Epilogue #3
He extends his hand and the mace flies back to it and he hurls it at the barrier witch with the full force of his arm and his fury and his light.
It hits the barrier and the barrier holds for exactly one second before the holy magic eats through it and the mace connects with the woman’s shoulder and demolishes it.
She screams and drops, the barrier collapsing, and Knox is on her before she can reform the spell.
He pins her. Knee on her chest, one hand on her remaining functional arm, the other gripping her jaw so she can’t speak the words for another spell.
His eyes are blazing, his nephilim heritage burning behind the green.
“Stay. Down,” he says.
She stays down.
Behind them, Annabeth finishes her blood mage with a binding circle that inverts the woman’s own summoning and traps her inside it. The remaining loyalists are either dead, unconscious, or very much wishing they were.
The dust settles. Annabeth’s ragged breathing is the only hint of a witch left standing. She’s got blood on her hands that isn’t hers and her bun has come partially undone and she looks shaken in a way that tells Dimitri this is the first time she’s fought against her own family.
He doesn’t care.
He doesn’t care about Annabeth or her family or the bodies on the ground or the mission or the phylacteries or anything else in this godforsaken crypt because Knox is standing three feet away from him, breathing hard, mace in hand, blood spattered across his jaw, his ponytail half-undone and his coat torn at the sleeve and his eyes still burning, and Dimitri has precisely zero self-control left.
He grabs his disheveled Templar by the lapels, hauls him in close with bloody hands, and kisses him hard enough to leave bruises.
It’s not a gentle kiss. It’s all teeth and tongue and the metallic taste of someone else’s blood on both their lips.
Dimitri’s hands are slick with it, leaving dark smears on the fabric of Knox’s coat as he fists it, as he drags Knox closer until there’s no space between them, until he can feel the rapid hammer of Knox’s heartbeat against his own cracked ribs.
Knox fucking bites him, the absolute menace.
His teeth sink into Dimitri’s lower lip hard enough to split it, hard enough to draw blood, and he doesn’t let go. He bites down and pulls and a sound comes out of Dimitri that is not human, has never been human, a low guttural snarl that resonates in the stones under their feet.
Apparently Dimitri is not the only one turned on by competence.
Knox’s free hand, the one not holding the mace, comes up and grabs the back of Dimitri’s neck, fingers threading into his dark hair and gripping, hauling him closer, his tongue sliding against Dimitri’s with an urgency that betrays the calm, measured soldier he pretends to be in public.
This is the Knox that exists only for Dimitri.
The one who bites and pulls and takes, who fights with precision and kisses with none.
Dimitri groans into his mouth and walks him backward until Knox’s shoulders hit the tunnel wall, and the impact makes Knox grunt but he doesn’t stop.
He hooks a hand into the waistband of Dimitri’s pants and yanks their hips flush and Dimitri’s train of thought derails spectacularly.
He gets a hand under Knox’s torn coat, fingers splayed against the small of his back where his shirt has come untucked, and the skin there is fever-hot and slick with sweat and Knox’s holy magic is healing Dimitri’s cracked ribs through the bond even as Knox is simultaneously trying to take him apart with his mouth and his hands and his hips.
It’s the most unhinged act of multitasking Dimitri has ever been party to, and he has been party to some things.
Annabeth clears her throat.
The sound cuts through the haze and it takes Dimitri a full three seconds to even register what it is, and another two to care.
Knox pulls away first, because Knox is a monster who genuinely enjoys watching Dimitri suffer.
He detaches himself with a controlled grace that is deeply offensive given that his lips are swollen and bitten red and his eyes are still half-lidded and his coat is hanging off one shoulder and he looks thoroughly debauched.
Dimitri knows he looks worse. He doesn’t try to compose himself. He is not, has never been, and will never be composed.
Knox straightens his coat. Smooths his hair. Picks up his mace from where he apparently dropped it at some point, which Dimitri is going to think about later when he’s alone and can properly appreciate the implication.
“Can we get back to the mission?” Annabeth asks, gesturing to the tunnel. Her face is a very specific shade of red that suggests she saw more than she wanted to and has already begun the process of repressing it.
“Yes, of course, lead the way,” Knox tells her, his voice miraculously steady, the bastard.
But he leans into Dimitri as he passes, just enough to nip at his jaw, a quick sharp press of teeth against his skin, there and gone, and Dimitri resists the urge to push him into the wall and scar Annabeth for life.
Instead he falls into step behind them, touching a cursed amulet on a shelf as he passes it just to watch Annabeth twitch, and follows his soulbound Templar deeper into the dark.
They have phylacteries to destroy.
All of them.