Page 59 of A Touch of Gold and Madness (Celestials of Arcadia #1)

Chapter 58

Chrome

I couldn’t pull my eyes from the needle pressing into Gray’s neck. Time stood still while I contemplated every possible way to lodge a knife in my mother’s throat. I knew she’d follow through on her threat; she never had been one to make cheap promises. I needed to be smart. “Put that poison in her body, and you’ll wish I had never been fucking born… Mother. ” Never mind the fact that she’d already made that abundantly clear since I was able to form memories.

“Don’t interfere, Chrome,” Amethyst warned. Was I imagining things, or was there a hint of caring in her voice?

No, I was definitely imagining shit.

I locked eyes with my little savage princess. No, my savage queen. Her chin was held high, and her eyes were as cold as ice. It was her choice whether she wanted me to interfere or not. The last thing I wanted to do was to step in and potentially fuck shit up if she had a plan of some sort, but if not, I’d be more than happy to help.

I was the deliverance of eternal wrath. I wouldn’t hesitate to carve the veins from anyone who touched a fucking hair on Gray’s head, but I would give her the chance to defend herself if she was in a position to .

Gray closed her eyes and dipped her chin in the slightest of movements, giving me the go-ahead to step in.

My shoulders shook from a rage so fucking intense that it consumed me. I thanked the gods for her giving me the go-ahead because I couldn’t hold back much longer. I could feel her resolve through our bond; she would play her part while I unleashed hell.

“Stay with me,” she whispered. I barely heard her, but I felt her plea, begging me not to lose myself in the fight to win this battle.

My lips twitched at the words that had become my mantra with her.

While Gray tossed up a tight shield around her body, I used my element to launch the knife from the table at Amethyst’s head. As expected, she ducked, giving Gray the chance to throw one of her electrified blue orbs at her. My mother flew across the room, slamming into the wall.

Forest needed to be subdued—and fast. I wasn’t sure what the hell he was chanting, but I was sure it was bad for us.

The one thing the king hated most was chaos, especially if it wasn’t his doing. The control freak that he was, he couldn’t stand it if one person stepped a toe out of line.

Well, what did I happen to be best at causing? It was too soon to kill them. There were still other factors at play. I needed answers, and I needed to get Gray shielded.

Once again using my element, I made all of the metal in the interrogation room go airborne. Weapons, tables, and chairs levitated, even the ones bolted down to the floor, as I removed the screws.

The room became a maelstrom of debris, spinning wildly around at erratic speeds. I was sure to hold it high enough so as not to accidentally hit Gray. Honestly, it wasn’t hard to do with her vertical ineptitude.

I kept my focus on Forest, who stared back at me, a slow, vicious grin appearing on his face. “It’s done!” He laughed. “You’re too late!” More unnerving laughter peeled from his chest as he looked up at the ceiling, watching my chaotic outburst.

Agony ripped through my lower chest cavity, almost blinding me. It felt like someone took a sharp metal hook and forced it to latch onto my diaphragm and then tugged. I gasped for breath, but it hurt too much. I stumbled back a few steps, desperate for it to stop. “What…”

I spun around to find Gray hunched over with a hand pressed against the top of her diaphragm. The pain began to subside, allowing me to try and make my way to her. As soon as I reached her, she straightened, her breaths ragged.

After assuring me she was okay, I noted my mother clambering to her feet, dusting off the dirt from her pristine clothes. I stripped her of any weapons and sent a small, pressurized blast at her, just enough to keep her out of the way. I wasn’t done with that bitch yet.

I turned back to face Forest, who couldn’t contain his gleeful grin.

A strong gust of wind blew past me and crashed into his chest. Knocking him off his feet, he spun several times before skidding across the concrete floor. He lifted his head, a menacing gleam in his dark eyes. “I’ve fucking had it with you, you little bitch.”

Gray sauntered to my side, a viciousness of her own encapsulating her aura and sending it like a straight shot to my cock down our bond.

When Gray didn’t deign him a response, only a scathing look of absolute abhorrence instead, Forest snapped. Apparently, he was not used to blatant disobedience and respect…from his daughter, no less.

“The bond is complete! There’s nothing you can do now to stop it.” Forest rose to his feet, his perfectly styled hair thrown askew and his suit disheveled.

