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Jericho’s body remained suspended, the light still dancing over him as it repaired and renewed him.
Every muscle in my body hurt, but I kicked and fought, because I hadn’t come this far, Jericho didnotwalk through hell for me, just to have the only chance for escape stolen out of my hands. Tentacles wrapped around my throat, and all my fight waned as I tore at the rubbery binding that squeezed so tightly I saw stars.
“There is no escape for you,” Claudius whispered, and when he removed his hand from my mouth, a shock of pain lit my scalp with a sharp wrenching of my head.
My scream gurgled in my throat, cut short when he tipped the vial of fluids into my mouth. I choked and sputtered, grappling for his hands that covered both my mouth and my nose. Coughing shot the liquid up my nose on an intense burn that seared my sinuses, and I had no choice but to swallow. The potent liquid created a scorching burn as it slid down my throat.
Once his hands fell away, I slumped forward gagging and gasping for breath.
Frantic, I shoved my finger down my throat to try to expel the fluids from my stomach.
Only clear acids shot free to the floor.
A strange sensation lurched inside my gut, and I rested my hand there. It jetted up, into my throat, and I tipped my head back as a black curling plume of smoke flew past my lips and rose upward. It slithered across the ceiling like a shadow, and fell to the floor beside me, taking a ghostly feminine form with slight, curvy hips and slender shoulders. A gaunt woman with dark eyes stared back at me. While I recognized her face as the woman from my nightmare, she looked different. Gone were the locks of long, white-blonde hair, to be replaced by shorn spikes, nearly bald. Her glowing skin was marred with cuts and bruises.
She held out her hands, twisting them in front of herself, and her angry eyes met mine. “What have you done? Centuries, I’ve waited to have my vengeance! Inhabiting weak and frail bodies and feeding off the young. What have you done!” She lurched toward me, but paused mid-step. Her skin shriveled from her body, leaving nothing but a skeletal frame, which crumbled to a pile of black dust.
A heavy exhaustion weighed down on me, the likes of which I’d never felt before. My muscles weakened. Breathing slowed. So intense was the urge to sleep that I lay my head against the cool, wooden planks of the floor. The light across from me dimmed as I watched Jericho touch down, with his enormous black wings fully restored.
So beautiful, it didn’t seem real.
Tears slipped down my cheek. “Stre vera’tu,” I whispered.
An overwhelming sense of calm settled inside of my bones, watching and marveling him, and I slipped into the black abyss.
65
JERICHO
Istood from where I crouched and stared down at myself. Pure energy pulsed through my veins, invigorating every cell in my body. I felt whole. New.
Farryn.
I shot my gaze to where she lay on the floor and strode toward her. My steps slowed as I took in her unmoving form, the empty vial that lay beside her. Frowning, I lowered to my knee and lifted it from the floor to see not a drop of it was left.
Urgency beat through my muscles as I lurched toward her, rolling her onto her back. Her angelic face lolled away from mine, and her eyes remained closed, but not fluttering as if she dreamed. “Farryn.” I gave a gentle shake and turned her to face me.
A wet warmth hit my fingertips, and I lifted my hand to find blood. Turning her face toward mine showed a horrific gash down her cheek, and my memories snapped through flashes of my father holding a blade to her face. Another showed him cutting her abdomen, and I lifted her bloodstained gown to findme’retrixiscarved into her skin.
Angry breaths expelled from my nose like a bull seeing red, kettled rage that sliced through me like a hot knife, and I turned to find my father lifting the sphere away from the heart.
As I charged toward him, he swiped the heart from the pedestal and backed himself away.
Raising my hand, I felt the heat of vitaeilem burning through my palms, and my father shook his head, holding the heart like a barrier. “I wouldn’t. You kill me, and Letifer will wake from his slumber. You will have to destroy the heart in order to escape, or perish to his army. And believe me when I say, he is a force that cannot be matched. Farryn will never be saved.”
I lowered my palm, eye on the heart, my mind calculating all of the possibilities. The sound of splintering bones sent a tremble of satisfaction through me, as his legs twisted into grotesque angles, and he nearly dropped the heart while fighting to stay upright on them.
“You underestimated my love for Lustina when you and the bishop murdered her. And once again, you underestimate my love for Farryn.” I raised my palms together, allowing the bolts of electricity to dance between them.
He whimpered, placing his hand to the wall, precariously balancing on brittle legs.
“There isn’t a force in this world that I fear when her life hangs in the balance. I would walk through the very flames of Hell for her.”
I held my arms out to my sides, and tiny insect-like creatures poured from my palms, their translucent bodies glowing with the light of vitaeilem. “I could’ve ended you with a single bolt to your heart. But instead, I’ll take pleasure in hearingyourscreams, for once.”
The insects scattered across the floor like lightning streams and, before he could escape them, crawled up over Claudius’s body.
Screams filled the room, and I strode toward him, reaching down into the cluster of insects crawling over him to pry the heart from his clutches. Through the melee, I caught sight of his wide blue eyes that matched mine, before the insects crawled over them. Another gut-wrenching scream bellowed from his chest, and when the bugs moved on to another part of his body, only two charred sockets remained, white smoke curling up from them while melted flesh oozed from the holes.
