Page 13 of Heir of Broken Souls (HOBF #3)

Chapter 13

Delilah

A xel lies crumpled in a puddle of crimson and black blood. The color has leached from his face, leaving in its wake a deathly pale color.

I slap a hand over the wound on his chest, sending a golden blast around me, warding off any straggling demonic creatures as I try to stop the flow of bleeding. The movement has him sucking in a sharp gasp at my touch. I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until I let it out in a rush at seeing his chest rise and fall—albeit slowly.

His forest green eyes, so similar to his brother’s, flutter open and land on me. They widen. “You’re golden,” he whispers, his voice sounding like he’s underwater, and then he fades again.

Ignoring his words and the foreign sensation of my body, I feel Knox come up behind me, a sob flying from his mouth as my magic continues to fend off those who try to come near us. The battle still raging despite our world threatening to crumble.

A force pulls me to place my palms over Axel’s shredded chest. It feels like my magic, but also entirely different. This isn’t something logical, it isn’t something I can explain—it’s simply intuitive.

A tear rolls down my cheek, falling and landing in his wound, and with it comes a light so pure, I close my eyes and allow the magic within me to take over. It guides my body and speaks the language similar to the one in my vision. Despite not knowing the words, I know without a shadow of a doubt that the language is a part of me. Within my magic somehow. This is its doing. This is a part of its gift—to heal.

Knox gasps behind me before dropping to his knees on the sodden earth.

“It’s working,” he whispers in awe. “Keep going, Angel, you’re healing him.”

A spark ignites within my chest—within the heart that hasn’t felt anything good in months.

Light flows out of my palm and into Axel’s chest, the muscle, nerves, and skin stitching together. The color slowly returns to his face. The rise and fall of his chest grows faster with every passing second, no longer the slow, choppy movements of a man with blood in his lungs.

His lashes flutter to reveal his eyes once more. They still shine with awe at the power thrumming from every morsel of my body, but there’s something else. As the power slows, Axel’s hand wraps around the hilt of his sword beside him, his lips flatten on a snarl, and like never before Axel is reborn— angry .

It isn’t until I stop, leaning back on my heels and resting my hands on my leather-clad thighs, that I realize he isn’t the only thing to be reborn today. My skin is glowing . Like the sun shines through my skin and not the other way around.

But there isn’t time to reflect, to bask in the difference in my body. No time to come to terms with how fluidly I stand, how easy it is to hold the heavy dragon pommel sword, how much power I truly hold. Because Axel is already rising, snarling at Knox, “I’ll be fucking damned if they take my home.”

With a swift nod, Knox turns on me, his eyes tracking my entire body, gliding from the tip of my head to the bottom of my boots before flicking back up.

“How much do you have now?” he asks.

I cock my head, wondering why he’s asking when he can simply walk across the bridge of my mind and look for himself, but then I become aware of what’s surrounding us and why the sound of the battle hasn’t been grating my ears.

For within a mile, up every street and narrow alley, demons have fallen, melted, and burned already.

My gasp is audible. I didn’t consciously have anything to do with this, but my magic didn’t need me to reap their punishments. When I peek into my well, I find something I have never seen before. And that’s when I know what I need to do.

With just a simple emotion down a different bond, a keening roar of shock and relief sounds out a moment before something large and heavy lands behind me, making the cobblestone street beneath my feat rattle. I run and jump into Aurora’s saddle. “Follow me,” I tell them.

The boys turn to each other in bewilderment but there isn’t time to explain. After all, I don’t believe I could even begin to try. They follow me into the sky anyway, Knox’s gorgeous black-as-ink wings beating feverishly as Axel comes up on my left. It isn’t until we’re high within the sky, my view unobscured by the buildings, can I see what is truly transpiring.

Thousands upon thousands of demonic creatures march throughout the streets, their talons and claws striking into the hearts of Knox’s men with ease. Our men lie dead while those small victories they find in killing a demon barely last more than a minute.

We are losing.

But not for long.

Sensing the men’s frustration and lack of patience, I slowly raise my hands—and step into what I have become. “Let them perish,” I say.

Tendrils of golden power slither from my body in every direction.

For weeks, all I have felt is burning hatred. I feel it in this moment too, but it isn’t entirely my own. Something far older than myself lies within me—an ancient wrong being righted as my power begins to exact a revenge that feels as if it’s been brewing for centuries in the making.

And suddenly I realize why my magic chose me.

One by one the golden snakes strike, their golden fangs piercing every demonic creature.

Those within the streets using their claws to gut our soldiers. Those within the skies battling against a small group of griffins and Harlow’s dragon form. Even the Phookas using their horns to stab and pierce our men. The serpents plunge their golden fangs into their hearts.

For a moment, time seems to pause as they take their final breath.

And then with a mighty sound, they fall.

Every last one of them. With just a strike of my golden power.