Page 130 of Scorching the Alien Empire (The Klendathian Cycle #7)

Thank you, Divine Father.

Krogoth’s edging toward the lava, each step a death sentence. Dracoth’s axe rises high. The crowd explodes. An end to this rollercoaster of potential heart attacks.

Until—CLANG. FLASH.

Too fast to follow. Krogoth’s spear— somehow —tangles in that disgusting belt of barf-inducing bone. Dracoth thrashes, ripping the spear and sinew-laden belt away. The vertebrae rattle off the stone like he’s casting bones to read the future.

“Sacrilege!” Dracoth bellows, louder than the sky-splitting thunder overhead.

“You took my honor. My father. My pride.” He roars, bitter and raw—the fury of his favorite toy being broken... well, except for me. “And now this— my brothers in bone ?”

He takes Krogoth’s spear and shatters the shaft into a million-billion pieces.

“Oh my. Look at my man go.” I giggle, giddy with bloodlust. “Sandra, tell your cheater girlfriend to give up already.” I turn, smugness oozing like honey on hot toast. “I mean, Krogoth’s unarmed and my Mr. Frowny Face is extra frowny now.”

And best of all? That revolting bone belt is finally gone. And it’s fueling our glorious victory. How wonderful!

“I... I don’t understand,” Sandra mutters, her voice thin and heavy, like she’s just binged a year’s worth of emo ballads. “Why are you doing this? We should all be friends. We shouldn’t be here—fighting like this. Hacking each other to pieces. It’s... too much.”

“Oh, poor, sweet, innocent, Sandra,” I sigh, shaking my head.

“You don’t know what it’s like, what it takes to reach the top.

The backstabbing. The cliques. Those horrible boarding school bitches.

My asshole parents. That’s why I liked you.

Why I felt responsible for you. You were different. A breath of fresh air. Genuine.”

My voice falters. Quivers. Like the words aren’t entirely mine. Like they’ve been waiting somewhere deep and dusty for years.

“You were the only real friend I ever had. And even you turned against me. I should’ve known. It always ends like this.”

A bitter laugh.

“Maybe that’s why I convinced myself you were mind-controlled. So I could pretend. Hold onto the lie a little longer.”

“Lexie...” she whispers.

But my attention’s pulled away—

Dracoth surges forward, axe raised like a scene from Klendathian Chainsaw Massacre XIII: Bone-Zone Edition.

Krogoth stands firm. Defiant. A twig bracing for a tsunami.

A flash of motion—then impact. Their grips collide on the axe, muscles bulging, veins flaring, blood glistening like warpaint. The crowd holds its breath. So do I.

Dracoth’s fury floods through our bond. A wildfire. An unstoppable rush of glorious rage. This is his specialty—the meatball supreme.

The slag cracks beneath Krogoth’s feet, his bones groaning under the weight of my Red Dragon. The axe inches downward, creeping toward his neck like a stage ten clinger.

My fists clench. My breath stops. He’s going to do it.

Krogoth—the cheater—moves. A desperate headbutt. But Dracoth pivots—clean, sharp, perfect.

Then— SHREEK. Dracoth’s claws rake down Krogoth’s chest. Green blood erupts like some Halloween-themed champagne bottle of celebration. I can hardly believe my eyes. But Krogoth stumbles—collapses.

Defeated. A loser-turd waiting to be flushed.

“ YES! ” I scream, voice slicing through the silence like a glitter bomb of triumph. My heart thunders like a broken washing machine.

Bitch Brick wails like a banshee, shrill and delicious. She crumples, her scarred face twisted in anguish. I almost feel bad for her.

Almost.

She could’ve stopped this. She chose not to. Ego always comes before the fall.

“Are you happy now?” Sandra breathes beside me, her hand falling from her mouth, eyes locked on Krogoth’s torn form. “Does it feel good? Getting to the top? Stepping on everyone to do it?”

I grimace. “It’d feel better if you weren’t guilt-tripping me,” I glance toward Todd, silently praying he’ll clamp her mouth shut with his adorable little mandibles. “Don’t blame me. We both know Bitch Brick could’ve stepped in anytime . She chose this.”

But Sandra doesn’t back down. “Maybe you’re always alone because you use everyone,” she snaps, sapphire eyes burning.

“I...”

The words stick—dry, dead, useless. Like she’s just hit me with a hundred eviction notices straight to the soul.

Is that what I’ve been doing? No. That doesn’t make any sense.

Right?

“No, Sandra!” I snarl, silver daggers in my eyes. “People use me! They leave me! Like my prick parents. Like my prick friends. So don’t stand there like some dollar-store therapist, spouting self-help crap and ruining my moment of victory. You—you Ginga Ninja abandoner !”

I spin away, focusing on the ruined obsidian arena, done with her—done with this. “Only Todd and Dracoth have stuck by me. And they’re more than enough.”

I exhale, loud and deliberate. Movement catches my eye.

Krogoth stirs.

