She brushed her fingers over my markings when they shifted in anticipation of going after Lucifer. Lifting her hand, I kissed the back of it before drawing her a step closer. Lucifer walked around the chamber, absently kicking at the remains of those who had perished. Spreading his wings, he flapped them to rise into the air.
“I can’t keep this up, Kobal,” Magnus muttered as sweat dripped off his chin and plopped onto the ground.
Bending, I rested my lips against River’s ear. “Remember, yourself first. I will come back for you, Mah Kush-la.”
Her mouth turned until her lips touched mine. “I love you.”
“And I you, with everything I am.”
Releasing her, I held her gaze before taking a few steps back. I had planned to scale down the rocks to the cavern below, but plans had a way of changing. Running forward, I leapt off the edge of the cliff.
Air battered my body and whipped at my clothes as I plummeted downward. My gaze remained locked on Lucifer when he rose higher, directly beneath me. If I missed him, I would break bones on the rocks below. I had no intention of missing him.
I knew the second Magnus lost the illusion as a startled cry erupted from the craetons and they staggered away from the palitons who had been hidden from them.
“Lucifer!” a scream erupted from above me, but I remained focused on his bat-like, black wings. “Above you!”
Lucifer’s head tilted back, his onyx eyes widened when he spotted me. He twisted in midair to avoid me, but he wasn’t fast enough as my hand snagged his foot. Wildly, he swung one of the silver spikes protruding from the bottoms of his wing at me. It sliced across my cheek, causing blood to spill down my face and onto the floor below.
I dodged the next swing he took at me and seized his foot with both hands. Before he could launch another wing at me, I swung my legs up and wrapped them around his waist. Releasing his foot, I caught the spike as he drove it straight toward me. The tip of it brushed against my eye. The muscles in my arms bulged as I grappled to keep Lucifer from driving it through my skull.
I shouted as I succeeded in yanking his wing to the side. The satisfying crack of bone and the rending of flesh tearing filled the air before his putrid, oily blood spurted into my face. With the wing bent at an unnatural angle, he struggled to stay in the air with the other, but my added weight dragged him toward the palitons and hounds waiting beneath us.
CHAPTER 17
River
My heart lodged in my throat when Kobal leapt off the cliff and plummeted into the cavern. Resting my hand against the rock wall, I leaned forward to watch him crash onto Lucifer. Many of Kobal’s followers moved to block the tunnels as they fought the craetons who had remained in the cavern.
Pulling on the flow of life beneath my fingertips, I created another small ball of energy. I aimed it at a manticore diving toward Kobal and released it. The blast tore through the back of the creature. The screech it released made me wince as it spiraled downward. With a loud crack, it hit the ground and its body bounced across the floor. Bale leapt forward to sever its head with her sword.
“Nice blow, my queen,” Lopan complimented.
I started drawing from the rocks again as Lucifer battered at the air with his good wing. The bones of the other wing were already knitting back together and his blood didn’t flow as freely. He tried to propel himself away from the hounds jumping to nip at his heels.
My breath hissed in when Lucifer swung one of his lethal spikes at Kobal again. The gash in Kobal’s cheek had stopped bleeding, but now fresh blood spilled from the flayed open skin and muscle of his back.
“Son of a bitch!” I spat.
Turning my hand over, I released the energy on a blast that discharged in a straight line from my palm. Lucifer’s howl echoed throughout when the flow of life tore through his back. I glimpsed his spine before muscle and blood swiftly started to repair itself.
Lucifer’s head whipped around. His pitiless black eyes burned into mine as he bared his teeth. No matter what his plans were for me, if he’d been standing beside me right then, he would have torn off my head.
“Shit,” Hawk said from beside me.
“Get her!” Lucifer shouted. His flight faltered again when Kobal jerked on him, bringing him toward the ground once more.
“Not good,” Magnus stated.
“Time to go,” Corson said and snagged my arm.
“Kobal,” I breathed. I jerked against Corson’s incessant tugging, but he refused to release me.
“You promised him you would go, that you would think of yourself first,” Corson said. “Kobal will focus on the fight better if he knows you’re safe.”
Before I could respond, a manticore flew up to fill the mouth of the tunnel. Corson shoved me against the wall as the tail of the manticore swung in. It slammed into the floor where we’d been standing. Rocks splintered and broke; their shards pelted my legs. The manticore pulled its tail free, lifted it up, and plunged it down again. Lopan yelped and jumped out of the way in time to avoid being pierced by the poisonous stinger.
Setting his caultin down, Lopan dipped his hand in and pulled out a small sword. Gripping it with both hands, he lifted it above his head and swung the sword across the manticore’s tail, severing it. The sliced off end flopped on the ground for a few seconds before going still. Green blood gushed out the other end, spraying the walls as the remaining stump of the manticore’s tail lashed back and forth. I dodged a wave of blood as the manticore trumpeted a sound that had me slapping my hands over my ears. It reeled away from the entrance.
