Chapter 30
Brand slid on his knees through wet carnage, coming to a stop beside Luna.
“No, no, no,” he chanted under his breath.
“Take her up, Brand!” Magnus shouted, pointing to the top of the ramp before rejoining the skirmish.
His brother was right. She’d be safer above the beast and battle.
He commanded a chunk of the ground to lift beneath him, raising them upwards.
When they reached the top, he ran his fingers over and beneath her head, shoulders, sides, legs…
No wounds anywhere he could see or feel, but that meant nothing.
Some injuries were held inside, seeping insidiously until the body succumbed.
She needed blood.
Brand lifted his arm to pierce his skin, but stopped when he noticed the layer of black ooze congealing on his skin. He wiped and wiped his arm against a fairly clean part of her skirt, but it wasn’t good enough. He couldn’t risk it.
Thaddeus.
His cousin hadn’t engaged the beast directly. He could give her a gift.
Brand lunged sideways to peer over the edge of the incline and cursed. There was so much of the dreadbeast’s blood on the ground that the overturned dirt had turned to mud and puddles.
His damned cousin was bounding around in front of the monster, splashing through the loathsome stuff as he yipped and snarled, luring it towards himself.
The beast limped and jerked as it stalked Thad, Magnus racing behind it and plucking its severed talons from the ground—naked as the day he was born.
Both of the bastards were as covered in the shite as he was.
“Fuck!” Nothing for it. He’d have to feed her and hope to the Sisters she’d be okay.
Brand shoved the same hand he’d used before into her slack mouth and drove her fangs deep.
What in the weeping fuck?
The beast’s blood began to move against his skin, crawling up his arm as if to escape the touch of her lips. It took all of his willpower to hold still and ensure she had enough, near desperate to yank his arm back and cut the substance off him with his own blade if he had to.
It was just so bloody fucking wrong.
The second he was satisfied, he pried her mouth away and set to exposing her skin.
He swept loose curls away from her face, pushed her sleeves and skirts up—anything to bare as much of her body as he decently could.
Though quickly disappearing, the twin moons were to the Sorcerit as Solyrian was to the Demons, and even their dwindling light should bolster her.
More than once, Brand wished he had Luna’s ability to hear the heartbeats around her, to have the reassurance its sound would offer.
Her skin began to glow, the rainbow shards held beneath its surface glittering as she hummed with building power. A ripple pulsed out through the air with her at its center, and she gasped to sitting, eyes wide and silvered.
“There you are, little moon,” he crooned, rubbing her back. “That’s it, just breathe.”
“What’s happening?” she asked, still obviously dazed. “Is it over?”
The shrieks and shouts sounding below them was answer enough, but he didn’t point that out. “Not quite.”
Magnus sprinted up the ramp, hugging the three talons they’d severed against his bare body.
A surprising wave of aggression hit when he caught the crimson blush stealing over Luna’s cheeks. He snarled in Mag’s direction, his battle rage too close to the surface to contain it. His brother’s answering chuckle only served to infuriate him more.
Luna leaned over the drop of the incline, Mag’s wrinkled battle robe in her hand a second later.
“I refuse to apologize for the free show,” Mag said, skidding to a stop and dropping the spikes like bloody, black logs to the ground. He snatched up the wad of cloth and donned it, breaths heavy. “But you have my thanks anyway, witchling.”
“Where the fuck is Thad?” Brand snarled.
“Ach, playing cat and mouse with his new best friend. They should be here any second.”
“They?”
“Aye, but don’t get your pants in a twist. That thing is so close to death already, I don’t know how it’s still standing. Just get your arse up and help me finish it.” Mag picked up one of the spikes and leapt off the edge to the battlefield below.
“What? Magnus!” Brand shouted.
“Come on, you wee shite! Thad is coming!”
Brand turned to see an argent streak racing in an arc across the field, his cousin’s trajectory taking him straight to the bottom of the incline, the dreadbeast close behind.
“Damn it.” Brand lunged to scoop the two remaining talons up with one arm, grabbed Luna with the other, and jumped.
They landed with a thud beside Magnus, who was already issuing commands. “Spikes in the ground, Brand. Have the earth grip them upright.”
Understanding dawned, and Brand did as he was told. They embedded the talons in a triangle and cleared away just as Thad soared from the top of the ramp.
“Slaughter it,” Mag growled.
