AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And he'd just frozen me here with no backup.
CHAPTER33
Igritted my teeth and spun, searching Olympus for any signs of movement. My mates were immobile, and even Lili had frozen mid-rampage, her hand raised and light gleaming around her head. The only thing that moved was Cronus's enormous form as he took a step towards me, making the ground shake so hard that I stumbled back. I sucked in a sharp breath when pain shot up my knee. My back and wings throbbed in sympathy; I tried to breathe through it.
Wynvail was alive. My mates were frozen butalive.But how long would they stay that way if Cronus got his giant hands on them? I needed to fight—for them, for me, for everyone Cronus had ever hurt.
So even though my back blazed with pain and my right wing dragged along the ashen ground, I drew my other dagger and stared up at the titan bastard who had tortured my mates. Fury pounded through my blood, making my skin sear with heat at the thought of everything he’d done to them, and my magic surged in response.
"Do your worst," I spat, my breathing coming quick, hands trembling.
I wasn't strong enough to win, I knew that. But what was the alternative? Stand here until Cronus crushed me to death? Kai would resurrect me just to kill me if I gave up.
Darkness swirled off Cronus’s mammoth body, but light flickered through the dark like tiny veins of lightning. I sucked in a breath, backing up and trying to come up with a plan. How did I fight a twenty-foot titan on my own, with no help?
He ate Lucifer, for fuck's sake! How long did I have before he ate me, too?
I twirled my blades in my hands, my heart hammering as I scrambled for a course of action. I'd already failed. Stabbing him in the eyeballs hadn't worked, slitting his throat and gutting him did nothing. He had no weakness I could see, and now magic shimmered around him, so powerful that I stumbled back a step when I should have been racing towards him.
Wynvail is alive, but not if this bastard gets his way. He's already killed him once; he'll do it again.
How did you do it, Halwen?Cronus demanded, that hideous voice slicing through the soft parts of my skull and ripping a sob up my swollen throat.How did you remake Wynvail? I tore apart every speck of life in him, so how didyou,tiny insignificant demon, undo his death?
He thought I did it? I laughed, letting all my madness fill the sound, and spat blood on the ashen ground.
"You underestimated me, asshole," I taunted.
If he was giving me credit for Wynvail being alive, I wasn't about to correct him. I spun my long daggers again, stalling for time. I had no ideas. Nothing.
Kamikaze it is.
I pictured Wane curled up in the corner of his rank prison, and Wynvail collapsing to ashes in my arms, and Harvey and Kai trying to murder each other in the fighting pit, and Emlyn racing at me with zero recognition in his eyes, his whole life stolen from him. Rage and violence had always unlocked my curse's magic, and it was no different now. Crimson light erupted from both my marks, travelling up my blades until shards of it covered my knives.
I didn't wait for Cronus to laugh or drop another taunt; I launched at him, flapping my wings—and veering dangerously left when my wing buckled. Fuck!
Cronus laughed now, because of course he did. Pain thumped through my skull, but I clenched my jaw and breathed through it, letting rage wrangle my injured wing back under my control. It was agony, but agony was my long-time friend. You could even call us begrudging besties. So I screamed through gritted teeth and flew around the bastard’s gigantic body, slashing my knives through his hamstrings.
I held my breath as I soared higher.Please have an Achilles heal, please have an—both healed after barely a second, and the titan didn't even grunt in pain.
Well, there went that. My tiny scrap of a plan. I was screwed.
I slashed at the closing wounds on his thighs, but the edge of my knife connected with the blue veil of power around him, and electricity charged up the metal, down the hilt, and burned the pink fabric Kai had lovingly wrapped around the hilts. I screamed as his magic lit up my body, charged through my bones, and fried every vein and synapse until all I knew was blinding pain andpower.So much power.
It coursed through me, crashing into my blood magic until the only thing I could hear was the slow, endless drone of heartbeats. He'd really frozen everyone—not just the people I could see, but underneath the city there werethousandsof people frozen in time, too. No, frozen was the wrong word. Their hearts still beat, but impossibly slowly. By the time any one of them took a single step, an hour would have passed here, and I'd be dead.
I pumped my wings, angling away from that sheen of magic on his skin, my heart pounding. My magic was more intense in Olympuswithoutwhatever just happened. My head spun, my breathing came faint and fast, and my magic felt like someone had doused it in petrol and thrown a match.
I retreated, gasping, shaking.
You respond to my power because you already possess a glimmer of it,Cronus said with an annoying amount of smugness.
"Fuck you," I gasped, burying my pain so he wouldn't see it when my wing almost collapsed as I flew higher, searching for a weakness to attack and knowing I'd find nothing.
Did you truly never wonder why your curse marks flare with magic? Or why being in Olympus unlocks a new level of your magic?
Hetsked,sending a flare of pain through my skull and down my spine to the rest of my body, until no part of me was spared deep, slicing agony.
I choked on a cry, unable to silence it, and stabbed my blades into the meat of his upper thigh to stop myself falling. My wing was fucked. Lame, it refused to hold my weight. Cronus was twenty feet tall; if I couldn't fly, how was I supposed to fight him?
