Page 57 of A Touch of Gold and Madness (Celestials of Arcadia #1)

Chapter 56

Chrome

M y chest heaved. It took everything inside me to keep from attacking irrationally. I knew how dirty he was. He wasn’t above cheap tricks to get the upper hand. And naturally, my magic was shut down, thanks to his ability to absorb others’ magical energy waves. It was Grim’s only true weapon in this cutthroat world. A parasite—that’s what he was. A godsdamn parasite.

I glared at the man who took what little innocence I had left as a child, wielding sick and twisted abuse in order to accomplish one goal: to break me. And it worked. It was a monster they wanted, and it was a monster they got.

“You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d believe you’ve missed me and our little bonding moments,” he said with a sadistic grin. I knew this tactic intimately and wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction. He stalked toward me slowly, like he believed he was a predator playing with his prey. A predator he might’ve been, but he bred a more dangerous one in me. “Where, oh where, have you run off to hide like the weak little bitch you are?”

I lowered my head to hang between my shoulders. A dark chuckle bubbled up from my chest. This motherfucker…The sound resounded off the walls and promised violence of the best kind. Vengeance. “Your arrogance proves how godsdamn stupid you truly are,” I said.

In a blur, I latched onto my stepfather by the throat, jerking him off the floor. My Elemental sword glowed orange and remained in my free hand at my side.

Dangling in my grasp, Grim kicked his feet to no avail, attempting to touch the floor as he clawed and clutched at my hand.

I studied the pathetic waste of oxygen that was trapped at my mercy. Cocking my head to one side, my lip curled up at the edges in disgust. Then, slowly, I angled my head to the other side. In the movement, my repulsion morphed into a mocking grin by the time it reached the other shoulder, as if I’d slipped into another personality. This smile felt evil and twisted to its core.

Chosen by affliction, this man’s voice had been torturing me for years, begging me to give in to the temptation of becoming Endarkened.

Barely tethered rage that had been twisted for so long finally had one of my abusers in its grasp. My fury was an entity all of its own at this point, and I was more than happy to be its vessel. The only other thing that could make the tether snap was if someone touched Gray.

Grim’s dark and beady eyes bulged from the pressure of my grip on his throat. Fear permeated the air around me, and I consumed it. I bit my bottom lip, truly loving seeing this piece of shit helpless and at my mercy.

“What’s the matter, Grim? I thought you were more capable than this.” I pushed out my lips in mock sympathy, but my dark satisfaction couldn’t be obscured from my eyes. “Or are you only capable of controlling children?”

Grim went limp in my grasp, seeming to surrender to his fate. “You should be proud, sir ,” I said, my tone mocking. I clenched my jaw, my voice hardening. “I turned out to be the weapon you so desperately wanted.”

“Think of Peri,” Grim rasped out, wheezing. “I’m her father. She wouldn’t want you to…kill me,” he pleaded, using one of my only weaknesses to once again try to control me. “She’d never…forgive you.”

I didn’t give a fuck.

Peri feared Grim. She wasn’t blind to his shit. She knew how to placate him and play the sweet and na?ve role for her father just as I always insisted. Her death was on his hands, our mother’s, and the king’s. I was just the weapon that misfired while they played with it.

Movement in my peripheral brought me back to the present. Gray inched toward Cotton, who remained nearby with Scarlett in his arms. I needed to figure out how to get them out. I could level the fucking building, but those three needed to get out first.

I squeezed Grim’s throat tighter, causing more choking sounds to gurgle from him. My lip curled back. “Don’t. Ever. Speak her name to me again.”

I lifted my sword, ready to run the blade through Grim and end him once and for all. “I wish I could stay longer to savor the slow death you deserve, but we have places to be.”

I shifted the hilt in my palm to drive it through his diaphragm. Grim flailed in my hold, and in the midst, a small blade was jammed in the space between my ribs. Just like old times. It was enough for me to loosen my hold on him.