“What bond?” I asked. My initial thought went to the bond between Gray and me, but I doubted that was what he was referring to. Gray and I met each other’s alarmed eyes.

Forest rumbled with another chuckle, getting off on the joke Gray and I weren’t privy to. It only served to piss me off more. At last, the king spoke. “The Syphon Bond.”

“Explain,” Gray demanded. She showed no fear, nothing but pure savage beauty stared down her father.

Forest appraised Gray with a look of amused disgust. “Tell me, why are you so bloody?”

Gray sighed, “Oh, don’t be cute, Father . Two legions of Kinetic Warriors that you garnered from fuck knows where just ambushed the Elemental Hollow that happens to house Chrome and me. You can’t contain your arrogance enough to point it out.” Now, it was Gray’s turn to smile. “Did you know it was a bloodbath? Did you think this blood on me was mine?” An unhinged laugh escaped her, and once again, my dick hardened. “I’ll fill you in on a little secret, Your Majesty…” She took three bold steps to close the distance between them and whispered, enunciating each word. “They’re. All. Fucking. Dead .”

The daughter and father stood motionless, tense, and glaring at each other as if their looks alone could make the other drop dead. I was prepared to step in if needed, but as much I hated Forest for everything he put me through, I hated him more for what he did to Gray. I had stayed in the shadows, hidden away from her, unable to do anything while I felt every fucking horrible emotion he made her feel for sixteen years.

She deserved this kill.

At last, Forest smirked. “As predictable as always. I knew you’d both make your way here, so the palace is cleared out of everyone. Anything you two have planned won’t make a difference. The Kinetics of the Royal Domain are rallying others around the country.”

Forest was extra chatty. I imagined after twenty plus years of strategically planning these events, his ego wouldn’t allow him to contain his pride. He thought he’d won.

Gray ignored him, continuing on as if he didn’t speak. “You can’t kill me,” she said in a low, menacing voice. “You need me. You may have hated me because of my Elemental side, but the fact that you needed me to accomplish your goals made you hate me more. Because you’re a weak-ass man who uses others’ powers against their will because you lack it.” Gray started to laugh, a sexy, raspy sound. “You’re jealous.”

Forest nodded, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he turned and casually strode toward the table where his set-up had previously been. He looked up at the levitating objects, reaching for a sword. I held strong to my grip on it, refusing to let him have it .

“Let him have it,” Gray said, not taking her eyes off her father. “I won’t be a coward like him, just his worst nightmare.”

I relinquished my hold on the sword while Gray summoned a sword of her own that levitated. Judging by the sigils engraved on the blade, it was a Kinetic sword, but she didn’t need a weapon to kill him. In fact, she could easily disarm him with her element, but she was bloodthirsty, and she had something to prove to herself. I was all too happy to watch her unleash her inner savage onto the man who’d taken so much from her.

Forest sneered as he approached his daughter. “I created you and all that power. Don’t forget that.”

Gray chuckled. “More like spawned me.”

I bit back my own laughter at her smart-ass mouth that I loved so much.

Amethyst’s seedy energy tickled the edges of my awareness, rousing from the hit she took from my magic, but I kept my eyes on Gray and Forest, knowing my mother would try and sneak-attack me from behind. I’d let her think she could, allowing her arrogance to get the better of her.

“I gave you everything, Gray. You were fucking royalty, for fuck sake, you ungrateful little shit. I may have hated everything you stood for, but you were mine . You’d be nothing without me,” Forest spat.

A growl climbed from the darkest depths of my chest. Gray didn’t belong to anyone. Above all else, she was her own person. But I had her heart, her soul. She was mine to protect and serve. Not to fucking own.

Forest snapped his attention to me with a sneer. “Ah, you have your little protector now? I see there’s another bond at play here. I wonder how this will play out.”

“What’s the Syphon Bond?” I demanded.

“You’ll see soon enough.”

My mother’s ultraviolet magic started its pesky burn along my skin again. She crept up behind me. I’d give it to her; she was silent, but I was even more trained since I was last here, thanks to Void’s sensory awareness training .