He couldn’t agree more.
As the dreadbeast followed, Brand sent out his power.
He tracked it as it plummeted, commanding the rock and stone to move with its body, aiming the spikes beneath its concave belly.
The earth built like a mighty wave, the beast’s own severed arms leading the swell.
With a final push, he forced the trap upwards to meet the monster midair and the talons embedded themselves to the root, blood raining down while it screamed.
He released his power and let the beast fall. Bones cracked and dirt sprayed as it landed with a boom, skidding to a stop across the field.
Brand’s ears rang, the sudden silence deafening. The others drew up beside him, only their labored breaths filling the unnaturally still air as they waited to see whether it was finished.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Mag sighed, throwing his hands up when it started twitching.
The dreadbeast reached out twisted limbs and jerked itself somewhat upright, but unable to find its balance. As it struggled, slipping to the ground, Brand let the tension in his shoulders melt away.
Moving like that… No longer a threat. They just had to find a way to end it for good.
“Now what?” Thad asked, shaking his hair out as he completed the shift back to two legs.
Brand sifted through their limited options. “My sword is useless,” he admitted.
“Aye, and there’s no fucking way I’m biting into it again.” Mag crossed his arms, as if to dare anyone to suggest otherwise.
Luna cleared her throat and another talon appeared, plopping down in front of them.
“Where did you get that?”
“That would be the one I pulled out of you in the chasm.”
The dreadbeast cried out again. Looking down at that talon, the one that’d been inside of him…
Without a word, Brand bent and swiped it up. He let all control go as he moved, his battle rage rushing to the fore. Red flooded his vision, seething aggression pumping freely through his veins. His muscles bulged even further and he ground his teeth against it, every step making him angrier.
It screeched weakly as he came upon it, shoving itself away as best as it could. The talons from their trap were lodged snugly between its forelegs, blood pumping out in steady streams from the jagged puncture wounds below the glowing crimson hole in its chest.
If it had a heart, that fiery spot was it, and it was begging to be skewered.
Never mind what it had done to him—an entire village was slaughtered. The piece of shite had taken Faldir, and nearly got Mag and Luna. Only the Sisters knew what other atrocities it had committed.
Brand didn’t feel sorry as he drew back and slammed the spike home with a roar.
The dreadbeast seized up on a scream and teetered precariously above him, refusing to fucking die. He snarled back, daring it to deny this fate. One breath, two…
It tipped away, crashing to the ground with a wheeze that freed the last, putrid dregs of its life-force, finally still as the death that had claimed it.
Done. It was done.
The rage washed away, replaced with dizzying relief. With a heavy sigh, he let go and reverted back to himself. He welcomed the exhaustion, the pull on his overworked muscles and the weight in his limbs, glad to be rid of his berserker for now.
“Please tell me this counts as my first battle,” Thad said, flicking a chunk of something out of his hair as Brand stumbled back to them. “I’m ready to be marked. Being bait was dragonshite and I’m tired of walking around with the glowing, pasty skin of a wee babe. Look at me. I am ridiculous.”
“Yes, um… well…” Luna coughed and raised a hand. “I’ll just…”
There was a tugging at his skin, and gasps sounded as the muck of battle lifted from his body, from the others, the filth they’d gathered hovering in the air before slopping to the ground.
Thad let out a sigh, running his hands over his bare chest with a look of contentment. When he trotted off to fetch his discarded robe—that glowing, pasty skin on stunning display—Brand couldn’t help the fit of laughter.
It was always so strange after a battle, when he found himself still standing, still breathing.
Hilarity and misery twined like hysterical lovers, the urge to weep colliding with the urge to laugh, and he became nothing more than a conduit for whatever form the emotions took when they forced their way out of him.
Brand howled like a loon, not giving a single shite because he was just so fucking grateful to be alive. Before he knew it, Lunara and Magnus were wheezing right along with him.
“What did I say?” Thad finished off his robe tie and threw his hands up.
“Not a damned thing wrong, lad,” Magnus said on a mirthful exhale. “But yes, you single-minded pup—you’ll be marked for your part.”
Thad bunched his hands into triumphant fists. “Yes! Finally!”
“Aye.” His brother’s voice was little more than a croak as he tried to get hold of himself. “We’ll put it on your arse to be sure everyone can see it the next time you’re running for your sorry life.”
“Ach, not funny, Mag!”