Grim plummeted to the floor with a grunt.

Gritting my teeth, I groaned from the pain, but anger quickly swallowed it and transformed into a growl in the same breath. I hunched over, clutching the wound that was poisoned with black crystal from his Kinetic weapon.

From the floor, Grim gasped for a breath, a blue blade jutting from his fist.

I risked a quick glance at Gray. A fire burned wildly in her eyes as she bared her teeth. She paced back and forth like a caged animal, squeezing her knife. She looked anxious to jump in and finish Grim off herself, but she was giving me this. Just as I wanted Forest to be her kill, she wanted to give me the same with Grim.

Grim scrambled to his feet, adjusting the knife in his hand and shifting into an offensive stance, no longer running his mouth. Fear engulfed his eyes. He knew he just fucked up because I still lived .

I forced myself to inhale a deep breath and release it slowly, blocking out the searing pain in my side and trying to tame my heart rate. It wasn’t my first Kinetic blade wound, and it wouldn’t be my last. I had several minutes before it got unbearable, so I needed to be quick.

Straightening my shoulders again, I dropped my bloody hand that protected my stab wound. “You think a simple stab wound will slow me down? Remember how you used to cut and stab me with your blades when you’d rape me because I cried? And then said, if I didn’t find a way to heal, I’d prove how weak I was and didn’t deserve to live?” I laughed, devoid of anything decent left inside me. “Yeah, you trained me well.” I lunged and spun in a pirouette.

The action was so quick that Grim wasn’t able to process what was happening until it was too late. At the last second, his beady eyes widened in horror just before my blade sliced through the bone and tissue in his neck. It was the most satisfying sound.

Grim’s head slid from his neck and dropped to the floor with a thud, his face forever frozen in fear. His body crumpled seconds later to join it.

My shoulders sagged in relief, and my breathing was labored as I stared down at Grim’s severed body, then spat on his bleeding corpse at my feet. I had only one regret. “Well, that was too fast,” I said, instilling the sight into my memory so I could savor it for years to come.

An odd sense of lightness filled my chest. Even seeing the bloody spurt from his neck, it felt surreal that he was truly gone. I wondered how long it would take for that to sink in.

With Grim’s death came the return of our magic. I sighed as my currents raced up my arms, the taste of metal flooded my senses while grounding me, and my gilded skin gleamed once again.

Gray walked to my side, a hand sliding from the bottom of my jaw to rest on my cheek. She forced me to meet her watery gaze. Through our bond, I felt her pride swell for me. “You did it. He’s gone.” Rising up on her toes, she pulled me in for a final, desperate kiss.

I broke the kiss, resting my forehead against hers. “I really wanted to hear him scream. Just once. ”

Gray chuckled and pulled away, turning to face Cotton again. He still cradled Scarlett’s limp body in his arms.

Cotton’s eyes darted between us in nervous confusion, probably trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

“I’m sure you’ve got a lot of questions, Cotton, but we need to get out of here,” Gray said and looked at me as we tried to figure out which direction to go next.

I knew all the nooks and crannies of this forsaken hellhole. I’d find a way to get us out. “Follow me.” I turned and headed back down the corridor we came from when Grim ambushed us. We passed by the Endarkened, who were lying down after Gray’s order.

Odd.

Gray and Cotton followed. I could feel Gray’s worry over Scarlett growing as she walked next to Cotton. “Redfern poisoning?” she asked from behind me. Cotton didn’t verbally answer her, but I felt Gray’s relief, so I assumed he shook his head in response.

A hand latched around my bicep and snatched me to a stop. I faced Gray, her jaw set, and eyes narrowed. “What? What’s wrong?”

Rolling her eyes, she slapped an antidote syringe in my palm. “Were you planning on taking care of that or just waiting until you damn near died from the poison?” she demanded with a raised brow.