I waited until she was right on me, clenching my jaw against the rising burn. I felt the air move against my neck, and I ducked just as she was about to jam a syringe full of the redfern and black-crystal mix.

I spun on my heel and kicked her feet out from underneath her. She crashed to the floor but jumped back to her feet without missing a beat—agile as always. At least I got something beneficial from the bitch.

We circled each other, and when I reached a point where Gray was in my line of sight, I saw her in the midst of a fierce battle with Forest. Their swords whirled and streaked through the air before clashing against one another. I believed in her. She could easily take him, but he was dirty.

I trained my attention back on my traitorous mother, who sold me out to her sadistic husband. Her sadistic, dead husband.

I summoned a sword from the ceiling. The second the hilt brushed my palm, I lunged at my mother. She was weaponless. I body-slammed her with a brutality that had bones cracking. I held the tip of my sword at her throat. She splayed her hands wide at the sides of her head, looking dazed from the impact. “Please. Chrome, don’t.” She coughed. She’d heal if I didn’t hurry.

“That concussion has you all sorts of fucked up if you think I’d let you live.” My teeth were bared, taking everything within me to keep from skewering her throat to the floor and then retrieving my Elemental blade to stab every godsdamn vital organ in her body. I wanted her to suffer, to feel a fraction of what I felt as a child.

I glanced up to check on Gray to see where she was with Forest. He was bearing down on her—hard. Using brute strength, advancing on her with every swing that she was forced to defend. She was already exhausted after the battle, then drained from the ordeal down in the prison from Forest’s gamma poisoning and Amethyst’s ultraviolet magic. She was beginning to panic as her strength dwindled. I felt it.

Fuck.

“I’m…” Amethyst coughed. “Sorry.”

I snapped my head down at her with an astonished look. “Shut the fuck up.” And I looked up just in time to find Forest running his sword through the base of Gray’s spine. Her mouth widened in shock as she looked down and saw a quarter of the sword protruding from her diaphragm.

As the time seemed to slow, my heart stopped, splintering into the fragile shards of ice that composed it.

Turning her head, she met my eyes with a look I’ll never be able to scrub from my mind. Her sword slipped from her hand, clanging to the floor just before she collapsed to her knees, blood pooling from her mouth. “Help,” she guttered out.

Smirking, Forest casually spun on his heel and returned to his table.

In haste, I released a small pulse at my mother’s chest to keep her subdued. Nothing else mattered as I sprinted toward Gray, sliding on my knees across the concrete floor, taking her face in my palms. “No, no, Gray. You’re gonna be okay. You hear me?”

She shook her head, eyes wide in fear and pain. “P…po…poison.”

I searched her eyes frantically before shifting around to her back. I reached for the hilt, but I noticed that the blade was precisely lodged in her lower spine. If removed incorrectly, she could be forever paralyzed if the antidote wasn’t given to her in time. And where the fuck were the antidotes, anyways? Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I forced my mind to slow, to allow the inner beast to rise to the surface, even calling for the affliction. I needed to be able to fucking think. I moved back to her front, gently lying her down on her side, careful not to jostle the sword, and placing her head in my lap.

She looked up at me with fading eyes. What remained of my soul shattered.

Hot, angry tears burned down my cheeks. “Don’t you fucking leave me, Gray Monroe. I swear to…” I bent down and peppered her with urgent kisses. “Stay with me.” My voice broke, choking on clawing panic. “You promised to stay with me!”

The light waned from her rainbow eyes with each labored blink. She gurgled on her poisoned, obsidian blood with each breath. “I’ll fucking find you. I promise,” I whispered against her blackened lips .

My chest heaved, as I went to the darkest place I’d gone yet. I wanted the fucking world to burn. If she wasn’t in it, then the world didn’t deserve to stand.

As Gray’s lashes fluttered closed and her breaths came to a stop, I slowly lifted my head. The affliction was back. I embraced it this time. I wanted its help. Except the voice was no longer Grim’s; it was Gray’s. A twisted version of it, but it matched what I felt, so I didn’t question it.

Kill him. Look what he did to me, Chrome.

“ Forest !” My voice boomed off the walls in the interrogation room. Gently, I laid Gray’s head ever so softly on the floor. I checked her pulse with my fingers. It was faint, but her heart remained beating.

