Thayla
“Thay—”
My entire body flinches as Jeremiah slaps his hand over Laney’s mouth, and fire licks through my veins. Her tears flow over his fingers in a constant stream, and I track them all the way down to the dirt.
The ground vibrates from the restraint it’s taking to hold myself back.
Breathe.
Don’t scare her.
“What the fuck are you doing, Jeremiah?”
He tsks at my quiet question. “Language, sweet T. We’ve got little ears around.”
His mocking laugh makes my eye twitch.
“Enough, Jer.”
My gaze jerks to where the crowd of men parts, allowing their fearless fucking leader to walk through them.
So many of those faces I recognize.
So many had no problem bashing their swords against my body not too long ago.
He’s assembled, I swear, what looks like all the men from each arena. There may be a few women somewhere in the crowd, but I can’t see them.
“What’s going on, Mellcom?”
I can’t help the crack in my voice. Laney’s soft sniffles are causing my ears and throat to burn.
“What’s going on is you”—he points his sword at me—“have been leaving me in the dark. Avoiding me like a fucking disease. You’re hateful and unappreciative of everything I’ve given you. That ends now.”
I swallow down the countless slurs that want to rip from my throat.
“What the fuck are you playing at, Bellame? Let the little girl go and explain yourself, now,” Gladian demands.
Mellcom laughs.
He doesn’t spare but a mere glance at him.
“Fine. You want to talk, let’s talk. Let Laney go, and I’ll listen to whatever you want to say.”
“No.” He sighs, shaking his head as he looks at the ground and kicks a pile of dirt. When his glowing gaze flicks back up to mine, I clench my jaw. “The time for that has passed, Thay. You’re going to come over here with me, and you and Laney will come with us.”
“Come with you where?”
I grit my teeth as his power slithers across my skin and I dig my toes deeper into my boots. A wave of it hits me again. Slick, invasive, wrong. It’s not painful.
Not even close. It coils under my skin, pressing, pulling.
My weight shifts forward before I can stop it.
What the actual fuck?
How is he stronger?
“You got some explaining to do, Gladdy Daddy,” Riven murmurs.
“I have no clue what the fuck his problem is right now.”
A quiet, mocking laugh leaves Mellcom.
“My problem?” he asks as he tilts his head.
“For someone who’s so high and mighty, you’re truly the most clueless fucker I’ve ever met.
You still think you understand what’s happening and you have zero idea.
I mean, it’s been months, and you still believe my domain is Pain.
You’d think by now you would’ve realized if I had your brother’s domain or not. ”
I still.
So do my men.
Gladian’s eyes stay narrowed on Mellcom.
“This isn’t about you, though. I’m thrilled to finally be washing my hands of you and this mediocre tie.” His attention pivots back to me, and he gives me a slow, deliberate smile. “Come on, Thay. It’s time to go.”
“You’ve lost your mind, Mellcom.”
He sighs again as if he’s growing bored with this argument. My jaw locks as his gaze flicks down at Laney, who’s trembling in her skin.
Hold on for me, sweet girl.
I’m going to figure this out.
For a second—just a second—something almost soft touches his expression. My stomach revolts.
That’s how he’d look at me before delivering my punishment.
“She used to follow us everywhere. More so you and Lambrit, I suppose,” he says tenderly. Too tenderly. “Remember that?”
My chest tightens.
“She couldn’t even keep up,” he goes on, and a faint huff of amusement leaves him. “Always tripping over her own feet, crying until you picked her up. Only you could pick her up.”
“Don’t fucking touch her,” I snap as his finger caresses her tear streaks.
His eyes slide back to mine.
“She trusted you,” he says.
My power stirs, sharp and violent. His wraps around me, pressing and pulling again.
“She still does,” he adds.
Laney whimpers as Jeremiah’s hold tightens, and Mellcom runs his hand over her head.
My vision tunnels.
“Let her go,” I grind out.
“I will.”
His answer comes too easily. Too fast. Hope sparks—stupid, desperate—and dies just as quickly when he tilts his head.
“When you come here.”
Silence slams into me. His smile is full of victory, and he’s right to feel like he’s won. I refuse to leave her in his hands.
Riven shifts beside me. “Yeah, that’s not happening, Golden Bit—”
“Careful,” Mellcom cuts in, not even looking at him. His focus never leaves me. “This isn’t a threat, Thay. It’s a choice. Your choice.”
My fingers flex around the handle of my sword while my nails bite into my other palm.
My stomach twists.
“Laney lives, with you and under your protection, if you stop fighting me and walk over here.”
Laney’s eyes find mine, wide and wet.
“Or you prove you’re exactly who I think you are.”
He shrugs, like she means absolutely nothing. My breath catches.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
His smirk sharpens.
