Lucille
Chapter
Forty-Two
Ronen
No. No. Just fucking no.
We luscelered to the barn, and Alexei whistled for his Hellcats.
Their white-speckled forms blinked into existence at the back of the barn near the wide-open door.
Alexei snapped his fingers—a gesture he’d picked up from me—and the cats eagerly ran to him.
He harnessed them while my jaw ticked and my hands flexed.
I paced across the mud, restraining my wings from bursting from my back.
“Faster!” I snapped.
But nothing would be fast enough. Her heart slowed. Her emotions were hazy, lacking their usual clarity and spark. Darkness oozed from me, a cloud of menace and desperation with no outlet.
I connected to Rune.
She stood next to the hellion and Hadrian, surrounded by Ridigar’s smoke.
Hissing, rumbling, thunks, and cries filled her ears while a potent copper tang smothered her sense of smell.
Both were to be expected in a fight. But her paws were soaked through in something warm, and her worry knew no bounds.
Red horns flashed through the swirling white particles.
“MJ, shoot left,” Oliver ordered right before Lucille’s, “Right—”
She stopped, her confusion faint through our connection, but concerning.
Rune!
One word, and it carried the only question I wanted answered.
I felt her despair. Her hopeless desperation. And my restraints broke. My anger became something physical. I would not now, nor ever, accept the implication behind my Soulhound’s emotions.
“From the Weaver, we were created. Our soul ripped in two.”
Alexei jerked his head up from the last buckle. “Ronen! What the fuck are you doing?”
“From the darkness of evil to Heaven’s light, we will fight. We will protect. We will be as one,” I bellowed into the air, feeling my shadows shiver with powerful energy.
He climbed into the sleigh, gripping the reins. “Ronen! I’m done. Get in. We’ll be in the forest in seconds.”
“She might not have seconds.”
“It will be one-sided! You’re not supposed to complete the bond without her!”
And I’d never get the chance if she died.
“From the depths of my soul, I accept her pain—her scars, her life.”
Odd sensations puckered across my back and limbs as I accepted every line tearing open her body. Energy sent shockwaves through my system, building toward a searing precipice.
“You can’t take it back!” Alexei tried one last time.
“With the breath in my lungs, I give to her freely and irrevocably. Without end,” I vowed.
Her pain pierced my side, and I clenched my teeth against a hiss, prepared for it. Her essence tugged at mine, pulling at my energy. It flowed out of me and into her, her emotions turning bold and clear once more.
“Fuck,” Alexei breathed.
It wasn’t over yet. I rushed into the sleigh, wincing as I sat down and warmth bled down my side.
I’m coming, Hellion.
Lucille
Time stilled.
Rune whimpered, her lit-up golden eyes swirling in my distorted vision. Ronen’s anger was palpable on my tongue. It pounded like a heartbeat in my mind.
Survive. Survive. Survive.
It screamed with a threat. I’m coming, Hellion.
I latched onto the ferocious, all-encompassing emotion, letting it fill me, hoping it’d stop my mind from slipping away.
Clove and balsam drugged the air, driving into my lungs and every part of me. It felt like Ronen held me close, like his heart beat for mine. The slashes in my side throbbed less, the bleeding slowed, and my vision righted just as the razor wire wrapped around Rune’s leg pulled.
And not just her. Oliver.
Rune howled as her claws scraped across the ground. Oliver cried out, the wire digging into his boot and dragging him back toward the infected Damned. I threw Glory at both wires. It struck. The metal didn’t melt. I tried Hellfire. Nothing.
The male. I needed to take him out.
Glaze-eyed infected surrounded him. I threw fireball after fireball, recycling his minions. But with each one that fell, another stepped into the gap. They were protecting their asset.
Rune and Oliver’s agonized cries rammed into my ears hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs.
The wire tugged, tore, shredded their feet.
My throws became wild. Desperate. Blue fireballs and flaming arrows joined them.