My heart seizes. “...No way.”

The crowd gasps—a million held breaths becoming a thunderous drone.

Krogoth rises.

Like something out of a horror flick. A corpse reanimated by vengeance. His body a ruin of blood and ash, skin flapping like grotesque avant-garde curtains down his chest. Green gore slicks every inch of him.

“Oh my god.” Sandra gasps, hand flying to her mouth. Even Todd perks up on her head, eye blinking, croaking in awe.

And then it gets worse —Krogoth’s claws extend. Eyes burn like twin furnaces of hate. Raven-black hair whips in the wind like a Jolly Roger soaked in wrath.

How is he standing?

“Come, brother!” Dracoth laughs like an escaped lunatic, as if he’s enjoying giving me panic attacks. “Let us bathe in divine blood. Let us ascend to the realm of the gods!”

My blood turns to ice. They stumble toward each other—two broken titans, claws glinting in the gloomy crimson haze like drunken reapers at the end of time.

What is this? This isn’t how it’s supposed to go.

Dracoth’s earlier words hit me like overdue credit cards: “ Farewell, Alexandra.”

He never calls me that. Never.

He knew.

He knew this would happen.

He was saying goodbye.

“Dracoth...”

My lip trembles. Eyes gleam with traitor tears.

The air explodes with sonic booms and the whistling whine of claws. They’re just standing there—ruins, devouring each other. Blows too fast to see, only felt: the sickening crunch of bone. The wet shriek of splitting flesh. Meat pounding into meat.

“They’re butchering each other!” Sandra sobs beside me, turning away. “I can’t watch.”

Neither can the crowd. Heads turn. Groans. Gasps. Cries for someone— anyone —to stop this.

Pain sears across my body. Slices, fractures, agony rolling in waves, blanketing my entire body like it’s turned into battlefield target practice. I collapse, knees hitting the jagged stone, palms pressed to burning rock.

This suffering isn’t mine—it’s Dracoth’s.

His pain, flooding through the bond. A brutal mirror, pinning me to the ground. And yet he stands... enduring far worse.

I lift my head through the veil of tears and agony. My gaze locks on Bitch Brick. She’s not crumbling. She’s not even blinking. She just stands there—chin high, teeth clenched, staring through the storm like a stone goddess.

How?

This can’t be real. Dracoth doesn’t lose. He’s invincible. My Red Dragon.

“Lexie, please—I’m begging you!” Sandra grabs my shoulder and shakes it, but I barely feel her through the pain roaring in my veins.

He’ll turn it around. He always does. Any second now.

Another blow explodes in my gut like dynamite. I gasp, crawling forward, eyes blurry.

I see them—two dying gods. Swollen. Bruised. Faces smashed. Flesh torn like sun-dried jerky. Blood streaming down their bodies like the rivers of tears I can’t hide.

Sandra’s voice slams into me.

“What about Dracoth? You’re using him !” she screams. “You always have! You abandoned him against the Scythians! He loves you, Lexie. He’s dying out there for you, and all you care about is your FUCKING SELF!”

Gods...

She’s right.

I used him. Pushed him. For the Sacred Words. To make him stronger.

No...

For my ‘Lexie-verse.’ To win. To wipe that smug look off Bitch Brick’s face.

To show them all—the ones who abandoned me—make them seethe with regret.

Petty.

Small.

Stupid.

Not like Dracoth. Not like what he means to me. And now—he’s going to die for it.

Because of me.

Across the obsidian field, they break their clench—two gods, spent, yet somehow still rising.

Muscles coil. Eyes blaze. Their bodies twist—final blows arcing like divine judgment, powerful enough to shatter mountains.

My heart.

Then—BOOM.

A thunderclap. Both of them collapse.

“NO!” I scream. The sound tears from my gut like something sacred dying.

Inside, something shatters . A fire—a purple flame—ignites deep in my chest. It burns deep.

It surges through the bond, through the threads that connect us, and explodes .

My silver joins his crimson. No longer flickering.

No longer small. An inferno of love, guilt, rage—consuming his suffering, enveloping him, protecting him.

As it always should have.

It rises high into the blackness, into that strange, sacred place that belongs to us alone.

I stumble upright, nearly falling as I sprint toward him. Dracoth rises and falls, blood pooling, breath rattling like a death drum.

Krogoth rises onto one knee, quivering hand pushing off the ground.

The gravy ring of bubbling lava hisses, kissing my skin with molten embers. I ignore it. Summoning shields to bridge the gap, before charging across, my heart pounding in my chest.

He’s dying. And it’s my fault.

“Dracoth!” I scream, desperate, shrill, hand outstretched.

He’s on his hands and knees, his huge form trembling, gasping. Krogoth lurches up beside him—quivering, face smashed beyond recognition, claws extending with a sickening SHRIEK .

He’s going to kill him.

Rip out the beating heart I only just realized is mine.

“Hands off...” I snarl. “ My babes! ”