In my rush to get them out of the King’s Palace, I’d push aside the wound. I didn’t have any antidotes on me but thank fuck Gray did. She must’ve had it left over from the battle.

“There you go, saving me again,” I murmured with a small upward tilt of my lips as I exposed my neck to her.

Gray rolled her eyes as she removed the plastic encasing on the needle before thumping the tube. But I saw the smile she fought to hide. “Of course, I’m saving your ass. Don’t forget it,” she said as she plunged the syringe into my carotid artery.

The antidote’s effects worked through my veins, soothing the rising burn that had been quickly building. During my time here, the king had ordered part of my training to be cut and stabbed daily with Kinetic blades. Sometimes, they’d bring me to the brink of death to see how far they could push me, so it was almost too easy for me to forget the wound in my rush. Because the pain wasn’t new to me, I’d grown somewhat of a tolerance to it. Still, it sucked until I got the antidote.

I breathed in deep, savoring the cooling of my veins. “Thank you,” I whispered, brushing a strand of hair from her bloodstained face.

Gray leaned into my palm. “Anytime.” She rose up on her toes and pressed a quick kiss to my lips. “Let’s go.”

Cotton stood behind us, looking haggard and exhausted, especially after refusing to put Scarlett down.

“Got a plan?” Gray asked as we continued rushing through the maze of the underground prison.

“Sort of. Just gonna ask that you trust me,” I said, directing a pointed look at her out of the corner of my eye.

Gray snorted but remained silent otherwise. I sensed she wanted to ask me something, yet she held back.

For once, I decided not to push the issue. Now wasn’t the time.

At the end of one of the cell blocks, a familiar door came into view. I rushed toward it.

“Chrome,” Gray said through gritted teeth. “What the hell? We’re not going into the interrogation room!” she hissed.

I didn’t acknowledge her protest; instead, I walked faster. There was a way out in there. I wasn’t even sure that Forest knew it existed, but since I’d spent so much time in there during my youth, I’d discovered every crevice in that room when left alone in there for days at a time.

I heard it before I saw it. A blade split the air apart as it sailed toward Cotton’s throat. It slammed into a compact air shield just as Cotton launched sideways with Scarlett in his arms. He stumbled but managed to stay on his feet.

I summoned my double-edged sword to my hand, searching for the intruder, but I knew exactly who it was by the poignant and cold energy that approached us from an adjacent corridor .

I worked my jaw tight, the cold savagery returning to my soul as I jerked my head to face the source of the knife that Gray had thwarted. Sharp heels clicked along the concrete floor in the shadows until the light of the main hallway exposed her sharp features and dark lips.

As if she had been waiting in the shadows, Amethyst sauntered into view. Her violet hair pulled tight at the top of her head in a pin-straight tail that kissed her lower back.

It had been years since I’d last laid my eyes on my mother. She hadn’t changed a bit. Still cold. Still a fucking cunt.

“It’s a shame about Grim,” she said about her now-beheaded husband, feigning the faux pity that she’d mastered at birth. “But he was growing quite tiresome.” She snapped off her silver bracelet, her energy assaulting me.

Had she been following us the entire time, anticipating the perfect moment to strike?

She speared Gray with a cunning stare, her empty eyes twinkling with victory. “The king’s been waiting for you. Nice of you to return willingly.”

I needed to get them out of the building. If my mother was nearby, that meant Forest wasn’t far behind. Those two had always had this strange symbiotic relationship like that.

An idea popped into my mind. It was a long shot, but it was worth a try. I felt compelled to try it, and if it failed, then I’d find another way.

Amethyst slid free a dagger, igniting the sharp, blue symbols embedded with the metal. Immediately, I snatched the blade with my element and put the edge tight against her throat. My mother simply smiled.

I spun around, levitating my sword by my side. Like last time, I took hold of Gray’s hands in mine, squeezing them while focusing on the urgency of getting these three out of the King’s Palace. I held Gray’s confused rainbow eyes.

