Page 35
35
Abaddon
Light.
It swirls all around me in a tornado of raw, electric energy, seeping beneath my skin and breathing life to the nerve endings and pathways in my mind that have been sleeping for decades. The magic spreads, shuddering through the open air and staining the clouds in brilliant hues of shimmering amber. Lightning strikes the center of my chest, shocking my heart into motion, and I can’t ignore the pull any longer.
I wake.
A thunderous whoosh breaks the silence as my wings snap out, spreading proudly and soaking up the warmth of the silver sun. My shoulder muscles quiver as they sweep downward in a powerful arc, propelling my body high above the cloudline and into the upper atmosphere.
Shimmering light beams from my skin, pulsing from my open mouth and coating my vision in a film of gold as I continue rising—not knowing where I’m going or why, just that I need to fly, to soar, to feel the whipping wind against my skin.
As the atmosphere thins and the roar in my ears turns to a whine, I stall my ascent, closing my eyes and reveling in the stillness and silence. My wings beat the air, keeping me aloft and allowing me to breathe, to clear my mind—to think.
But before I get the chance, a piercing cry breaks the hush, drawing my attention toward the horizon and shattering the moment of tranquility.
Several miles in the distance, dark spots swarm the skies, blocking out the light of the sun with the sheer breadth and size of the massive force—thousands of screaming, bloodthirsty soldiers and soul-crazed demons flying toward me at full speed.
While I know I should care about them, I can’t find it within me to do so. I’m far too preoccupied with something else, something that’s been niggling in the back of my mind since I awoke. Memories.
Images and flashing pictures flood my mind—twenty-one years of thoughts and feelings and precious moments I missed, moments taken from me. Stolen from me.
The bond tugs in my chest, pulling my attention to the ground. A dark swirling mist rises above the canopy, filled with enough pain and misery to cleave the skies and tilt the world on its head.
Mate.
The air around me stills, charged with the magnetic energy humming from the center of my chest, urging me to investigate despite the approaching horde.
I follow that invisible tether, passing through the canopy to the shadowed forest below. The pads of my feet touch down on the ground, but it’s not the familiar chill of ice that greets me. I gaze downward, shocked to find myself standing in a still-warm pool of blood, spreading out across the clearing in a slippery halo.
I gaze around the clearing, trying to discern where the life source is flowing from. My gaze cuts to the space over my shoulder, drawn by that charged cloud of swirling energy that first captured my attention in the sky, and I find it.
My lips part in shock as I take in Zairn—Slaine’s torture master—lying on the ground, his back arched and mouth wide as an agonized scream tears from his throat. But more astonishing is the sight of the small female demon straddling his chest, her lips peeled back in a horrific snarl as she shoves her thumbnails deep into Zairn’s eye sockets.
A demonic shriek pierces the air, burrowing beneath my skin and rippling my spine with the amount of rage and power contained within. The female’s forearms quiver, her skin beaming with the light of the silver sun as she uses all her strength to rip Zairn’s head from his shoulders. Blood, flesh, and tendons splatter across the ice in a fantastic display of wrath and carnage, coating the ice and staining her arms in slippery, dark fluid.
Chest heaving, she looks to the side, her beautiful wings draped over her shoulders like a majestic feathered cape, partially covering her face from view. The tips of her plumage rustle gently in the wind whipping through the forest, forged by the wild tendrils of magic swirling from her outline, beaming from the center of her silver-ringed eyes.
Mate.
The woman stares unblinking, tossing Zairn’s head to the side with an expression made of stone. His skull rolls across the clearing, shuddering to a stop directly next to the headless body of Zairn’s soul-crazed demon “pet.” So that’s where the first puddle came from.
Before I get the chance to speak, a rattling cough breaks out to my left, drawing my attention to the twining branches directly above my head.
“Slaine?”
The false demon king gazes downward, his blood-slicked hands curling around the welwig branch impaling the center of his chest. “ Abaddon… ” Slaine’s blood-coated mouth spreads into an eerie smile, his milky eyes gleaming with a look of triumph despite his current predicament. “You’re too late,” Slaine chokes, each vicious word causing blood to spew from his mouth and land at my feet. “I’ve called them… all of them… you won’t… won’t be able to stop them.” He tips his head back, a maniacal laugh exploding from his blood-filled mouth. “No one can stop them all. Not… not even her .”
I turn my attention back to my mate, my heart hammering wildly against its cage, desperate to be free, to leap into her hands and be close to her forever. But I can’t. I never will be.
My steps are slow and purposeful as I walk toward her, the sounds of Slaine’s demented laughter fading to a dull whine the closer I get. My mate falls to her knees, all of her strength leaving her, returning to the source and sapping all the fight from her veins.
Her chin tips upward as she watches me approach, the silver light slowly fading in her eyes, the luminous glow of her skin dulling—but she’s never looked more magnificent.
Her muscles give out just as I make it to her, and I wrap my arms around her, stopping her from slumping to the ground. I crouch, tightening my arms around her and coating my skin in the blood staining her limbs, needing to be closer to her, to memorize the way she feels, the way she smells before it’s all taken away again.
I pull back slightly, brushing her hair back off her forehead and gazing deep into her eyes, a surge of pleasure traveling down the bond and blossoming in my chest, heating my blood with tingling waves of electricity.
