THANK VALOS FOR THE RAIN #2
Instead of lunging for her a second time, he pulled the blood out of his own crumpled hand. It danced into the shape of a chain mace for him, and he cracked the weapon like a whip before throwing it out at her. The first swing’s barbed end barely missed her.
Esme turned and ran. She’d barely survive a lash from that thing.
It snapped against the air above her and she felt death lick up her spine.
Fear tripped her, and all it took was that single second of slowness for the mace to thrash down into her flesh.
The claws sank into her shoulders and tore down her back, right to the dimples in her spine.
Her vision whited out. For a moment, she wasn’t in her body; her soul must have slipped out from the gashes nearly tearing her in three.
Esme splattered down in the sand, stunned to a deathlike stillness.
Mak’kon limped over to stand above her with his feet on either side of her ruined back. She felt his presence like a set of jaws threatening to snap closed on her head, and closed her eyes and swallowed. She couldn’t lose. She balled up her pain and shoved it into a box at the back of her mind.
“So you’re still thinking about my dick, huh?” Mak’kon choked, the sound halfway between a groan and a laugh. “You can’t stand the idea that I chose someone else over you.”
“You just like pain, and Ryukyhn and I weren’t evil enough,” Esme said, gasping. “I bet Isobel’s real good at hurting you.” She clawed out from between his feet. She didn’t have blood to push through her legs.
A voice like a knife speared through her pounding head, and she ripped her face up to find Isobel cackling about how pathetic she looked, how she’d already wagered sixty thousand on Mak’kon.
Rage replaced all Esme’s lost blood. Rage had her up to her feet.
“I bet her spell feels good on your throat,” she spat. “I bet you’ll finish in your pants when she abandons you.”
“You don’t want to talk about enjoying it, Esmerelda,” Mak’kon said, prowling around her shattered body. The crowd cheered him on, urging him to finish it, but Mak’kon took his time, drinking her in. He probably just wanted to bask in her terrible state.
“Are you worrying about me, now? Save it for your human.” She spat out a glob of blood.
Behind her, a terrible heat climbed her spine.
She felt the steady pouring of her blood down her legs thin and then stop.
She rolled onto her side, and then caught the eye of a man deep into the crowd, damn near invisible if not for the storm of smoke passing over his crimson eyes.
Simon. He’d cauterized her wounds.
“I’m just trying to figure out what Omniel saw in you.” The cruelty of Mak’kon’s words jolted her back to him. He rushed her and yanked her by the throat up to his height. “I guess you’re beautiful, but you talk too much.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Esme bit out. She was too weak to beat at his arm or swing her legs.
“Foul mouth. I can see why he tried to sew it shut.” A different kind of pain throbbed through her.
She sharpened Mak’kon’s shadow to a sickle and stabbed it through his forearm. Mak’kon cursed and dropped her. She couldn’t afford to let herself hit the sand, so she bolted as quickly as her legs would push her to the south wall.
The stands booed at her cowardice, and that laugh—that grating, infuriating, cackle from Isobel’s bee-stung, red-painted lips—pushed her on.
That, and Mina in that first row. Maybe Esme should try and keep this fight away from her and Gia.
But she placed her wife and her little girl in the center of her sight so she would not forget what she fought for.
It would not slip out with her blood. Mak’kon would not slash it out of her.
Isobel would not pluck it from her chest.
Mak’kon was gaining, his footsteps loud as hail behind her. It was noon, perfectly noon, the sun so directly overhead that the shadows were no more than scraps of black thread. Isobel must have planned for this.
Mina turned as Balthazar rushed to her. He grabbed her by the shoulders and whispered something. The pair shared a look and a flash shot just past Esme’s head.
“Fuck!” Mak’kon screamed behind her. Esme whipped around to find him kneeling in the sand, hands covering his burning eyes.
The dagger Esme had given Bal. Mina had it angled just right to send a beam of red light from the massive ruby in the hilt directly into the Wraith’s eyes.
“Esme!” Bal screamed, and she turned to find the golden dagger spiraling toward her. Bal’s chest oozed blood down his muscles. His forehead dripped sweat.
He’d finally moved his bad arm.
Esme caught the dagger, turned back to Mak’kon, and lunged, only for him to backhand her so hard her teeth stung. She stumbled sideways before he swept her up by the throat for a second time.
“You won’t beat me. You never fucking could.
