Chapter 25
Chapter
Twenty-Five
Ravencrux
Caged King
My mate was magnificent in the arena.
Vicious. Deadly. Wrath incarnate
She led the members of our House like a warrior queen, cutting through Kingsley’s ranks as if they were parchment. Her power was awakening. I could see it in every movement, every kill, every command.
Given more time, she would fully awaken and finally shatter the curse that had plagued us for an eon. And I’d buy her time.
Watching my glorious queen made my blood burn with savage pride. My desire rose hotter, until I had to adjust the front of my armor to relieve the aching pressure.
Then my treacherous brothers unleashed the hunters. Centaurs and monster sentinels flooded through the north gate, every one focused on a single target.
Persephone.
They had seen that no one from the despicable Kingsley House could touch her, so they changed the rules in the middle of the game. They brought in the most lethal killers, determined to end my mate once and for all.
As the killing rampage started, soon there would be no one left standing with her. No students could hold back monsters of that caliber. Bloom could not fight the most powerful centaurs and a horde of creatures alone.
“This is a fucking setup!” I roared. “You fuckers cheated again!”
Fear and rage boiled in my blood. I couldn’t watch this. Couldn’t stand here, useless, while they tried to murder my queen.
I struck.
My shadows lashed out toward the arena, black tendrils of death aimed at the hunters tearing through students in my house to reach Bloom.
The shadows hit an invisible barrier.
The realization hit with sickening clarity. The entire arena was warded against the spectator stands. Against interference from me. They’d predicted I would try to intervene. That was why they’d banned me from the construction, why they’d used the same spells and runes that barred me from Olympus.
The only way in was through the gates. The same north gate the hunters had used.
I needed to get there. Now.
I turned to leap from the balcony.
Both of my brothers lunged for me.
Zeus seized my left arm, his grip like forged iron. Lightning crackled across his skin, searing where he touched. Poseidon locked onto my right shoulder, his ice and water magic a flood of cold, leaching the warmth from my limbs, stiffening the joints.
Then the others descended.
Ares charged from the right balcony, his war cry fracturing the air. He smashed into me like a siege weapon, all brute force. His fist hammered into my ribs. Something cracked.
“Contain him!” Zeus commanded, his voice thunder. “Do not let him interfere!”
I bellowed, thrashing against the weight of them and their combined powers. Shadows erupted from me in a violent wave, lashing at any god within reach. Death magic roiled out, but it was thin. Drained.
I’d been away from my realm for too long. Cut off from the Underworld, the source that fed my power. For millennia, I had lingered here, in the mortal realm, refusing to leave.
Even for a moment.
Because if I left, I’d miss her rebirth. I’d not be there when she needed me. And I’d hate myself with all my black soul for losing a single, precious moment with her.
So I had stayed. And my power had bled away. Until I was a ghost of what I had been.
The King of the Underworld, reduced to this. Weak enough for my brothers to restrain me.
I fought anyway, throwing every shred of strength I had left at those motherfuckers.
My fist cracked against Zeus’s jaw. His head snapped back, blood spraying from his split lip. I twisted, driving my elbow into Ares’s temple. He staggered but held his ground.
Poseidon’s water magic coiled around my throat, a vise of cold. I seized his wrist and poured pure death through the contact. His skin blackened, fissuring like dry earth. He hissed but didn’t release me.
Hermes had my arms locked. I threw my head back, felt his nose crunch against my skull. He cursed, grip slipping.
“You will watch,” Zeus snarled into my ear, his breath scalding. “You will watch her die, and you will know it was your weakness that allowed it.”
I tried to shatter the balcony itself, gathering every last ember of death magic and channeling it down into the marble beneath our feet.
Nothing happened.
The balcony was meticulously warded, too, shielded against any magical assault from within. They had planned for everything.
All I could do was trade pain for pain.
I broke Ares’s nose with a savage headbutt. He repaid me by driving his knee into my kidney. Agony exploded up my side.
At the attack of my shadows, Zeus’s lightning struck me point-blank. Electricity locked my muscles, searing my nerves. I roared through it and seized his throat, squeezing until his eyes bulged.
Poseidon conjured a spike of ice and impaled my shoulder. The cold was a fire all its own. I ripped it free and buried it in his thigh.
Hephaestus emerged, a chain from his forge already whipping through the air. It wrapped my wrists, searing my skin with unbearable heat. I strained against it, muscles corded, but the links held.
Dionysus hurled wine that turned to acid on contact. It ate into my thigh. I tossed my death magic back at him, and he screamed and leapt back.
Five Olympians piled on me, grinding me down. A unified front against my solitary rage.
I kept fighting furiously, determined to break free to reach my mate. Because in the arena below, the pack of jackals hunted her.
“Will you watch your daughter be slaughtered just to spite me?” I screamed at Demeter, my gaze locking with hers across the chaos.
She stood apart, her face ashen, torn between loyalty to Zeus and the frayed remnant of her love for her child.
“IS IT WORTH IT?” I roared, blood spraying from my lips. “Is your hatred for me worth her life?”
Every lifetime, I had been too late. Every time, they had orchestrated it so I arrived only in time for her final moment. They let me watch the light go out of her eyes, the last breath leave her body in agony.
I had held her as she drowned, water streaming from her blue lips.
Cradled her charred body, flesh blackened and split.
Dug her out from the earth where they’d buried her alive, dirt packed in her mouth.
Caught her as poison tore through her.
Cut her down from the noose, her neck broken.
Pressed my hands against the fatal wound, trying uselessly to keep her life from spilling into the dirt.
And now, they were doing it in front of me. While they pinned me. While they forced me to watch, helpless.
The darkness within me deepened, growing colder than the void between stars. My hate burned hotter than the sun, blinding me until all I saw was red.
Not again.
Not again.
NOT AGAIN!
I gathered every last scrap of power I had left, the dregs of death magic, the clinging shadows, the pure, undiluted rage. Let it coil inside me until my bones threatened to splinter from the pressure.
Then I unleashed it.