He rose and started toward me as I scrambled to my feet.
“Bale, run!” Wrath shouted.
The distress in his voice propelled me faster but, unable to gain purchase, my feet slipped on the floor and one of my knees hit the ground as the vibrations in it strengthened.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I grasped a statue and used it to pull myself up as a hand enclosed on my ankle and swallowed most of my calf. I was sure my heart would rupture as it battered my ribs before lodging in my throat. The coldness seeping through my leg caused me to lose feeling in it instantly.
I looked back to discover Mytaz’s thick hand engulfing what was now a golden calf. I watched in dismay as gold encompassed my foot and toes while spreading toward my knee.
No!
I wasnotsupposed to go this way. I wasnotsupposed to die at the hands ofthismonster. I couldn’t be another trophy for this thing.
I tried to jerk my leg free of his grasp. My thigh moved, but there was no movement in my calf, and my jerking caused no reaction from him. I was about to kick him with my other leg but stopped myself. It would only cause the gold to spread faster through me if I kicked him. These were the last seconds of my life, and I would experience every single one of them.
Fiora.
I would soon learn what my sister experienced in her last moments, and I understood the helplessness she endured. My leg now belonged to him and his collection; soon, the rest of me would too as gold seeped into my hips and spread throughout my left leg.
Wrath.
The amount of sadness that accompanied his name in my mind stunned me more than my golden toes. We’d just found each other; what was between us never should have existed, but it did. And now it was over, and not only would I die, but so would he.
My mind was flooded with memories of the way he made me feel so alive when he was touching me and inside me. When I recalled the dimple in his cheek and the sound of his laughter, tears pooled in my eyes. I blinked them hastily away. Mytaz couldn’t think I was crying because ofhim. I wouldn’t give this monster that satisfaction.
Lifting my chin, I met Mytaz’s red eyes and saw the malicious amusement glimmering in them as gold spread into my belly and toward my breasts. The breath froze in my chest, and air stopped entering my lungs.
* * *
Wrath
I didn’t knowit was possible to experience the level of terror that engulfed me when Mytaz grasped Bale’s ankle. A shout rose in my throat and strangled there as rage exploded through me. It was so fierce it knocked Raphael’s hand away as my power crackled and reverberated off the mountain walls.
A snarl erupted from me, and I started to run at Mytaz. Before I could attack him, Raphael seized my wrist and pulled me back.
“You’ll only get yourself killed. I can destroy him. Let me do it,” Raphael said.
I tried to jerk my wrist free of the angel’s hold, but he refused to let go. When I met his violet eyes, I saw the intensity of the anger boiling there. Yes, he’d lost his brother, but my fury escalated his and enhanced the powerful ball forming at the tips of his fingers.
“You better kill him,” I grated through my teeth.
Raphael’s fingers tightened on my wrist. “I will.”
I turned to watch as gold seeped into Bale’s chest. I almost sank to the ground as I watched Mytaz’s ability take her over. I’d just found her and this small bit of happiness in what was an otherwise dull, lonely, and brutal existence. Things were still so difficult between us, but they were also so incredibly good. I was meant to protect her, but now, I was watching her die.
Her eyes met mine, and a smile curved the corners of her luscious mouth, a mouth I’d kissed only minutes ago, and then the golden color reached her lips. She’d be the only smiling statue.
Unable to stop myself, I took a staggering step toward her when the gold took over her eyes, but Raphael pulled me back and lifted his hand. A ball of golden light encompassed his palm before he turned it over and released it.
The light shot across the space between Mytaz and us and crashed into the giant’s back. Time screeched to a halt as the glow spread across Mytaz’s back in golden white fissures that split his skin apart and made him glow from the inside out.
Gold replaced the green of Bale’s eyes before it stopped spreading. Her forehead and some of her fiery hair remained, while gold encased the rest of her.
Hope flared through me; maybe it wasn’t too late to save her. I held my breath while I waited.
Chapter Thirty-One
