Chapter 6 #2
Like before, I knew I wouldn’t die without oxygen, but as the time passed and my need for air became more desperate, the more I freaked out.
Silas held me to him again, but this time my lungs were full of air, and they felt like they were going to explode.
Panic hit me out of nowhere like a freaking boulder, and I burst into action, colliding hard with Silas and forcing all of the air out in a burst of wild bubbles.
As soon as it happened, the pain and the desperation to inhale got even worse.
Stars danced in front of my eyes. That hadn’t happened last time, but I’d kept a little air trapped in my lungs before, this time there was nothing, and the world was growing hazy around me.
Silas shook me, his silver gaze frantically searching mine.
I tried to pound my fists on his shoulders, but instead I barely touched him, like some feeble human.
His hand suddenly gripped the back of my neck, and holding me in place, he closed the distance between us and brought his mouth down on mine. Locking our lips together in an oxygen-giving kiss, he filled my lungs with air, and as they expanded, the dizziness faded.
A moment later, we were sharing breath, sealed together, his mouth on mine, his arms around me, and those strong hands holding me in a firm, sure way that said not to panic, that he had me, that we would survive this, and gods, despite everything, I believed him.
It was a dangerous thing, allowing myself to believe it, especially when it came to this male, but right then I didn’t have any other choice.
It meant nothing, I reminded myself. He didn’t care about me, he never had.
We’d agreed to a truce, that’s all this was.
Nothing had changed, and as soon as this was over, I could go back to making his life hell.
Finally, he loosened his hold, his lips breaking from mine, and he looked up. I internally shook myself out of the haze I’d been in and did the same. Nothing moved above us. The angels were gone, at least for now.
We surfaced.
“Okay?” Silas asked roughly, his gaze searching mine in that way of his, like he was trying to work out what I was thinking, because he’d never once had a damned clue.
“Yeah, thanks for the air,” I said and looked away, when his gaze intensified, and started swimming again, as fast as my body would allow, Silas right behind me.
I wasn’t sure how long it took, although it felt like a lifetime, before I was finally stumbling out of the water.
Panting, I braced my hands on my knees to catch my breath and turned back as Silas strode out after me, like some freaking Bond hero.
Not exhausted, not panting or almost falling on his ass.
He’d lost his shirt along the way, though, and his muscles rippled as he moved, the thick veins along his biceps and forearms stood out starkly against his pale golden skin as he shoved his hand through his black-and-gold-streaked hair, pushing it back off his forehead.
Somehow, my exhausted body still managed to feel aroused just from watching him walk out of the fucking ocean.
I hated myself for still wanting him. There was nothing but that familiar wariness in his eyes when he looked up at me, and honestly, I wanted to punch him in the nuts for it.
I was over here panting, and not just from exhaustion, and he was as cold as ever.
I wanted to jab him right in the gonads, watch him fall on the ground, curled in the fetal position, while he clutched his junk.
“You see the disk?” he asked, his gaze scanning the shore behind me.
No. Embarrassingly, I’d been too busy watching him emerge from the sea like Neptune, god of the sea.
Spinning away, I searched the rocky beach. “Over there.”
It was on a marble stand beside the entrance to the path back to the manor. I rushed over. Three disks still waited on top. The cat shifters, the wolves, and us.
I grabbed ours as Silas jogged up beside me. “Let’s get it on the leaderboard.”
Nathaniel dropped out of the sky, landing right in front of us, Eloa, the evil bitch, right behind him.
“Back up, assholes,” I snarled.
Nathaniel’s eyes narrowed on me. “You haven’t quite made it to the finish line yet, demon, so maybe you should watch that bitch mouth or it might get you killed.”
“You had an advantage in this event. Your wings are the only reason you got here before us, and you know it,” Silas said. “Now step aside.”
Nathaniel flung his hand out and a sword appeared, the same as the one Silas used.
Silas’s jaw tightened, fury filling his eyes a moment before he did the same.
Nathaniel drew back, his sword coming down in a brutal arc.
Silas blocked him with ease and the clash of steel on steel rang out through the night.
In my current state, getting in the middle of that would only get me killed. The best thing I could do was get the disk to the leaderboard. It was the only way to stop them.
I shoved the disk in my pocket and slid my knife free as Eloa stepped in front of me.
“You either move out of my way,” I said to her, “or I’ll take your ass down and pluck you like a fucking chicken.”
Eloa screeched in outrage. “I’d like to see you try, demon spawn.”
Silas and Nathaniel were clashing like two gladiators fighting to the death, the sound of their long blades had to be heard up at the manor.
“Plucking it is, then,” I said.
The angel braced her legs apart and did some elaborate arm movements before flinging out her arm and calling her sword forth with a flourish.
I didn’t have the time or the energy for this bullshit.
Faking to the right, I spun back to the left and fired a blast of power at her, knocking the sword from her hand.
She tried to call the sword back to her, her fingers outstretched, but before she could claim it again, I kicked her as hard as I could between the legs, not easy with bare feet, but it seemed to do the trick.
No, we didn’t have testicles, but it still stunned the hell out of you when it happened.
She dropped with a surprised cry, and I darted around her and sprinted along the path and through the orchard, headed for the manor.
I didn’t look back and let my recovering muscles pump full of blood and sweet, sweet oxygen, running as fast as I could. Her shrieks of outrage echoed behind me, along with the sound of Silas and Nathaniel still trying to decapitate each other.
The door to the manor finally came into view, and I burst through, sprinted along the hall and into the main room and across to the other side. I shoved the disk into place on the leaderboard just as Eloa ran in after me, face red and furious.
She spun her sword and took a step toward me.
The weapon vanished.
She looked down at her now empty hand and back up.
“No use of weapons allowed in the manor,” Felditch said, striding into the room. “I will return your sword when you have a need for it outside of these walls.”
Ha! I winked at her.
She took a step toward me.
“Both of you must retire to your rooms. We’re still awaiting two teams.”
One team. The wolves weren’t coming, the angels had made sure of that, and possibly the cats as well.
“Of course,” I said to Felditch and waited for Eloa to walk out through the door opposite me, only then leaving the main room.
If she tried to jump me in the hall and I accidentally killed her, we’d be disqualified, and as much as I wanted to slit the bitch’s throat and keep on hacking until she lost her head, I had to maintain control.
Hell needed this win. No, I didn’t know the details, but Lucifer had made it clear we needed this badly.
I rushed along the hall toward our room and Silas appeared, striding from the opposite direction as I rounded the curved wall. He was bleeding, a lot.
“Where’s Nathaniel?”
“Limping back,” he said.
Silas was walking quickly.
“Are you okay?”
He shook his head and staggered to the side. “His sword, the tip was dipped in poison.”
Fuck.