Page 11 of Heir of Broken Souls (HOBF #3)
Chapter 11
Delilah
A urora’s wings expand to their full width as she soars over the ruined houses and buildings splattered with blood. The moment we clear a particularly large building Aurora stutters for a moment, her shock giving way to the mass of darkness pushing our army back and into the surrounding forest.
They’ve almost cleared it.
“Go, Aurora, go!” I shout over the bellowing wind.
Knox stiffens behind me, his hands tensing on my waist. I turn, planting a quick kiss on his cheek, bringing him back from his wide-eyed horror, and push him. “Go! You’ll get there faster, go!”
Knox pauses for a moment, just a second, as he drinks in the sight of me.
“Wherever you go, I go,” I promise. “Now hurry!”
Without a backward glance, Knox takes off, his magnificent black wings unfurling as he hurtles through the sky until he lands at the front lines beside Nolan. His blade swings from side to side, his fire and shadows unleashing chaos and carnage to push the demonic creatures back.
But then, something strange happens.
The sea of black awakens all at once . Thousands of creatures run for the front lines with renewed vigor and vengeance for those who slayed them. No matter how powerful Knox’s magic is, his warriors and his army will never kill enough since they never truly die. I tremble from the despair, the rising dead rushing for Knox and his men, but blanch entirely when my eyes snag on another Fae joining the fight.
My body freezes atop Aurora.
My gaze has landed on no ordinary Fae. It has landed on a warrior, one that I haven’t seen sober in weeks.
Rushing for the demons is Axel, with such hate in his gaze my heart plummets. He wails with grief, trying to right a wrong that can never be fixed.
Axel swings with a sword that brings tears to my eyes. In his palm lies not his personal sword, but Ace’s.
A sob flies from my throat, shocking me. I haven’t dared to allow myself to cry in weeks for fear of it drowning me in the current of everything I have lost.
But Axel, in his disheveled state, goes down with a demonic hound claw embedded in his gut. Even from high in the sky, I hear his scream of agony.
No one is beside Axel, no one is even close to him, otherwise preoccupied in the battle. They don’t see him fall to the legion of demonic hounds—and not rise again.
Leaning forward, I clutch Aurora’s hair so tightly in my grasp she whines in pain, forcing me to clutch my aching chest instead as I scream for Knox, for anyone .
“No, no, NO !” I bellow. The sound travels, across the skies, across the seas, the battlefield. “ NO , please!”
Knox whips his head upwards at the sound, but I can’t look at him, not as I desperately search for a dark, tattooed twin, the face that has haunted us all whenever he deigned to show.
“No, no, no,” I chant in a flurry of panic. “No, no, no, NO !”
My panic gives way to a swell of anger, one so thick I choke on the fury of it as golden light leaks from the palms of my hands. My magic slams against the confines of my body, screaming for me to allow it all the way in .
Whispering that it can help .
It stokes the boiling rage within me, fueling me with images of all I have lost.
Easton’s neck, sliced ear to ear, my best friend gone in the blink of an eye. Annie, my mother-like figure, her head still adorned with her white bow, perched atop a pike. Eleanor, the beautiful trapped mermaid that gave up her life for mine, beside her. Axel kneeling in Ace’s blood. The betrayal of my best friend, planted by a man I thought was my father.
That’s the most haunting of them all—my entire life being a sham, a lie.
A painful deceit to unweave.
It all flashes across my mind, there and gone within a matter of a second, but it leaves its mark, refusing to go back within the confines I shoved it in all these weeks. Wishing to never feel such horrid pain ever again.
That choice came with a cost. If I didn’t want to feel my pain, then I couldn’t feel anything. I gave up my emotions so quickly but now I struggle to tame them. To tame the burning rage of all that was stolen from me, the unjustness of all we have lost, the cruelty of my life and this scene before me.
It swells, growing higher and higher until my body physically vibrates with rage so powerful I can’t control it. Running down the bridge between our minds I plead, Please bring me back when this is all over, Knox.
His soul, dull like never before, meets me at the bridge, confusion etched across his features. His sapphire eyes turn up to me from below. Angel, wait ? —
The last thing I see before I slam the door to the bridge in my mind is his terrified face, screaming— pleading —for me to stop.
Delilah!
Only seconds have passed and yet it feels like a lifetime as the magic within me rises, fueling my anger past a point of no return. Then I step into my well of power and submerge myself fully—with no tether to keep me grounded—and embrace what my magic has been begging me to become.