Chapter 20 Redemption’s Gambit #3
Can feel the weight of their attention—concern, fear, hope, all the emotions that people experience when watching someone they care about face danger alone. The questions I'm sure they're asking echo in my awareness even though I can't hear the actual words.
What is she doing?
Why isn't she moving?
Why is she just standing there?
I smirk.
The expression carries confidence that I hope they can see from their various positions—defiance in the face of destruction, certainty that contradicts everything rational analysis might suggest about my current situation.
And I do something none of them are expecting.
I stand completely still.
No defensive posture. No preparation for evasion. No gathering of power for counter-attack. Just stillness—absolute, deliberate, carrying the particular weight of someone who has made a decision and refuses to second-guess it.
I can hear the guys questioning what I'm doing.
Their voices reach me through the chaos—fragments of concern, demands for explanation, the particular panic of people watching someone they love apparently surrender to destruction.
Cassius's voice carries command that I ignore.
Nikolai's carries desperation that I acknowledge but don't obey.
The others add their own contributions to the chorus of objection.
But I don't move.
The clock has struck.
Midnight hour approaches—or whatever metaphorical equivalent applies to this moment, this instant where everything balances on the edge of outcomes that will determine whether we survive or perish.
Damien is ready.
All three heads orient toward me—the chains preventing full mobility but not eliminating his ability to direct the attack he's been building.
The fireball that has been growing throughout this entire confrontation reaches its peak, flames condensing into something that transcends simple fire, hellfire achieving its final form.
He's going to shoot it straight at me.
At me.
Because the chains connect us now.
Because I'm holding the binding that links his will to something outside himself.
Because I represent the master he apparently needs but has never had.
I close my eyes.
The darkness behind my eyelids feels peaceful compared to the chaos that surrounds me—a moment of stillness within mayhem, a breath taken before the plunge.
I can still feel the heat building, still sense the power that's about to be released, still know with absolute certainty that what happens next will determine everything.
But with my eyes closed, I can focus on something else.
My voice.
My energy.
The connection that exists between us because of bonds I didn't choose but refuse to reject.
I reach for him.
Not physically—physically he's still fifteen feet of three-headed hellhound preparing to obliterate me with hellfire.
But mentally, spiritually, through whatever channels the bond between us has created, I extend myself toward the creature that was once my bond mate and is now something that barely remembers being anything else.
Damien.
Can you hear me?
Somewhere beneath the rage and the fire and the curse that made you this way—can you hear me?
The connection forms with difficulty—like pushing through walls that don't want to yield, like forcing open doors that have been sealed for too long. His consciousness is buried beneath layers of instinct and fury, the man I know hidden beneath the beast that Elena's curse created.
But he's still there.
Faint.
Fighting.
Waiting for something to reach him.
I send my message through the bond with everything I have—not words exactly, but meaning that transcends language, emotion that communicates more effectively than any vocabulary could achieve.
Redemption is bliss.
The concept flows from me to him—the particular understanding that what we've done doesn't have to define what we become. That mistakes and cruelty and the things we did when we didn't know better can be forgiven. That the path forward isn't determined by the road behind.
And sacrifice is all you've known to do.
I acknowledge his history with the particular compassion of someone who has learned to see past surfaces to the wounds beneath.
Damien has given everything for purposes that weren't his own—his humanity, his autonomy, his very identity surrendered to serve agendas he didn't choose.
The hellhound curse is just the latest in a lifetime of sacrifices demanded by others.
For once... I want you to stick up for yourself.
The request carries weight that I hope he can feel—genuine desire for his wellbeing rather than simply his usefulness, care for who he is rather than what he can do for me.
Do what you think will get you the ending you desire.
Not my ending. Not what I need from him. What he wants. What he has been fighting for beneath all the layers of obligation and curse and the expectations that everyone keeps placing on his existence.
I trust you.
The declaration flows through our bond with the particular totality of faith that doesn't demand proof.
And care deeply that this rebirth will bring you safe haven.
Because that's what this is—rebirth. Transformation. The death of what he was forced to become and the potential emergence of what he chooses to be.
So do what you think is most deserving to those who hurt you.
The permission carries implications that extend in multiple directions.
Justice.
Revenge.
Or mercy.
His choice.
Finally, completely, his choice.
I open my eyes.
The world returns with the particular violence of senses that have been temporarily abandoned—light and heat and sound all crashing back into awareness simultaneously.
The hellhound fills my vision, all three heads still oriented toward me, the fireball still building toward the release that will either destroy me or. ..
Or something else.
Something he chooses.
I watch.
His screech echoes across the volcanic landscape—sound that carries rage and pain and something else, something that might be recognition, might be response to the message I sent through bonds that connect us regardless of what form either of us wears.
And he shoots.
The blaze launches straight toward me.
Hellfire condensed into projectile form, destruction given trajectory, power that could obliterate the gates and me and probably everything within a significant radius if I'm being honest about the forces involved.
It comes for me.
And I don't move.
Don't flinch.
Don't try to dodge.
Don't break the connection that I've established through trust and vulnerability and the particular gamble of believing that somewhere beneath the monster, my bond mate still exists.
The fire fills my vision.
Heat that should be unbearable, light that should be blinding, power that should be destroying me with every passing microsecond.
But I stand still.
Because this isn't about surviving the attack.
It's about whether he chooses to let the attack destroy me.
Whether the trust I extended finds purchase in whatever remains of Damien's consciousness beneath the hellhound's fury.
Whether redemption is possible for someone who has been cursed and used and turned into a weapon against his will.
Redemption and judgment will determine our fate.