In the distance, within my mind, my mother’s cold laugh echoed throughout the corridor. I was beginning to lose hope that nothing would happen.

Gray’s eyes lit with understanding, and she nodded .

A deafening crack reverberated off the stone walls, Glancing down at our hands, a white light encompassed our hold, sealing them together.

To my left, the air began to ripple to life. The shimmering curtain of the portal to Arcadia came into clear view, responding to the urgency and desperation that we’d felt with the beastie-bear. It had been a suspicion of mine for a while after many failed attempts in training with Gray but I had no way to truly test it until now.

“Cotton! Go through it! Someone will be there to get you to safety,” I said, looking at the skeptical, silent Kinetic. Poor guy had way too many surprises tonight. “Hurry!”

Cotton jumped into action, clutching Scarlett in his arms as he stood before the portal. He looked over his shoulder at me and Gray’s clasped hands.

I tossed a glance at Amethyst to be sure she hadn’t gotten away from the knife at her throat. It wouldn’t kill her unless I kept the blade lodged there long enough.

My stomach sank at the look of glee on her face as she saw the portal.

Fuck, she needs to die—and fast.

Cotton took a step across the veil, disappearing on the other side, Scarlett’s deep red hair being the last thing we saw of them.

I turned to Gray. “You go, too.”

Gray reeled back as if I’d slapped her. “Excuse me? Hell no. I thought…”

“I know what I said. But I have a plan, and I need you out of here in order to do it.”

“No. I’m staying. Don’t fucking try me. Forest is mine, ” she growled, the little savage within her coming out to play.

I couldn’t help the slow grin that overcame my face. “That’s my girl.”

Gray and I dropped hands, the portal quickly closing behind. I snatched my sword from beside me. “This is my kill,” I said in a low tone for her to hear.

Amethyst seized the knife at her throat and threw it at me with deadly speed and accuracy as it grazed my biceps. Fuck. My Elemental magic went cold .

I charged her, spinning the sword with ease. Her red currents illuminated the eerie hallway, and her lip curled as she braced for my attack, holding only a dagger she pulled from her weapons belt.

Before I reached her, the low-grade burn of her ultraviolet magic began to radiate along my skin. I fought to block it out, my jaw flinching as I sliced my sword at a downward arc toward her diaphragm.

Amethyst sidestepped the blow. Instead, she dropped to the floor with a spin and swiped at my ankles with her stiletto. “No weapons, son. This wouldn’t be a fair fight, would it?”

I stepped aside, avoiding the kick. My skin was beginning to blister, and my heart rate climbed high. I growled from the agony.

A random blast of blue magic hit Amethyst in the gut, knocking her on her ass. It was small, not enough to do much damage to her, but enough to make the burn subside.

I stalked toward Amethyst, who lay sprawled on the floor. If I had my Elemental magic, this could be over already. If I trusted myself not to lose my shit, then I’d finish her off with my Kinetic power.

I loomed over her, my lip curled in disgust at the woman who birthed me. The orange blade of the sword angled downward as I held it above my head, ready to drive through her chest.

In another quick move, Amethyst sat up enough to sling her dagger in a perfect throw. Her icy stare focused on Gray.

The blood drained my face, an icy fear sinking its teeth into my heart and churning my stomach.

I whirled to face Gray. My horrified gaze fell to the dagger that was sunk into the hilt in her torso. I froze.

It happened so fast, so unexpected, that Gray hadn’t had time to defend herself. If she’d had a fucking shield up…

Why the fuck didn’t she have a godsdamn shield up?

“No!” I bellowed, my breaths coming in frantically, desperately.

Then, the demon that existed inside me rose its ugly head, a numb, steely calm overcoming me. I turned ever so slowly and fixated my wrath on Amethyst.

She’d risen to her feet, a victorious smirk painting her sculpted face. I hated that we shared the same feline eyes. “Now, it’s just you and me, son.”