“What did you do to that sword?” I stalked toward him. “Black crystal shouldn’t affect her that fast.”

Unconcerned with my fury, Forest chuckled, standing with the black book back in his palms before he snapped it shut. “Ah, yes. I dipped that blade in redfern and black crystal before you two woke up.”

I nodded, not surprised in the slightest. I needed to know what was necessary to heal her in time. But Forest needed to die first. This was the only way I’d take this kill from her, was if she couldn’t do it herself. I’m pretty sure she’d forgive me for this.

I summoned a knife from the ceiling and launched it at Forest’s head at the speed of light. But it bounced off an invisible shield, clinking to the floor. “What the fuck?” I growled.

Forest’s smug grin taunted the feral beast inside me. “Oh, that nice little spell I was telling you about. Protects me from any attacks.” He boastfully waved the book at me. “I knew you’d lose your fucking mind again like you did when you killed Peri. You still don’t have any control. What a fucking waste.”

Any shred of restraint I had snapped. I honestly didn’t know how I hadn’t yet. I was trying to hold on for Gray’s sake, using the beast to my advantage. But this motherfucker…

I whirled around, my nostrils flaring, sensing the strong magic of my mother standing at the back of the room, observing everything from afar. I let the energy of her magic lull me to it. It was intoxicating . I didn’t fight the desire this time. My mind slipped further and further away with each step I took until I closed in on her.

Her deep purple hair was disheveled, and her blue eyes widened in fear, the realization of what I was about to do clicking into place. “Chrome…no…” she whispered, shaking her head. “I never wanted to do it. You have to understand…It was…”

I didn’t give her a response. As I did when I replenished my Elemental magic, I absorbed the energy from her aura. Like the other two times I depleted, this time felt euphoric—except better. It was everything I’d been missing out on. I needed more. I need it all. I felt the strength of her power stitch into the fabric of my soul, bolstering mine.

My mother gasped for air as if I had robbed her of it. “I’m sorry. I love you, son.”

At those words, memories of her checking to make sure Grim carried out his punishment of rape floated through my mind. I replenished my magic, letting it build to an unfathomable limit. It fueled power through my veins, reigniting something that had just died inside of me. I watched the life force leave her eyes as she crumpled to the floor. Gone. My mother was dead, and I felt nothing but joy.

My mind, body, and soul overflowed with power, which was the point. I needed to destroy something. What was I supposed to destroy?

Feeling full and whole for the first time in…ever, I turned around and faced Forest again. That smug grin from before was beaming wide. “Perfect!”

I looked down at the girl impaled on the floor. Gray.

I scanned the room, searching the debris for any antidotes left behind. Through the wreckage of mine and Gray’s magic, I began to lose hope, thinking that there was no way that Forest would have one for us. But if he needed us alive like his plans indicated, then it would seem he wouldn’t risk our deaths.

Five seconds passed. Ten. Fifteen. My eyes darted in every direction while Forest straightened his suit. Finally, I spotted one discarded in the corner amongst the pile of papers and other useless items. I sprinted, retrieved the syringe, and ran back. Fading would actually take longer in this instance, although the thought occurred to me.

Crouching down, I carefully removed the sword from Gray’s back, gentle not to sever anything vital. “I got you, Rainbow. You hear me? It’s gonna be okay,” I whispered, wondering if she could hear me. I should’ve felt remorse for what I’d just done to Amethyst, but I didn’t. Not when I knew what I had to do next would require the amount of power I’d just obtained. It was the only way.

As soon as the blade was free from her body, black blood gushed from the wound like a broken faucet, covering my hands. I pressed my finger over the hole in her abdomen, trying hopelessly to staunch the flow. With my free hand, I stabbed her carotid with the syringe full of the antidote mix for both races, praying on my forsaken soul that it wasn’t too late.

With a final whisper of a kiss to her forehead, I rose again to face Forest. I felt Gray’s awareness spark back to life, and I released a much-needed breath.

Something dark and twisted braided itself into the stitches of my essence. I was a time bomb, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I had before it all went to shit. My mind might have been intact at the moment, but it would soon fade. The question was, how long did I have before I forgot Gray entirely and became a mindless, rotting creature with the sole intent of depleting?