“That when it comes down to it, you’ll choose yourself. You always have. What you think is right, fair, just. If it didn’t align with that, you showed out and made everyone’s life around you hell. You never cared what price it cost you.”
Rage explodes through me.
“I would never choose myself over her.”
“Then come here. Now.”
His demand drops like a blade, and his power presses against my skin again.
“Guys…” I breathe.
“We know what has to be done, little goddess.”
Kyzen’s deep voice wraps around my heart while the other three send frantic, yet reassuring strokes down my soul.
I swallow the lump in my throat.
“Get a move on, sweet T. My arm’s getting a little…”
My entire body shudders when Laney lets out a piercing wail. A thin line of red spills down her throat, and I track its flow to the collar of her shirt.
My realm tilts.
“Tired.”
Jeremiah throws his head back, laughing, and everything inside me goes cold. Sound collapses in on itself. Everything is muffled and distant. All that’s left for me to hear is the ragged pull of my breath and the violent pounding of my heart.
My gaze locks on his.
On the amusement there.
On the pride.
On the pleasure he gets from feeling her pain.
Never. Again.
My thought isn’t loud. It isn’t frantic.
It’s absolute.
My fingers brush the hilt of my dagger at my hip, but I’m too late.
Amick’s arm cuts across my shoulder, already in motion, already throwing.
Time…fractures.
Everything drags, like the realm is being pulled through thick tar.
Except Kyzen.
He steps beside me, eyes glowing and body rippling like a stone dropped in still water. His power stretches, bending time in front of us into a crawl while he accelerates…his brothers.
Riven’s Harmony snaps around our powers, preparing—harmonizing—them to their most level points. Creed surges forward, faster than sight, faster than my thoughts.
Mellcom’s still staring at me.
Jeremiah’s grin is still spread wide.
Laney is still in his grasp.
The dagger spins, slow, precise, inevitable, cutting through the frozen air.
The crack of Jeremiah’s wrist blares through my ears when Creed reaches them, but my heart skips a beat as he grips Laney around her waist.
A relieved breath tumbles out of my parted lips.
Jeremiah doesn’t even see him. Doesn’t feel her being torn from his grip, nor has the pain shooting through his arm registered in his mind yet.
Time slams back into place the second Creed returns to us.
Sound crashes in.
More specifically, the wail that leaves Jeremiah. He doesn’t even have time to glance down at his mangled wrist.
The dagger buries itself deep into his heart, and his shrill cuts off with a wet, struggling gasp.
My breath tears free from my lungs as his eyes snap to mine. Shock, confusion…pain. I watch it all cross his features in just a few milliseconds.
I hold his gaze until it turns to nothing.
A hollow, final sound echoes around the arena as his body crumbles. Dust plumes around his still form and my pulse thunders.
For half a heartbeat, everything is still.
“Jeremiah!”
The scream rips through the space, raw and broken, and my head snaps toward it. Toward him.
Mellcom stands a few paces away, staring at Jeremiah’s body like the realm has just split open beneath his feet. His chest heaves, eyes wide, unfocused like he doesn’t believe what he’s seeing.
“No…no, no, no.”
He stumbles forward, dropping hard to his knees, and his hands hover over my dagger protruding from Jeremiah’s heart, but he doesn’t touch it.
Something in my chest twists, but it doesn’t root me. Doesn’t consume me.
“Thay,” Laney cries.
Mellcom’s head jerks up, eyes snapping to mine, and something in them shatters.
“You killed him.”
Accusation. Disbelief. Rage. It all glares back at me like I’m the monster here. Like I’ve always been the person who ruins his life.
He pushes to his feet in a sudden, violent motion, and his power flickers around him, unstable and wild. In the blink of an eye, Dark Gods appear in the arena behind him, and the ungodly men at his back startle.
So do I.
He shouldn’t be able to do that.
He can, though.
He just did.
He’s betrayed the Godsdawn. His Valtrue.
I pat Laney’s hand as she clutches my shoulder and cries out for me.
“You’re safe, sweet girl.” My eyes lock onto Creed’s. “Protect her, please.”
“With my life.”
The realm narrows as Mellcom releases a bellow of fury that roars across the space between us. Everything inside me surges.
I tear the emotional barrier I’ve had between us down.
Rage, heartbreak, the leftover echoes of all the choices I didn’t get to make. All those he and Jeremiah made for me. It all comes crashing in. Unlike when everything hit me with my men, what hits me now is exactly what I need.
What I want.
Power crackles through my veins as our boots pound against the dirt at the same moment, and my hand comes up, ready to strike.
Steel clashes with steel in a violent crack that shudders down my arm so viciously, I have to grip my handle with both hands.