Chapter 24
OLIVIA
“Are you okay?” Calix’s finger ran down the side of my cheek.
My eyes flicked to where Rack had Manshu suspended several feet off the ground.
Every few seconds, his fingers twitched lazily, causing ribbons of air to bend the fairy’s broken limbs the wrong direction.
Every crack of bone made Manshu sob harder.
Through it all, Rack didn’t say a word. He just stared upward with that cold, distant expression while flames slowly licked along the shredded edges of Manshu’s clothes.
“Um…” My fingers brushed my throat instinctively. Smooth skin. No holes. I swallowed once and nodded quickly. “Yeah. I’m good.”
Calix moved directly in front of me, his body blocking out everything but him.
“You didn’t run.” His words came out low and dangerous. His eyes locked onto mine so intensely it felt like being pinned in place.
I planted my hands on my hips. “I did run,” I snapped back.
One brow twitched upward.
“But I also knew you’d be here soon,” I continued, shrugging like it hadn’t terrified me. “So I improvised and kept him busy.”
I tried to sound tough, like I was in control and had a plan the whole time, but I knew he could see right through me. His jaw flexed hard enough to jump beneath his skin.
His arm blurred, and suddenly, his hand was around my throat. Not choking, just… holding. Making his presence known.
His fingers trembled against my skin while sunset pink eyes searched every inch of my face like he was still making sure I was alive.
“I didn’t plan for your throat to get ripped open,” he growled. The anger in his voice sounded jagged. Frayed.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” I admitted. It was a flaw in the plan.
The pressure of his hand around my neck should’ve scared me. Instead, warmth curled low in my stomach. Safe. He was safe. Violent and terrifying but safe.
I swallowed carefully beneath his grip.
“Well,” I muttered, trying for sarcasm despite my wildly fluttering pulse, “I had to improvise.”
His expression tightened instantly. His fingers uncurled, and he released me, turning away with a frustrated growl rumbling out of his chest.
As he moved, gold flickered along his throat. Thin glowing lines lit up beneath his skin. I squinted, trying to make them out better, but he blurred away before I could.
“Let him go.” Calix’s command was final, yet Rack hesitated. His fingers twitched once more before he slowly crossed his arms and released the hold.
Manshu slammed into the concrete with a wet cry.
He curled inward immediately, coughing blood onto the floor while his ruined wings dragged uselessly behind him.
Calix stalked toward him, every step deliberate, before he brought his boot down directly onto Manshu’s shattered leg.
Manshu’s scream tore through the room, warped into something feral and unrecognizable. His eyes bulged violently, bloodshot and swollen, while he clawed uselessly at Calix’s boot.
“Where did you get the gun?”
“I-it’s j-just a r-regular—”
“Wrong answer.” The movement happened too fast for me to track.
Before I blinked, Calix’s hand was empty. A moment later, he ripped Manshu’s left wing clean off. Blood sprayed across the concrete as Manshu shrieked so loudly my ears rang.
Calix held the torn wing out toward Rack without even looking. Snap. Fire bloomed between his fingers, and orange flames devoured the delicate wings while the smell of burning magic filled the enclosed area.
“N-no!” Manshu lunged toward it on instinct. “My wing! My wing!”
His voice cracked apart into sobs as the fire consumed it until nothing remained but black ash drifting to the floor.
He collapsed beside it, almost wailing.
Bloody hands desperately scooped through the pile like he could somehow put it back together if he held enough of it close.
“I won’t ask again,” Calix said flatly. Both he and Rack stood over Manshu like executioners, completely untouched by the horror unfolding beneath them.
A part of me wanted to tell them to stop, that this was enough, that no one deserved this, but that voice was distant now. Muted and human. Because deeper inside me, something dark smiled at Manshu’s suffering.
The monster beneath my skin wanted more. Wanted him broken beyond repair. Wanted to hear every scream.
“I-I…” Manshu sobbed. “T-they’ll kill me. I c-can’t—”
His second wing disappeared in a spray of blood. The scream that followed shredded through the space.
Calix let the ruined wing hit the floor before Rack burned that one too.
“You know fairies can’t regrow their wings if both are gone,” he said, emotionless and factual.
Manshu convulsed violently.
Every elegant feature twisted apart beneath unbearable agony. His jaw trembled uncontrollably while tears and blood soaked his face. The ruined muscles in his back, now exposed due to the missing wings, spasmed grotesquely.
