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CHAPTER38
Saint
The thuddingin Saint’s head was nothing compared to the ache in his heart. Octavius lay out cold on the scaffold boards, dumped there by Mikalis, as pale as a corpse and barely breathing.
“Enough interruptions!” Mikalis snarled, and flung open his arms and his wings, beginning to feed on the darkness all over again. Zaine clashed with Raiden among the nyks, and while all of those things were important, Saint couldn’t take his eyes from Octavius. He didn’t care about Mikalis, or Zaine, or the end of the world. He just needed to know Octavius would be all right.
Wake up,he silently begged. But Octavius lay there, discarded like trash, used by Mikalis, like all the Brotherhood had been used to shield Mikalis’s lies.
The nyks settled, returning to their eerie rhythmic chanting.
If Saint could just get free… but Mikalis had drained him, almost killed him, and if Saint let go of the last threads of control, he might kill them all in his madness, including Octavius. He needed him back, needed him to be awake, his hope in a world of endless despair.
Come on, Little Wolf.
I know you’re in there.
Live. Fight. Like you always have.
One of us has to make it out alive.
Octavius was at his strongest with his back against a wall. He would wake up. He just needed time. Saint poured all his hope into those thoughts.
“Mikalis, this is not the way.” Saint growled the words, dragging them up from semi-consciousness.
Mikalis didn’t respond; he stood, arms spread, wings pulsing, absorbing whatever power the nyks were giving him, taking the darkness into himself. Erebuswasdarkness. He was taking back what had been taken from him. And whatever that meant for this world, it could not be good if the nyktelios were its fuel.
“Mikalis, I loved and trusted you, as they all still do. Whatever this is, whatever you think you need, it’s not worth the demise of the Brotherhood.”
There, a glance, a side-eyed flicker of recognition. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to know Mikalis was listening. And if he was listening, there was a chance Saint might get through to him.
Zaine let out a cry, and Saint peered through his swimming vision to see Raiden had slashed open Zaine’s chest and had him pinned to the wall. The Viking’s guns were gone. He thrashed, fangs bared, but even weakened by venom, Raiden was the stronger nyktelios.
They were losing this fight.
It couldn’t end like this. Not with betrayal. Not again. “I always loved you,” Saint spluttered. He was losing himself, losing control. “You saved each of them, and they love you—”
“I’m doing this for them!”Mikalis snapped.
For them? How was any of this for the Brotherhood?
“Yes!” Raiden roared, leaping onto the platform. “She’s coming. Do you feel it? Our queen is almost here. Chaos and night, so pure, so violent, so hungry. She’s close. Yes, Mikalis! More! Welcome her home!”
Mikalis’s back arched, his wings stretched wider, and the darkness had him locked in its embrace.
Then they were both summoning Nyx.
This world and its humans didn’t stand a chance.
A vicious bolt of lightning slammed through the warehouse roof and struck the floor, sending sparks dancing into every nyk. The beat of power from Mikalis’s wings intensified, flooding the air, and a pool of darkness gathered, growing from the hole in the roof. A vast, clawed hand reached out, then another. A creature emerged, inch by inch from the pulsing gateway, liquid dark in a vast shimmering humanoid form.
When the gunshot rang out, it didn’t seem consequential. It was already too late. She was here, and so was the end of all things. But then Mikalis stumbled, and his great wings stuttered, their rhythm falling out of synchronicity with the chanting and the pulsing gateway.
Saint dragged his fading gaze back to the platform, where Octavius now stood.
He hadn’t shot Mikalis. Zaine had done that from among the crowd, where Raiden had left him. But Octavius had his hand out, his stare locked on Mikalis, and Saint knew Octavius was in Mikalis’s head, fighting for his life, and the lives of everyone in this ungrateful world.
As he watched, Mikalis stumbled some more, he wavered, tried to catch himself, then fell to his knees.
