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“I didn’t touch her!” he snarled, his eyes wide with helplessness as he watched Knox tipping his head back, smiling.
“Even so, you’ll both die screaming for me,” he purred in a raspy tenor.
“Get up! Aria, fucking move! Let Ember help you!”
“She can’t help her. Ember, like Lennox, is blocked until it pleases Hecate to release them from her hold. After all, she’s the queen now.”
What he’d said issued fear into my soul, carving through the sharp, unkind fingers of unconsciousness, reaching for my coherent mind, seeking to consume it with nothingness. Compelling my mind to clear, I forced my scent out, reaching for Lennox.
“Snuff” by Slipknot burst into the surrounding air, even as he stared down at me through eyes, bleeding blackness. The smile spreading over his mouth forced words to issue from mine.
“I love you, Knox. I’ll always love you. For this, I forgive you. Don’t carry the weight of my death with you. Let me go when you escape her hold. You will. I know deep inside of me that you’re going to beat her. Because you’re Knox. I know it’s hard right now, but eventually, you’ll win this fight. You’re my darkness, which allowed me to shine brighter because of it. As your queen, my job is to save you. Even if the cost is my life for yours. If you cannot sit in the light with me, then I’ll come into the darkness with you.”
“You’re not invited.” He laughed, but it was cold, merciless. Knox straddled my body, then sunk to his knees, trapping me between his powerful thighs. “It turns out that I don’t actually need your corpse. Hecate didn’t want you in our bed sharing it with us, Little Monster. Instead, she wants your heart as a symbol of my undying, endless devotion to the woman I love.” Holding up his fingers, lethal, back-tipped nails pushed thru his fingertips one by one. “Are you ready to sing for me?”
“You’ll only remove the storm, but you’ll never touch my chaos. In the end, Knox, we’re nothing more than stories. Some tragic, others formed from the sweetest lies, then the ones written about strength and courage against insurmountable odds. Ours, it’s going to be a tragic love story that will never die. Do you hear me? Iwillfind you in this life, or the next. I’ll always come back to you. You are my sweetest ever-ending of cruelly savage, brutally endless eternal love. You are my evermore.” My breathing had become harsh, painful whispers of air as it fought to escape my lungs through the damage of my esophagus. “You fucking kill her. When you’re free and you’ve set the world ablaze with your fire, I want you to rip her fucking head off before you force her back inside that tomb.”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t come looking for me in any lifetime. It won’t end the way you want it to,” he hissed, then shoved his nails through the wall of my chest, burying them deeply into my flesh.
The world spun around us, even as a new, punishing ache flooded my chest with acid and fire, scolding my flesh. Every muscle seized at once, muscles, my lungs, soul-destroying pain as fingers clenched around my heart.
“Any last words?” Knox asked as Esme’s broken, heartrending sobs flitted through my ears.
“I forgive you for your broken, sharply-cutting edges. I love you, and that’ll never change. Not even in death,” I whispered around the blood flowing from the corner of my lips. “I’m coming for you, bitch. And then I’m coming to burn everything down until you’re nothing but a fucking rat seeking shelter in a trench—” A blinding light erupted, driving a shocked cry from my lips.
Everything around me faded, as the blinding glare compelled my eyes to close against its illuminating light. The world spun around me, as if they had forced it from its axis, and it was now careening toward a downward spiral. My lungs screeched from the dizzying agony. It caused black dots to flood my eyes, striking against the light burning around me. Numbness came upon me ever so slowly, pulling me deep into the freezing embrace of nothingness, far away from where the tormentingly hot, piercing blade of anguish could reach me.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Aria
Weightlessnessfilledmymind,body and soul. Consciousness refused to come, even as a scream of distress rang from my lips. I felt his claws in my chest, still. Had we died? Had he ended my life, then gone back to Hecate? My eyes refused to open, even as I cried, sobbing violently within my head.
Images of what had happened flashed through my mind, trickling through it on an endless, spiraling carousel played on a loop. Blood covered my face, my chest, Knox’s hands. The flash of blue before he’d pulled it out, stuck out among the other images. Had he fought her for me? Or had she merely allowed him to see my demise unfolding?
Voices whispered all around me, forcing me to fight the hold of the land. I needed to know what had happened to Knox. Why didn’t I hear him talking to the others? Where had he ended up? Fearful flames licked over my mind, consuming it as I fought to regain consciousness.
The sound of voices had my brain ticking, as if it were a clock. My vision was obscured by blurriness, as if I’d lost the ability to see. My brain struggled, as if it were misfiring. I felt free of the worry of dying, but did that mean I’d died?
An image slowly began forming in front of me. Something large, something with a halo around it. Fucking hell. I had died! My breathing was erratic, as if my chest hadn’t healed correctly, or maybe it hadn’t healed at all? Blinking frantically past the film covering over my eyes that blocked me from seeing or discerning what was in front of me, I gasped as the picture cleared.
Knox’s sleeping face came into view, forcing my heart to stutter, then beat hastily at the sight of him. Pain drifted through me as awareness slowly flittered through my mind. Had I saved him? Or was he simply caught between the land healing me, which had shoved him into the light?
Reaching up, I touched him with trembling fingers. Parting my lips, I tried to speak, but nothing came out. The simple movement forced agonizing pain to slice through my chest. Sliding my other hand to the hole he’d created, I felt nothing but smooth, supple flesh. Tears wet my lashes, then rolled down my cheeks as I moved my lips, brushing them against his.
“Knox?” I forced out, my voice scratchy from screaming. Knox didn’t move, which sent icy-claws tearing into my flesh.
I could hear the whisper of voices around us, each one fearful of what had happened. Hecate wouldn't let him go without a fight. It was possible she was fighting the land to keep hold of him. He looked peaceful, though. Which sent horrible thoughts racing through my mind.
For hours, I went in and out of consciousness. I struggled against the land’s powerful hold on me. Each time, Knox never responded or awoke. The fourth, or maybe it was the fifth time I awoke, I checked for a pulse, sobbing in relief when I found one.
The warmth of the light we were suspended in was soothing. It persistently healed me, each time my eyes opened, I felt a little more whole. Knox still hadn’t moved by the time I dropped, thudding against the ground with a painful gasp ripping from my lips.
“Knox,” I repeated his name for the hundredth time. “Wake up,” I whispered, sitting beneath him as he hovered weightlessly in the air.
Knox was suspended in the air, even after I’d been released. A frown line formed between my eyes, creasing the skin there. Tears continually streamed down my face, forcing myself up on my knees. I raised shaky hands to touch his face. With my heart in my throat, I pushed his eyelid back, feeling instant relief as it revealed the whites of his eyes.
“Aria?” Esme’s worried voice had my hand jerking back from Knox’s eye, turning to find everyone standing behind me.
