Chapter 58
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Ellery
I unleashed my lightning rope when he was a few feet away. He landed on his ass and bounced across the floor toward us. His sword toppled from his hand and skittered on the ground, stopping a few feet away from us.
Burns marred his clothes and blackened the skin around his middle. He tried to scramble back on his hands and knees, but the soldiers blocked his retreat. When one of them stepped on his hand, he yelped and jerked it forward.
I took out the enemy behind him, and when their sword fell next to Gaius, he grasped it and staggered to his feet. With his face red and a bellow tearing from his throat, he ran at Ryker and me. Spittle flew from his mouth as madness consumed him.
Ryker flung a bolt of lightning into his chest, throwing him back. The impact of his body knocked some of the soldiers back, but the bolt wasn’t enough to kill him. When Gaius hit the ground, his fingers twitched as smoke streamed from the scorch mark on his chest.
He was the mouse, and we were the cats playing with our toy. It wasn’t right, but we’d been the mice for far too long.
We worked to keep the other combatants at bay, but one of them broke through, and a blade arced toward Ryker’s head. Before it could slice through him, he turned to the side to avoid its deadly blow; it crashed into the wall behind us as Gaius staggered to his feet.
He stumbled toward his sword and snatched it from the ground. Instead of coming to help his fellow guards, he swayed back and forth, bouncing off the others as he tried to get back toward the duke.
Ryker clasped the soldier’s blade and fired lightning into it. The man holding it screamed. Flames danced across the man’s fingertips; when they went out, bones poked through his badly burnt hands.
He howled in horror as he twisted his burnt limbs toward him. Then he turned and ran, but the others wouldn’t let him through. When he bounced off me, I hit him with a blast of wind that sent him crashing into the others.
Gaius made it twenty feet before I twisted my hand to release more lightning. It sliced across the distance before carving across his ass, creating a smiley face.
Gaius yelped, and his hands flew back to the smoke spiraling from his burning pants. Falling to his knees, he slapped out the flames.
Nausea twisted in my stomach. I wanted to make this man suffer and feel as helpless as I had when he forced himself on me and shoved his tongue down my throat.
Recalling the slimy feel of his tongue in my mouth caused me to shudder. I’d dreamed of this monster’s death, but I hadn’t planned to become him.
Once the fire was out, Gaius twisted toward me. Hatred burned in his eyes; if he could, he would have struck me dead on the spot… but he couldn’t.
“Ellery?” I heard the question and uncertainty in Ryker’s voice as he continued to hold the soldiers at bay.
I was too busy torturing Gaius to help him, and it could get him killed. Bile surged up my throat.
I won’t become a monster. I am not a monster.
I’d known that to defeat these monsters we might have to become one, and I’d gladly do whatever it took to win this war, but this wasn’t whatever it took. This was cruel and unnecessary.
Another sword swung at us, and this time, I threw up my hand to deflect its deadly arc and deflected it with a bolt that sent it flying. Lightning flew from my fingertips as Gaius rose, and a guard crashed into Ryker. More of them followed.
“No!” I screamed as they overwhelmed him.
Grasping the arm of one soldier, I sent a bolt straight through his temple. It erupted out of the other side of him and streaked into the eye of another soldier.
Ryker grasped the arm of another. When he yanked it back, bone burst through his flesh. The man screamed, but I silenced him as Gaius turned and tried to run again.
Ryker struck down more of the combatants as I sent out another lasso of lightning. It encircled Gaius once more and dragged him closer. I kept the lasso around him as I spun him around.
His bulging eyes met mine as his hands fell to the lightning. He jerked his hands up as his face contorted, but this time, I had no intention of playing.
When Gaius’s eyes met mine again, I held his gaze as I tightened the rope of lightning. His clothes erupted into flames, and his face contorted as the lightning sliced through him, cleaving him in two.
When the pieces of Gaius hit the ground, I’d assumed I’d feel relief over his death or a sense of accomplishment. All I felt was the compulsion to finish this.
More fighters fell beneath the bolts I unleashed on them, but as they went down, others took their place. They swarmed around us, like bugs seeking to pick the skin from our bones.
Struggling to maintain my composure, I dodged another blade swinging toward me while streaks of electricity shot from my fingers. I had no idea where the duke had gone, but his men remained.
Twisting my hands, I gathered air within them, turning it into a funnel that I unleashed on the closest soldiers. The bolts from the tornado struck down anyone close to it.
A sword whistled through the air as Ryker dodged a lethal blow before swinging upward. His punch cracked the man’s jaw and sent his teeth flying. The tornado tore up the floor, ripping up pieces and flinging them around.
Some of the debris pummeled the guards, and they tried to dodge it. When chunks of floor ripped up and whipped toward us, I twisted the tornado away, propelling it farther down the hall and scattering more of the soldiers.
The roar of the tornado drowned out the guards’ screams as they fell. Behind me, Ryker created another funnel of lightning while some of our enemies forged their own tornadoes. The cyclones battled each other as they tore apart the hall.
Ryker grunted as blood splattered my face. My heart leapt into my throat as a scream lodged there. It was his blood; I knew it as surely as I knew my name.