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A heavy thud against the door made someone behind me yelp, and I felt all three of the men gathered at my back tense.
Fuck. This is it. The end.
We’d known this day was coming. We’d spent the past two weeks preparing for it, doing everything we could to be ready. But I still wasn’t. How could a person ever be ready for something like this? It was the kind of thing most people wouldn’t even dream of having to face in their entire lifetime.
I wanted more time. Time to have a moment with my men—to tell them everything, to make sure they knew how I felt about them, how much they had changed my life.
But we don’t always get what we want.
Before I could even look over my shoulder at them one more time, the large doors of the front entrance exploded inward. Several gods poured through, and even as adrenaline spiked in my veins, I noticed that this time, Omari was right at the front.
In the Gods’ Challenge, he’d sent his underlings to do his dirty work. But not this time.
Now he was pissed.
Now it was personal.
As if to drive that point home, his gaze landed on me, and a cruel smile tilted his lips. His long white hair streamed behind him as he strode forward, lifting his hand and hurling a blast of pure white fire at me.
My men and I dove out of the way, each of us unleashing magic of our own as we did. Screams erupted behind me as his fireball crashed into the stone wall, sending particles of rock and dust flying.
Magic whorled in the air, bright colors of all kinds clashing and spiraling around each other as the gods attacked and we defended. My magic combined with my men’s, and the four of us created a shield wall that the other students could hide behind.
But we couldn’t last in here.
Another powerful blast of godly magic smashed against the wall at the back of the entry room, blowing clear through the stone, and the building shook around us. If we stayed inside, there was a good chance we’d end up getting buried in a pile of stone rubble. Fighting on the campus grounds would give us less cover, but it would also give the gods fewer places to trap us.
“Retreat!” I bellowed, pouring more magic into the shield as Omari growled and raised his hands again.
The students behind me didn’t need to be told twice. More had arrived, summoned by the sound of the fight, and there wasn’t enough room to maneuver in here without risking blowing a hole in your friend while trying to take out a god.
People began to rush back through the hallways of the school, and I glanced over my shoulder as the crowd of students behind me began to thin out. “We can’t hold them for long. Go, go!”
I caught sight of Eden’s terrified face as she helped another second-year girl dart down the hallway. Blood streamed down the side of the girl’s face, and dust coated her hair. She must’ve been close to the blast where the wall had exploded.
/> Fuck. We need to get out of here.
Hiding out in the massive school building had saved our asses while it was protected by a shield. But now, it was turning into a death trap.
As the students poured down the hallway behind me, the men and I began to back up, still holding our hands outstretched, twining our magic together to create a wall. We’d spent more hours than I could count over the past week practicing this, figuring out how to combine our power to the best effect.
Mine was strong, but it wasn’t as strong as the gods’. When the men’s magic bolstered it though, it was powerful enough to combat godly magic for a little while, at least.
Another blast of magic ricocheted off our shield, veering toward the ceiling instead and making massive chunks of stone rain down. Merrick wrapped an arm around me, pulling me out of the way of a falling rock, and my heart stuttered in my chest.
Shit. I was usually highly attuned to my surroundings, with quick reflexes developed over years of fighting. But the level of concentration it was taking to maintain the shield against the full assault of the gods made it hard to focus on anything else.
“Cut them off!” Omari screamed, gesturing to the gods around him and pointing to the escaping students. Several of the gods slipped back out the door, and adrenaline surged inside me.
“We need to get outside,” I muttered to the men, never taking my gaze off the white-haired god. “We need to help the others.”
“We need to not get dead,” Trace shot back grimly, grunting as a massive blast rocked our shield.
Fear gripped my chest as I wondered what was happening outside the school. The other students had been training hard, and I’d seen several of the professors who had sided with us slipping out with them. Surely they were better prepared to face vengeful gods than they had been during the challenge, right?
If we can just keep Omari occupied long enough, I thought desperately, they can fight the other gods off. But we need to take care of this fucker.
We were the only ones who stood a chance.