” Mak’kon hissed. “Then again, you were barely around. Always trailing after Omniel like a bitch in heat, begging him to love you. Well, he didn’t, and this one won’t either.
He’ll be just as fucking bad. You’ll end up with two names branded down your fucking back! ”
With every terrible word, Mak’kon’s grip curled tighter on her neck until Esme’s head filled with air. She drove the golden blade into his shoulder.
Mak’kon groaned and dropped her. Rolling on her back, she felt like a bag of shattered glass. She blinked a few times, confused to find Mak’kon’s wound coughing smoke instead of blood. Then her mouth burned.
No, not her mouth. Her fangs.
A wave of heat like a torrent off a star kicked her hair into a whirlwind.
Esme’s eyes focused at once, and without a second thought she lunged at Mak’kon, throwing all her weight into his chest. He staggered but didn’t fall.
She grabbed his face, whipping off her glamour, and her nails left scorched lines down his cheeks. He lifted his head to scream; it was all the opening she needed.
She sank her roaring hot fangs into his neck, down to the gums, so deep her jaw ached. Metal and honey and smoke coated her tongue. Esme tore his throat out along with his cries, leaving the remains of his neck nothing but a smoldering mess of burned bone and torn veins.
His very scream slipped down her throat when she swallowed.
She’d taken his fucking tongue.
Mak’kon tipped back and slapped into the sand.
He wasn’t dead yet, his body still twitching in shock.
Esme crouched on his chest and opened her jaw to dump his cooked throat on his face.
His eyes trembled as Esme stood, then wriggled her tongue between two of her back teeth, nudging a bit of his spine out from between them and spitting that at him too.
“Say that again, and I’ll eat your fucking heart,” she said.
Mak’kon’s shaking worsened to convulsing, fear and pain overtaking any sense he had left.
Esme found Simon across the arena. She had to look a damn nightmare, with body parts sliding off her blood-slicked chin, but he grinned like a man seeing his wife for the very first time.
He’d been the one to heat her nails and fangs hot enough to cauterize Mak’kon’s wounds so he couldn’t command his blood as a weapon against her.
She turned to find Bal and Mina panting behind her, both cheering. Gia waved her blood-flecked flag.
Esme had won. Mina, and Bal, and Simon, and Esme together, had won.
Well, nearly. Mak’kon was still moving.
She brandished her grisly claws and reared back to dash his head off—
And something slapped onto her hand.
It was boiling and red and slick. And more of it was falling from the sky.
Esme straightened and brought the warm thing to her face.
It was a kidney. A human kidney.
Caws and cries shot an arrow through Esme’s ears so deep she thought her hearing had failed.
A sky of blackbirds blotted out all light, all warmth.
The clot of birds shrieked above as they dropped guts and gore upon the arena.
Screams ripped up from the commoners as they tried to take cover from the hail of entrails.
Esme threw herself into the stands. She arched over Mina, who’d already pulled Gia into her chest. Still, the girl had already seen what she’d seen. She wailed in their arms, blubbering at the slick of blood covering her body from head to toe.
Blood washed Esme a second time, but this was not fresh. It was dead and sour as milk gone bad. She gagged as the smell and taste invaded her senses.
Soon, the putrid downpour thickened, heavier parts now dropping from the sky with a deluge of thwacks. Another round of screams. Esme had to get Mina and Gia out.
She raised her head to find Bal beside them still. He did not duck. He did not cower. He stared, empty-eyed, at a decapitated head sprouting from the sand like a weed. The skin was sallow, but Esme recognized it instantly.
Ralph. Wend’s brother, the boy from Prelyn. The one who’d begged Bal not to leave weeks ago. Bal had promised to come back for him, said that there was nothing that could happen to him Bal wouldn’t save him from.
Until this. Bal would not be able to save Ralph from this.
First, Bal vomited. Then came the wailing, wild screaming as Bal clawed into the arena to cradle the last bit of Ralph he had left. Somehow, Esme heard it above the pandemonium.
All around, more body parts whacked panicking onlookers with enough force to kill. If Esme didn’t get Mina and Gia out now, it would be just seconds until they’d be struck, too.
But Bal…
Maranna bolted into the arena after him and Esme took it as justification enough to grab her wife and Gia and flee.
As she sprinted, Bal’s cries stabbed at her back. Every step away from him felt like a betrayal, but Gia was still screaming.
She had to get them out.
The last thing she heard before Bal’s screams bled off into the chaos was him shrieking about his little boy.