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I’m too choked up to respond, the words getting lodged in my throat. Dammit. Damn all of them for not listening. For not saving themselves since this whole thing backfired.
I reach back to Draven through the bond, pushing past the pain. “I need you to live. I can’t survive if you stop breathing. Especially from my hand.”
Whiro rips the dagger from his body, tossing it to the side where it clangs off the wall and clatters to the ground. My eyes track him, readying for his next move as warmth caresses me down the bond.
“Then let’s end this and go home.”
A tear springs free. Home.
Knowing he won’t budge, I reach within, grab all the strength I can muster, and think. Something Draven had said about the mate bond springs forward, almost taking my breath with it. We can’t control the other’s power, but we can share it. Offering strength.
I let my power swarm around me in a storm of my own making. A rush of it pours through the bond, forcing it to break past any remaining barrier Draven has tried to keep in place. I can feel when it absorbs into his body. When alarm blazes through him.
“You dare go against me?!” Whiro bellows loudly enough to cause pebbles to crumble off the walls.
His power rages out of control around him as he slowly rises to hover off the ground with his arms up. Suddenly, the ghouls shriek, crowding us with a war cry.
Cora, Kye, and Fynn don’t hesitate. They start fighting against the ghouls, spearing them down one by one. Their blades clash and slice along their grotesque bodies, causing the screeches to die in their throats.
Shock brushes through the bond as Draven manages to stand. “You gave me some of your power…” He trails off, disbelieving the effect. Even though he winces, pain etched on his face with the movement, the color on his cheeks has come back. His torso is still wounded, and yet he nods his head at me with a bloody smirk. “I’m with you.” The tone of his voice is strained but strong.
My heart pounds wildly in my chest to see him standing. The relief is evident as I finally draw in a full breath. I’m not sure if I’ve healed him from the inside out, or if I only offered more strength for him to push through the pain.
Cora would know, but she was immediately thrown into battle, and there is no free moment to spare. Yet, I’m in awe of the way she’s weaving her weapon in a lethal dance. Her footing is sure and precise as she bends, swerving out of the way before landing her final blow.
A dark blur snags my eyes, only to find Draven running toward Whiro. A faint dripping of blood still seeps from his torso.
I can’t let the worry for him fester, and I launch myself in the same direction as Draven. Teeth gritting with every hard thud of my boots on the ground. Whiro laughs manically as Draven and I toss our shadows out, wrapping them around his throat. His laugh gets cut off when he looks down at us, simmering with red-hot anger. The air vibrates the closer I approach Whiro.
He shreds our power off him, but we wrap more tendrils of darkness around his body. Only, this time, I add in a rope of blinding light. Watching it mix with the dark and burn against his skin as he thunders out his pain.
Draven unleashes his wings, letting his dragon side come forward. With a leap in the air, those powerful wings beat to bring him above Whiro. Using the moment of Whiro’s suffering to his advantage as he swings his sword along Whiro’s side, which causes another roar and wave of power to pulse from him.
Draven launches upward before diving down, looping around the god to avoid the kickback of being caught in his power’s current. I push off the ground mid-run and let my shadows swarm around me, portaling me behind Whiro. The moment I appear in the air, the blade of my sword drives into his back.
My body falls, landing just on the pads of my feet before tumbling into a roll. The impact reverberates through my bones as I finally skid to a stop. In that brief moment of Whiro being stunned, Draven rapidly flies around him, leaving dense tendrils of shadows in his wake to constrict him.
I take a quick glance and find the others are holding their own, while bodies of ghouls litter beneath their feet. Kye combines his power into each swing of his sword, painting a streak of blue in the air. Fynn portals quickly to dodge an attack, only to appear behind them. He lands a blow and makes them spew blood on the ground.
And Cora is gracefully holding her own as she spins, jabbing the sword into the stomach of one before twisting the blade behind her back and landing a mark on another. Pride swells in my chest at how strong she has become since the last battle. It still lingers in my mind like a splinter you can’t remove because it is embedded too deeply.
Knowing they are okay, I take off again, straining my muscles to move my body faster. Draven’s face is set with determination as he swoops out of the way. The sharp movement creases his brows as a jolt of pain fires down the bond before suddenly getting cut off. That nagging worry spirals back to the forefront of my mind as I watch him weave around Whiro’s power that has altered to look like arrows.
Everything happens in slow motion.
A slow tip of the corner of Whiro’s lips as an orb of fiery shadows form in his hands. Draven continues his path to careen around him, readying his weapon to strike through his neck.
“I’ll take what is owed to me,” Whiro’s voice detonates. That growing orb raging in his palm hums like it’s magnetic. As if it’s trying to draw all signs of life into it.
Chills lick up my spine as I watch in horror, forcing my feet to move faster as the ball of energy gets aimed at Draven.
I don’t think, I just act. Shadowing myself in hopes of getting to Draven in order to block it. But Whiro strikes. His power booming in the air, nailing Draven and sending him speeding towards the Sea of Souls. Draven’s body slams down hard on the stone, rolling until the momentum dies away and he’s laying limply near the edge of the water.
The impact through the bond reverberates through my bones, rattling them. Knocking the air from my lungs.
The aftermath of the orb sends shockwaves of darkness that slam into me midair. Before I know it, my spine slams into the hard ground with the back of my head following suit. Everything hurts. The room spins. My lungs struggle to expand.
Leaning over on my elbow, I cough up blood while something drips down my skull. My fingers touch and feel my hair is damp and matted. Dazed and confused, I lose a sense of reality for a moment. Everything is ringing around me until it slowly starts to fade and screaming blares loudly in my ears.
