Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
AKIRA
Irolled across the grass, my flesh arm slamming into the birdbath.
“Bollocks!” I boomed.
“Love is powerful, love is weak.”
“Fuck off, you bony piece of shit!”
I got to my feet, ready to kill. No motherfucker laid a hand on my G.
But Bony Hag wasn’t there, Mama Rita was.
This time, her face didn’t mess me up. “Really? It’s not gonna work this—”
My fiancé hung from our cherry tree, locked inside an hourglass, his feet kicking, just a little too high off the ground.
“G?”
The ruby-red cherries twinkled like hundreds of lights around him, beautifying the morbidity.
Oh, hell no.
A crash sounded from inside the cottage. But I was already moving for G, screaming his name, my lungs suddenly on fire.
Mama Rita grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, spun me to face her, and slapped my face so hard I saw stars, the force sending me to the ground.
I rolled, jumping up, blood pouring from my nose into my mouth.
“Fuck you!” I darted around her, tears gushing, rage like the angry heart of a volcano.
She blocked me.
My bionic fist went straight through her face, bursting out the other side.
She collapsed into a pile of withering blossoms.
I charged for the hourglass at breakneck speed, my heart in my throat.
I’m gonna lose him…
I’m gonna everything.
“Your love is such an incredible tool.”
I skidded to a stop, my skin crawling at the sound of that voice.
“Misplaced too many times,” the man added. “Especially with me.”
Colin. Once the object of my affection, and a cruel wanker if ever there was one. Long dead now, but right there in his dark sunglasses and suit, his black-and-gray hair slicked back, his pale face boasting a square jaw and deadly-sharp cheekbones.
Just as I remembered him.
“Remember how you loved to call me daddy?” he said.
I turned my back on him, rushing for the hourglass. This was Bony Hag’s pathetic attempt to break me with my past. She didn’t understand how much I’d healed from my toxic relationship with Colin, how far I’d come to get away from that mess.
Yeah, love might be a weakness, but it also trumped the bad stuff.
“I fucked you good,” the fake Colin tried.
Yawn.
I slammed my metal fist into the hourglass, a cold clapback rolling into my bloodstream.
The surface barely cracked.
“No!” I seethed “No!”
I looked at G. Oh, shit. He was fading. Eyes still open, but bloodshot and bulging. His finger behind the wire wasn’t doing enough, and that sand would drown him if the noose didn’t get him first.
“Fucked you so good,” Colin threw out.
I ignored him.
“What about me?” my dad said.
I paused, slightly thrown. Fake dad or not, hearing his voice again…whoa.
“I loved you but took too long to admit it. Made you suffer.”
I’m stronger than this.
I punched the glass again, sweat pouring down my face.
“My darling son. My shame, the source of so much love and disappointment and rage.”
I’m so much fucking stronger than this.
“Your love is misplaced. Your love will feed me. But first, the former wolf.” Dad’s voice, Bony Hag’s words.
Fingers curled in my hair, bunching up a painful handful. With sickening force, I got flipped up and backward by my locks, landing on my feet a few feet away from the hourglass.
Facing Bony Hag.
Finally. No more silliness.
Her eyes raked my body, and I went to dropkick her.
She grabbed my foot, her grip hurting every bone in there. She twisted with zero effort, spraining my ankle.
Ouch!
“The Taker will wait his turn.” She flung me like a ragdoll back at the grass.
I hit the birdbath again, breaking it this time. The top of it almost smashed my head open.
Jumping to my feet, I ran at her, limping but too focused on saving G to care.
“I’ll have you out of there in no time,” I cried.
Bony Hag moved so fast toward me, all I could see was a blur. She delivered a punch into my guts that winded me, sending me to my knees.
G…
I’m gonna lose him…
“I could kill you now, Taker,” she hissed.
“But the feeding will be meek. I want suffering, and what greater suffering for you than to see your love die first? Become a slave first.” Here came her evil laughter again.
“Yes, two slaves. Two hearts that cannot join again. So close, yet so far, forbidden to ever consummate the burning, aching love again, even with mere feet between them.”
I got to my feet, hearing a clock ticking in my head.
He ain’t got long…
“This is the end for you, Taker.”
I wove around her, leaping off the edge of the garden, taking a swing at the hourglass.
She got me back on the grass in no time, holding me by the hair, bringing her face close to mine.
Rancid breath attacked my poor senses as she spoke. “The former wolf dies tonight. You cannot save him.” She grinned, showing me hints of those feral teeth. “Gone are the days when we feared being close to your tenshi blood. The Nine do not fear it or them.”
Blossoms swirled around us, the heady aroma of cherries filling the air.
“The choice,” the voice spoke.
The nice voice from before.
Bony Hag released me, blurring away toward the hourglass. “Tenshi!”
I stood up, stumbling forward. A katana fell from the sky before I made it to the edge of the garden, landing in the grass with a thwick.
Tripping over myself, my anguish at its highest peak, I landed on my arse. “What…what now?”
Sakura formed a ring around the sword. It’s steel blade gleamed with an iridescent cherry-red glow, its tsuka woven pink fringed with white.
“The Cherry Blade,” the voice spoke. “A katana more powerful than those you lost. They are lost now, useless in the fight against The Nine.”
Bony Hag hissed, backing away some more.
“The mazoku have manipulated the magic of the Cherry Moon to their own advantage, creating fresh abominations by twisting the magic into a despicable tool. Spun The Nine into being, and those who serve them.”
I didn’t care. I didn’t fucking care.
“The Nine themselves are designed to be indestructible, the power of your former katanas useless against them. Hence their breaking.”
I needed G off that tree and out of that hourglass before I heard any more of this.
“Yet we rise to meet it,” the voice added. “With the Cherry Blade.”
We. The tenshi. I’d been communicating with my creators.
Whatever.
I lumbered forward, pushing through the pain and the voice, giving no shits about anything other than G.
With a rush of wind, I returned to the spot before the katana.
“No!” I roared, trying to move again.
“You must let Gabriel go.”
For a moment, I thought Bony Hag spouted it. But to my absolute horror, I realized the tenshi voice did.
My breath caught in my throat.
Impossible. A tenshi would never say that.
Right?
Right?!
This is the price.