I made sure that we wouldn’t give them enough time to prepare themselves for the death that is coming their way. The moment we appear, the alarm goes off, but it’s too late for them.
We’re not here for anything but death.
* * *
The Crux takesover North's body before the Pain god even realizes that we have Shadow Shifted in.
It is so confident in its ability to keep us out, never dreaming that we’d find a loophole through its plan of Shielding us from our Bonded. It would have worked; ithasworked a hundred times before.
Thanks to the breeding experiments that the Resistance had been conducting and the mixing of my mother's blood, my incidental Gift was something that the Corvus had never had before.
Shadow Shifting.
Simply by having Azrael tag along with Oleander meant there was nothing they could do to keep us apart, nothing they could do to stop me from arriving here. When we’d soul-bonded and forged an unbreakable connection, I knew that I’d never again let anything come between us, and that was all thanks to the Pain god.
I’m going to make sure it dies a horrific death, regretting that fact.
It used a lot of its power knocking Oleander out, more power than it should have been willing to, leaving it vulnerable to attack.
A vicious roar tears through the air as Gabe shifts, his body snapping and crunching as the Draconis takes over. The Crux moves towards Oleander, blind to everything else that is happening around us as it sees her unconscious form lying there, its devotion to her as blind as my brother’s. The Soothsayer takes control of Gryphon and moves with him, getting a hand over her throat as it pours power into her.
The Corvus pushes at my mind as it attempts to take over, but I push back, letting the streams of shadows fall away from my body and pushing them to devour their Transporter whole. I’m eager to remove any potential threats before the Pain god has the chance to get out of here.
I watch the way that its mouth twists scornfully, the hatred there a sickening thing as my shadows turn their heads towards her. How it ever managed to pass as a simple, non-Gifted woman is beyond me, because all I can see in those depthless void eyes is the sort of murderous madness that isn’t so easily disguised. A smirk stretches over my own lips as I see the realization set in, the tension filling its body as its power washes over me without breaking into my mind at all. It’s desperate, and it now knows it’s used its trump card too soon.
It knows that we don't want to simply kill it.
Doing such a stupid, rash thing would just send it back into the cycle; and I’m not spending the rest of my life waiting for this evil to return. If we cycle again, if this keeps on happening to us over and over, I’m not going to risk this coming after Oleander again. Not this version of her or the ones to come. Never again.
I watch as it scrambles away from us, throwing out its power as though it has a chance of getting through to any of us, but it can’t. The one and only time Gryphon used his Gift to knock Oli out, he told us it was like she pulled the power from him.
I’m sure the Pain god is hating every second of my poison girl’s power right now, every inch of it perfection.
The Draconis roars again, and this time, it takes off, leaving us behind as it senses something out there that none of the rest of us can see. A burst of fire lights up the night sky moments later as he wipes out the threat before it can even get close to Oleander. I push my shadow creatures even further, letting them free to start taking out the Resistance.
I watch as Atlas follows the line of the dragon’s body in the sky, torn between moving to Oleander and watching to see what is coming for us next. The Cleaver hasn’t taken over yet, it’s still the man in there making the choices, and as he glances back over in Oli’s direction, he curses under his breath.
I glance back to find a gun in the Pain god's hands.
Atlas shakes his head at it, pushing his power into the barrier around it, but it's not as simple as keeping us protected from the bullet.
It’s not aiming at us.
One of my shadows jumps up to grab it by the hand, another wrapping around its body to stop it from killing itself. It starts cursing and shouting as it squirms, fighting uselessly against the shadows, and I enjoy the sight of it all over again. I let one of the dark tendrils wrap around its mouth before I snap its arm, breaking the bone in a single movement.
The sound is like music to my ears.
The Draconis roars again, and Atlas curses under his breath.
“What the hell is going on up there?” he murmurs as he walks towards the opening to the tent, lifting it slightly and then jolting back.
“We have a lot more than the Pain god to deal with,” he says quietly, and the Soothsayer finishes healing Oli, standing up behind Atlas to glance out for a second.
“Tell me you've got her back, Crux. We can't stay in here for much longer,” Atlas says, his tongue only tripping over the god-bond’s name a little.
There's no answer, but the Crux stands smoothly, Oli looking so small and fragile in his arms. The Corvus pounds at the edges of my mind, demanding to be let out, but I hold onto control desperately. I need to see her wake up first. I need to know this wasn’t a mistake.
Her eyes stay closed, but her chest is moving steadily, her breathing even, as though she’s just enjoying a good night’s rest.