My feet twitched to run after them, but Aspen was at my back, and the bond wouldn’t let me leave him.
Hadrian charged after Rune. Fireballs from the enemy flew through the air, bouncing harmlessly off his bones. Vines tore through the earth, wrapping around his feet. He ripped them apart with his claws and kept going until he bit down on the wire and yanked.
The male stumbled into the infected in front of him, caught off guard. Hadrian did it again. Oliver and Rune’s cries quieted. Then the infected Damned wrapped their molten, black-bleeding hands around the razor wire and heaved.
Wails. Shrieking howls.
The sounds gutted me.
I spotted Xavier near the Spinewalker, cleaving his axe through infected Damned necks and skulls. He whirled, dodged, and cut a path toward us.
“Xavier! Do it now!” I shouted through the melee and twisted just in time to meet Aspen’s gaze.
Aspen nodded once, short and sharp. This wasn’t what he wanted, but we’d agreed on it. Then he faded among all the other Aspens. He dropped to the ground as if he’d been hit, joining the other illusioned Aspens and infected Damned lying unconscious, and opened his emotions to me.
The bond drew back its claws just a little, giving me slightly more control as Aspen’s determination and frustration poured into me.
“Remember what I told you. Whistle!” I called, and relief bloomed as the infected Damned began fighting each other. They all wore Aspen’s face and uniform. They were all targets.
Razor wire released Rune and Oliver as he was forced to attack the minions that had been protecting him.
I rushed over to Aspen-Oliver. Another joined me, whistling, though she didn’t need to. I knew who she was from the giant sword in her hand.
Oliver panted as Ichi and I lifted him off the ground, pain in my side twinging and seeping. Oliver’s soft whimpers flooded my mind with rage and, with it, my beautifully deadly music.
We pulled him away from the main fight and near the real Aspen, though not directly beside him.
“Stay here,” I barked.
Then Ichi and I ran back into the thick of it to somehow haul Rune out.
Vines twisted around necks. Water enveloped heads. Rocks smashed into bodies. The ground opened and closed. Weapons, spikes, acid, fire, and ice flew through the air toward my whistling squad and demons alike.
Rune struck with wisps of shadow, hitting charging infected wearing Aspen’s face and forcing them into a deep sleep.
Hadrian guarded her exactly how I imagined he’d guard Aspen if we’d allowed it. He jumped atop the infected, shredding them with his claws. He snarled, snapped, and attacked anything that dared come near.
Ichi and I fought back-to-back, soon joined by MJ with her bow. I used my flames and stabbed with ice. Ichi blasted water to shove infected back, then ran through it and cleaved necks with her Soul Sword. MJ released arrow after arrow. Zera blasted infected into Dusty and Matt’s holes.
The Dreads on the outskirts thinned the gap between us, and the infected minions continued fighting each other. Easy pickings. We were winning.
Almost to Rune and Hadrian, metal flashed in my peripheral. I luscelered in front of Ichi. Razor wire wrapped around my waist.
I screamed.
The sky darkened, and thunder rumbled.
He was here.
Seething through my teeth, I wrapped my flaming purple hands around the wire, and ice shot down the metal.
Before he could release me, it struck his hands and crawled up his arms. It would’ve reached his throat, but two gold-and-black blades crossed through his neck, shredding tendons and spurting blood.
Then he became ash, sifting into Ronen’s blades and revealing an angel of death.
Alexei and Ronen finished off the rest that didn’t flee into the Spinewalker.
Then Ronen was there. In front of me, grabbing my face. His eyes were pitch-black. His shadows writhed around my body, slipping into my wounds, brushing my head, torso, and limbs, checking me over a bit too aggressively.
“Hellion?”
His voice slipped into my body and released the stopper on my adrenaline. My side throbbed. My feet tingled. I slumped against him. His arms wrapped around my waist and hooked under my knees as he scooped me up.
“I found them,” I whispered as my eyes fluttered shut. “I found them.”