My hand hitched in its movement as I dragged it down my face. The dark gray veins appearing beneath my gilded skin made my heart stop. I was Endarkened. Fully. There was no going back from that. I needed to make sure Gray was okay, kill Forest, and then get the fuck out of here before I turned on the only part of my soul that existed.

“Looks like you managed to escape becoming Endarkened after all,” Forest intoned. “You’re welcome.”

I angled my head, narrowing my eyes at him. “What are you talking about? ”

Forest chuckled. “It never ceases to amaze me how ungrateful you and my daughter have always been.” He ran his hand through his obnoxiously green hair, fixing its messy state. “You’re bound, now. You’re more than an Endarkened. More than any of us. You’re an Infernal.”

I closed my eyes, clenching my jaw. “What the fuck is that?”

“You’ll be informed of the details soon enough.”

A groan had me snapping my head in Gray’s direction. She was stirring, the antidote taking hold.

Come on, Gray. Get up.

“And it’s only a matter of time before she is an Infernal, too,” Forest said, keeping his eyes on his daughter. “She’s bound. Just like you.”

“You’re fucking dead,” I growled, an inhuman sound escaping my throat.

“You get to keep your mind! You should be thanking me, boy!”

Instead of entertaining his narcissism, I returned to Gray’s side. Her eyes fluttered open, then widened at something she saw on my face. “No…” she rasped. The veins.

“Come on, Rainbow. You gotta get up,” I said, bending to help her to her feet.

Once she was steady, I peered into her shattered eyes. I felt her heart fracture, which made this more difficult. My soul was being stripped to fragments of glass while my heart felt like it was the permanent home to a dagger. I was being flayed alive from within. “Stay with me,” I whispered, my voice cracking from the emotion clogging my throat. I blinked away the moisture blurring my view of her perfect face so I could commit it to memory, holding her face in my hands.

The only minute comfort I took was that she had a family now and she was more than capable of protecting herself.

I needed her to have a shield, a powerful one. “Shield yourself.” My voice was so soft that Forest wouldn’t have been able to hear it. “Now.”

Gray closed her eyes in resignation, a sob breaking free despite her effort to stifle it. After the first one broke free, she didn’t try anymore. Her shoulders shook as she gave into reality, each sob ripping me open more and more. “I love you.” I melded my lips with hers, coated in black blood. I absorbed her salty tears, taking anything of hers that I could.

I felt her air shield go up, then I reached down the bond we shared and added my newfound strength to it.

Still connected to her kiss—tasting her for the last time—I focused on all my pain, my losses, the injustice of whatever was happening to me. The emotion fueled the immense well of power as it built up to unimaginable levels. I absorbed all of the electromagnetic energy being emitted around me, including in the entirety of the King’s Palace and compressed it into the tightest, most compact ball in my core.

In a single pulse, I exploded it from my body.

Unlike when I knocked out the grid, this one would cause physical damage.

I went deaf briefly at the initial boom that was the equivalent of what I imagined nuclear bombs sounded like. The walls of the King’s Palace blew out in every direction. In one breath, the building no longer stood. One second it was there intact, and the next, debris thrashed violently around us in volatile gales. The shield protected Gray, while the debris dodged me altogether as I directed it to. I didn’t even have to break from Gray’s kiss to know what happened around me. I felt it. Controlled it.

I pulled her harder against me as the debris swirled around for several minutes. It was impossible to orient ourselves, so I kept my lips pressed to hers through the maelstrom. This was what I wanted her last memory of me to be. If I was going to bring the world to ruin, I’d do it with her in my arms, even as she wept into my goodbye.

After what felt like minutes, I broke the kiss, studying the woman who’d saved me from myself. “I’ll always find you.” With my thumb, I wiped the wet streaks from her face before I tore my gaze from her. Against everything inside me, I turned around, clenching my jaw tight against the agony in my heart. My feet crunched in the rubble, leaving her broken and alone in the wreckage as I walked away from my destruction .

Where was I going? I didn’t know. I just need to be anywhere other than here. Something dark slithered beneath my skin with an intensity worse than ever before.

Corrupted. I may have escaped becoming Endarkened, but I knew I was something far worse now.