36. Dagon
Chapter thirty-six
Dagon
Diablos.
The world went crimson and my body lurched before my mind caught up.
Di was on his knees. Di was bleeding. Di was holding something the air around him couldn't contain, something infernal, and my body recognized the signature before my brain put words to it.
Hell.
Not metaphorical Hell. Not the Hell-on-Earth shorthand we used. The actual heat-and-pressure signature of the Underworld bleeding through the surface. From the bow. From him.
My mate had just done something I had no name for. And the next breath I took was him. The next instinct I had was reach him, shield him, kill anything between us.
But the moment Diablos sliced his hand, all hell broke loose. Fireborns lunged toward him, but we surged forward, blocking their path toward Diablos. Having multiple Starborns on our side proved to be our saving grace.
The Fireborns' only advantage was numbers, but even that wouldn't be enough. They knew it, and so did I. They weren't my worry, my focus zeroed in on the Starborn advancing toward Diablos.
I spread my wings, soaring above the burning demons, the chaos, and the screams, cutting off his approach.
He wasn't like any demon I'd encountered.
Demons usually had dark-colored hair, but this one's hair was a stark mix of white and blond.
His eyes were swirling pools of black, impossible to read. He was undeniably terrifying.
Up close, his presence bent the air around him. It wasn't aura the way other demons had aura. It was gravity. I'd fought demons. I'd watched my brother die at the hands of demons. I knew the catalog of what walking power felt like up close.
This wasn't in the catalog.
My body was telling me to kneel. To bow my head and offer my throat and ask for mercy. My body, which had not bowed to anything in fifteen years.
I locked my knees.
I'd die before I gave this thing my throat.
Up close, it was clear he had height and bulk over me. But it wasn't his physical form that alarmed me. It was the horrifying aura radiating from him. I'd never felt anything this malevolent. None of it mattered. He wasn't getting near Di. Not today, not ever.
I commanded Blue to protect Di, confident he could hold off the Fireborns and handle any threat if the Starborn slipped past me. But I intended to ensure that wouldn't happen.
The Starborn was mine to deal with.
He halted, eyes narrowing with irritation. "Get out of my way, boy."
His voice grated against my nerves. I smirked deliberately, goading him further. "Not happening, grandpa."
His nostrils flared, flames licking at his fingertips. Satisfaction curled in my gut, I'd rattled him.
"This will be your downfall," he snarled.
"We'll see," I shot back.
Neither of us hesitated. We collided in a violent storm of fists and flames.
Gratitude surged toward Adam for the combat training he'd provided when I was younger. I easily pivoted on my toes and let the momentum of my hip’s rotation drive my fists forward, but the Starborn was far better than I'd anticipated.
Our speed blurred our movements beyond human perception. This was why your stance and quick thinking mattered the most in a demon fight.
I led with the move Adam had taught me at twelve– feint left, drive right, low arc to the ribs with the heel of the hand.
The kind of strike that broke a Nightborn in three.
The Starborn caught my wrist mid-arc, twisted it past the point my body could follow, and let go before I tore.
He wasn't trying to break my arm. He was showing me he could.
Fine.
I dropped low, swept his front leg, and pushed flame up through my palms toward his face – every part of the move correct, every part of the move fast. He stepped over the sweep.
Not around it. Over. As if my leg moved through honey.
His hand caught my flame mid-air, closed around it, and crushed it back into smoke.
My fire died in his fist.
No demon I had ever fought could crush another demon's fire. Fireborns can control each other flames, yes. Starborns can evade the fire or redirect it. But they can't extinguish it like that. He had taken mine out of the air and snuffed it like a match.
What are you, my body asked him silently.
I called the rest of my power up. Wings wider. Horns curving longer. My voice in the ancient tongue rolled out of me as a warning, the kind of sound that had ended fights before they started. Other Starborns turned to look. The white-haired one did not.
He smiled.
He smiled at my full power the way you might smile at a child showing you their favorite toy.
Then he moved.
He swung a flaming fist into my ribs, a sharp crack echoing through my body. The sickening crack of bones, accompanied by the excruciating sudden pain, took my breath away. I stumbled back but regained my composure just in time to evade a ball of fire heading straight to my heart.
The fucker had a sharp technique, flawless. Each strike landed with precision and brutal speed. I gasped for breath, muscles screaming, exhaustion threatening to overwhelm me. Meanwhile, he stood composed, utterly unfazed.
I tried Blue. I called him with a word and a thought, the bond between us snapping the order across the field: come, end this.
Blue couldn't come.
Something in the air around the white-haired Starborn held him back.
I felt my familiar slam against an invisible wall in the air and bounce.
The bond between us strained and held but Blue could not cross to me.
The Starborn wasn't just outclassing me.
He was neutralizing me. My fire was gone.
My familiar was held. My wings were starting to feel heavy. My powers were running out of room.
This was what dying felt like, then.
Not the pain. The narrowing. The slow closing of every door I knew how to open.
Diablos, I thought. I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry.
I landed several solid hits, but he absorbed them effortlessly. My momentary hesitation, wondering what to try next, nearly cost me everything. He slipped behind me in a blur, cold fingers encircling my throat, driving a blade deep into my back.
Agony exploded through my body. A torturous fire consumed my insides, radiating outward in painful, creeping waves. It felt like acid coursing through my veins, devouring me from within. I screamed in agony.
I knew that pain.
I had felt that pain before, once, when I was thirteen, in the underworld, when an enchanted blade had carved the marks that still ran down my back.
This was the same kind of blade.
Whatever scar this opened, if I survived it, would not heal.
Nausea burned in my throat, and I wanted to throw up, but my body was locked up in this agony. I couldn’t do anything else besides feel the grip of the pain.
"Let him go!" Diablos's voice broke through the haze of pain.
"I don't think so," the Starborn chuckled darkly. "Think I'll tremble because you wield the Archer's arrow?"
The Archer? Confusion mingled with panic. I couldn't move, couldn't protect Di from him.
"You should. Last warning," Di growled dangerously. "Let. Him. Go."
"How does it feel having that power at your fingertips?" the demon mocked. Blood filled my mouth and I choked on it as his grip tightened mercilessly. "Answer, or I'll snap his neck, and then ensure his permanent death."
"It feels amazing," Di spat viciously. "Even Lucifer himself welcomed me to his side."
Lucifer? My mind reeled. What had happened?
The demon behind me froze momentarily, then unleashed a chilling laugh, cold and maniacal.
"Enjoy your delusion, pathetic human."
"I'm no longer just a human."
"You'll always be human. Fragile, breakable, worthless. Your new identity is a farce. You'll never truly be one of us."
"Done with your lecture?" Di sneered.
A low, dangerous growl rumbled through the demon's chest. "We'll meet again. Consider this mercy your welcome gift to Hell. Next time, I'll savor killing you and this sorry excuse of a Starborn."
Abruptly, he released his hold. I plummeted, the ground rushing up to meet me, and my vision darkening.
Through the dark closing in at the edges of my vision, I saw him.
Diablos. My Diablos. Standing in the middle of a crimson battlefield with the bow raised in one hand. Blood on his shirt. The boy who twisted his ring six times to keep me alive was holding a weapon Lucifer himself had made. And he was looking at me. He had seen me fall.
He was coming.
I had never been more afraid for him. I had never loved him more.
A piercing scream echoed around me. My last coherent thought was of Diablos. What would happen to him now?