His hands helplessly clawed across the concrete as animalistic sobs dragged from his throat in broken, uneven bursts. Something sacred had just been ripped out and burned alive.
“Where.” Calix stepped closer. “Did. You. Get. That. Gun?”
Rack slowly crouched beside him. His expression never changed as he quietly said, “He won’t ask again.”
Manshu’s face was already healing. Slowly. The crushed skin stitched itself back together inch by inch beneath the blood coating him.
And watching it… God, my mouth watered. A drop of blood slid down the side of his face, and my eyes tracked it automatically. Before I could stop myself, I was licking my lips.
“T-the airport,” Manshu finally choked out. “H-hangar seventeen. T-that’s all I know. I swear. That’s all I know. That’s all I know.”
The words became frantic, repetitive, almost like if he said them enough, they’d spare him.
Calix moved before the sentence fully finished. His arm punched straight through Manshu’s chest. Wet ripping echoed through the room, then Calix stood upright holding a still-beating heart in his bloody hand.
Manshu collapsed sideways. Empty. Broken. Dead.
Blood dripped steadily from Calix’s fingers as he turned and walked toward me, holding out the heart like a gift.
“This is for you. For all you’ve suffered. Drink.”
The heart rested in Calix’s blood-covered palm, still twitching weakly between his fingers. Crimson slid down the lines of his wrist, dripping from his knuckles onto the concrete below.
I stared at it too long.
When my eyes finally dragged upward, Calix was already watching me. Blood streaked across his cheekbones and jaw, but his expression never wavered. Those sunset-pink eyes stayed steady on mine, patient and unwavering, like he already knew what choice I would make.
Then he tipped his chin toward me. Take it.
The thing beneath my skin stirred instantly. Hunger.
It uncoiled through me like smoke flooding my lungs, thick and suffocating, whispering against the inside of my skull.
Drink him. Consume what’s left. Make sure he never rises again.
My breaths shortened, one after another.
“You used a lot of energy to heal,” Rack murmured as he stepped up beside Calix, his gaze flicking over me carefully. “You need blood.”
The sound of his voice nearly snapped the last thread holding me together.
My pulse thundered through my ears as my hand lifted on instinct alone. My fingers shook before they even touched the heart. Blood slicked across my skin, warm and slippery, and the organ nearly slid free before my nails dug in hard enough to puncture flesh.
A tremor rolled through me, and I looked at them once more.
Rack’s jaw had gone tight. Calix stood perfectly still, but his chest rose slower, heavier, like he was holding himself back from something.
I lifted it to my lips, giving Rack and Calix another look before my fangs came out. I sunk them into the flesh and pulled the contents out.
The rush was sudden, not from the taste of it, but from the power. It was like I was sucking down an eternal force that was going to fuel me for a lifetime.
It poured down my throat molten-hot, spreading through my veins so violently my knees nearly buckled. My fingers clenched harder around the heart while something feral clawed up my spine, demanding every last drop.
A rough sound tore through the room.
For one dizzy second I thought it came from me.
Then I realized Rack was the one breathing unevenly beside me.
Wet pulls echoed against the concrete walls. The sound should’ve embarrassed me, should’ve made me stop, but the hunger swallowed everything else whole. I drank until the twitching beneath my fingers stopped completely.
And then suddenly, there was nothing. The heart had collapsed into ash.
Black dust drifted between my fingers and scattered into the air. I stared at it, chest heaving. Gone. I’d destroyed him completely, and I’d liked it.
Taking the life of my enemy felt good, satisfying. The power I’d been deprived of as a human wasn’t an issue now that I was a monster. The realization settled over me slowly, and with it came another thought.
Oh god. They heard me. They saw me.
Heat flooded my face as shame hit hard and fast. Unable to look at either of them, my lashes lowered automatically. I didn't want to see the disgust in their eyes at what I’d just done.
I’d expected some sound, some indication of my wrongdoing, but only silence followed. I lifted my eyes carefully, and every thought vanished.
Two sets of eyes devoured me openly, one sunset pink, the other stormy purple, both filled with enough hunger to set my skin on fire.
Rack’s lips had parted slightly, his breathing uneven as his eyes tracked the blood at the corner of my mouth. Beside him, Calix looked wrecked by the sight of me. Crimson was smeared across his skin while hunger hollowed out his expression into something deadly and dangerous.
The tension inside me snapped, and I surged forward before I could think.
My hand fisted in Calix’s shirt, yanking him down as I dragged my tongue across the blood streaking his mouth. His restraint shattered instantly.