chill rolled down my spine. I thought the palace had been empty. What could be making that sound? I drew the blades that Amon had strapped to my arms and cast protective shields around Rycon and Conrad immediately.
Fffshhh fshhh fshhhh
It was getting louder. I didn’t have time for this. I slowly slid us through the air to the entrance of the throne room.
Fuck!
The hallway was flooded with the half dead daemons we had seen in the dungeons. There were easily a hundred of them, and they dragged themselves forward, eyes blank, feet dragging. They moved like zombies, and something was clearly horribly wrong with them. I reached my aura forward tentatively and gasped. They did not have auras, only slavery bonds. They were dead, animated corpses, planted here by Ash Nevra. She had planned this.
She had never meant for me to leave alive.
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There was something particularly sickening about the fact that even in death, these daemons were not free of her. She violated their bodies, even after she had taken their lives.
As the dead daemons crowded closer, arms reaching towards us, they blocked our path to the door. I would need to fly higher to avoid them. Gripping my twin blades more tightly, I pulled us up and continued to press forward. To my horror, the daemons began to climb on top of one another to reach us.
More and more of them spilled out of the dungeons, and they piled over each other like ants, forcing me higher until we were nearly pressed against the ceiling of the entranceway. One of them grabbed me by the ankle and tried to pull me down. I slashed at its hand with one of my blades and nearly severed its wrist. It stared at me with those empty dead eyes and simply grabbed me again with the other hand. Another daemon crawled on top me, pulling itself up my leg. More and more of them swarmed us. I slashed and slashed but there were too many.
Finally, I had enough. I stopped fighting and let them envelope me. More and more of them piled over each other to get closer to me. Once I was covered in warm, rotting bodies, I let out an explosion of energy, forcing the white power to cut through the daemons around me. Several of them vaporized into nothing more than dust. The rest of them fell away from me, dropping the considerable distance to the floor in pieces.
Glancing back at Conrad and Rycon, they had been protected from the explosion by my shields and their armor, but one severed hand still clung to Rycon’s wrist, from where a daemon had tried to pull him down. I snarled and ripped it off of him. Blasting us forward toward the door, I viciously cut through every daemon that managed to throw itself in front of me.
As we burst out of the palace, widowmakers dropped from the walls around us at the checkpoint, laughing and scuttling. The sight of them made the rage in my chest reach a climax. I sheathed my blades and held up a palm, dousing the vile things with the white-hot fire of a quasar. I screamed as I unleashed on them, the air rippling around me with heat. I put every ounce of anger, hatred and hurt into the blast, and when I was done, even their charred skeletons had been reduced to ash. I scoffed. I would like to see if they could come back from that.