“ Abaddon ,” she whispers, reaching up to cup my cheek, her eyes going in and out of focus. “I’m… I’m sorry…I’m sorry I couldn’t do more…”
“Shh.” I shake my head, a small smile tugging at the corner of my mouth as I lean down, pressing my forehead to hers. “No. There’s nothing to apologize for. You did so, so well, my heart. You saved me. ”
I turn my head over my shoulder, my eyes narrowing on Slaine with a murderous glare. “Allow me to return the favor.”
I place my mate gently on the ground, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead before turning and stalking back toward Slaine. My wings beat the air, raising me to Slaine’s level and keeping me aloft as I reach out, my palms curling around my throat and tightening.
“ You… You who betrayed me, who killed my soldiers, destroyed my kingdom, and committed unspeakable atrocities… For all of those things, you deserve to die. But my mate… you hurt my mate. There is nothing I could do to you that would justify the pain you’ve caused her. Nothing that could fill the never-ending chasm of rage you’ve created inside me.”
I grab Slaine’s shoulders, yanking his torso off the limb as a chorus of squelching and sucking noises fills the air. Slaine’s agonized cries pierce the air, but they’re hardly noticeable compared to the thunderous roar of the approaching horde.
“I’m sure your soldiers are missing you. Let’s go greet them, shall we?”
Pleasure ripples through my veins at the sight of his tortured expression, and a small smile tips my lips as I launch into the sky, my wings snapping out and sweeping the air in long, powerful strokes as I propel us up past the cloud line.
“What are you doing?” Slaine screams, his head whipping side to side wildly. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Kill me or put me down!”
“No.” I continue flying higher, stopping only when we’re at the level of the horde. My wings beat the air, keeping us aloft as I turn Slaine around in my arms, forcing him to look on toward the approaching army.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he seethes, watching with wide eyes as the bloodthirsty horde nears by the second.
“I’m going to make you watch while I take every last thing you have,” I whisper, my claws digging deep into the flesh of his shoulders, causing him to cry out. “I’m going to destroy them. All of them. The last thing you see, the last thought in your mind, will be of your failure.”
“Idiot!” Slaine cries, struggling frantically in my grip. “You can’t use that much power! You’ll be ripped apart, too!”
“I know,” I say, a smile tipping my mouth. “But it’s worth it. It’s for her.”
Power surges through my veins, filling my body with wild, pulsing waves of energy that pool in the tips of my fingers and toes, exploding from my pores in a fantastic, blinding golden light.
My head falls back in a silent scream that threatens to cleave the skies as I force every last ounce of my magic out, letting it fill the air, guiding it toward the horde of soldiers, promising it tears and pain and bloodshed. It tears through the skies with a thunderous roar, consuming sight and sound and matter as it devastates every living being in its path.
That same power pulsing out of me ricochets back, seeping between the spaces in my soul and sucking the flesh from my bones. It rips at the threads of my soul, weaves icy tendrils into my mind, and tears it apart piece by piece, shattering my very being—broken apart by the same wild energy that created me.
In spite of the pain and agony, I keep pushing, forcing every last ounce of magic I possess into the surrounding atmosphere, weaving a deadly path of destruction through the skies. It flares and screams and scorches everything it touches with the heat of the sun, filling the air with a cacophony of anguished shrieks and howls of death.
When it’s all over, a thick cloud of ash is all that remains of Slaine’s army—thousands of soldiers and soul-crazed demons reduced to a swirling plume of soot in the blink of an eye. It settles to the top of the canopy, covering the shimmering white leaves in a thick layer of dust and raining down to the forest floor below.
I gaze downward, a small smile tipping my lips to discover the false king has been reduced to the same basic matter as the rest of his army, his soul returned to the source.
I let my arms fall to my sides, tilting my head back to the heavens as wildfire spreads beneath my skin, bathing every part of my soul in white-hot agony. I’m scared to look down, to see the exposed muscle and shattered bone, to realize the extent of my injuries.
My wings seize as my body gives out, sending my crumpled and battered form crashing to the ground below. Pain flares out of every orifice as I make contact, causing my vision to tunnel as swirling shadows encroach from all sides, threatening to pull me into the void.
With a ragged breath, I turn my head, watching as my mate crawls to me across the ice, her fingertips bloodied and fingernails cracked as she desperately pulls her body toward me.
Just as she makes it to the center of the clearing, a single soldier rushes out from the depths of the shadows, his brow pinched in concentration, and something small and golden clutched in his palm.
He moves too quickly for my mate to notice and too quickly for me to react. Rai lunges across the distance, his lips peeled back in a snarl and expression twisted with rage.
“This is for Slaine, you bastard!” he screams, wrapping the golden wire around my throat and pulling hard .
Black dots line my vision as ancient, evil magic burrows beneath my skin, cutting off my oxygen and sending me back to that endless abyss I woke from. With my last ounce of power, I send my fist sailing into Rai’s chest, knocking him back across the clearing and sending his skull smashing into one of the welwig trunks.
A disgusting crack fills the air as his head splits, and Rai slumps to the ground—unconscious or dead, it doesn’t make a difference. Because no matter his fate, it ceases to change mine. And that golden thread is still tightening, curling around my body and working to split me in half.
The last thing I hear is my mate’s scream, filling the skies with rage and pain and sorrow as her magic reaches for me, attempting to pull me back from the abyss.
But it’s too late.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35 (Reading here)
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39