CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX #2
"Asher!"
My fingers dug into Ezra's arm so hard I felt the muscle flex like cold steel beneath my grip.
His jaw was locked, his entire body coiled tight—every instinct in him clearly screaming to leap into the arena and stand at his brother's back. But when he looked down at me, the ferocity in his sunset-orange eyes softened, just for a heartbeat.
"He's got this," he murmured.
But the white-knuckled tension in his frame betrayed the lie.
I turned back, heart hammering against my ribs.
Jeremy stood tall at center field, his green eyes blazing with something merciless.
It was a look I'd seen once before—the same ruthless, high-born gleam that belonged to his father, the General. Cold. Calculating. Born to command.
But Asher wasn't down.
He moved—gods, he moved so fast the shadows blurred into a smear of darkness.
They tore off him in a torrent, streaking across the dirt like black lightning.
They hit Jeremy before he could fully raise a shield, the force of the impact staggering the earth wielder.
Roots clawed upward in a desperate defense, but they were too late,
already tangled and choking beneath Asher's shadows.
Jeremy roared, ripping free with a concussive blast of magic that cracked the air like thunder.
The ground split again, jagged stone spears erupting from the soil toward Asher's feet.
Asher dodged, spun, and let shadows coil around his arms until they lengthened into jagged blades.
Jeremy punched the ground, sending a row of spikes toward Asher's ribs, but Asher sliced through them as if they were made of paper.
Then he launched forward.
The impact rattled the wards around the arena, magic flaring in warning along the perimeter stones.
The crowd was on its feet, a deafening wall of sound, but all I could hear was the frantic rhythm of my own ragged breath.
Every strike was meant to maim.
Every counter was meant to break.
This wasn't a dare anymore; it was a vendetta.
Roots and shadow tore across the pitch, each impact sending tremors through the stands.
"Asher!" I shouted as he slammed Jeremy back again.
Shadows snapped like whips around Jeremy's throat, constricting for a lethal second before the earth prince blasted free with an explosive surge of earth.
Jeremy's face twisted, his green eyes wild and desperate.
His hands hit the dirt again, roots and stone ripping upward into a jagged, impassable barricade between them.
"You think you're untouchable, Maddox?" he roared, his voice carrying over the wind. "No wonder you hide in the dark—because in the light, she'll eventually see what you really are! A monster playing at being a male!"
Instead of retreating, instead of snarling back—Asher laughed.
He actually laughed, the sound echoing through the stadium like a death knell.
Shadows writhed around him, his grin razor-sharp and devoid of mercy.
“That all you've got, prince?” Asher called, his voice carrying with an unnatural resonance across the pitch.
"Asher, stop!" I screamed, my voice cracking under the strain. "Stop taunting him!"
Beside me, Ezra's face was a mask of cold stone.
"He won't stop," Ezra said flatly, his gaze fixed on the carnage. "That's what he does. He pushes until there's nothing left. He breaks things. That's how he wins."
I dug my nails into Ezra's arm. “Ezra, he needs to fucking stop! Jeremy is going to explode!”
Ezra's jaw flexed, his sunset-orange eyes fixed grimly on the field.
"The Darkling is powerful," Aether rumbled through the bond, his fur bristling against my leg.
"Yeah," I hissed, fire beginning to lick at my fingertips, "but his ego is bigger than the damn stadium."
And then—it happened.
Jeremy lunged with a guttural roar, calling upon the earth with everything he had.
The ground beneath Asher erupted into a geyser of stone and root, jagged and sharp as spears.
Dust and shattered rock slammed into the stadium wards, sending the containment runes flaring into a violent, blinding violet.
The crowd shrieked, a wall of sound that hit me like a physical blow.
But Asher didn't fall. He stepped through the debris like shadow given flesh, untouched and unbothered.
His eyes were black. Not dark, not the silver I loved, but a solid, terrifying black.
A snarl tore from his throat.
His shadows surged, violent and completely unrestrained. They lashed out like obsidian blades, carving through the air with a whistle that set my teeth on edge.
Jeremy staggered back, blood streaking his lip, but he managed a grin. It was cruel and twisted.
"You think she'll stay with you when she sees the real you, Maddox?" Jeremy roared over the chaos, his voice raw. "When she sees what you are—she'll never love you. Not then. Not ever!"
The words punched the air from my lungs.
I felt the bond quake. Something inside Asher finally snapped.
His shadows exploded.
They were too fast, too wild. Jeremy was caught off guard, his earth-shields too slow to form.
The tendrils carved across Jeremy's side. Blood sprayed onto the dirt.
Gasps ripped through the stands as Jeremy dropped to one knee, clutching his ribs, crimson staining his t-shirt in a rapidly spreading bloom.
The whistle blew. The sharp, piercing sound meant it should have been over.
Asher had won.
But he didn't stop.
The shadows thickened, closing around Jeremy.
Asher's chest heaved, his face savage and unrecognizable. His eyes were nothing but night.
He raised his arm, and the shadows sharpened into a killing strike aimed straight for Jeremy's exposed throat.
The crowd screamed.
"No!" I shrieked, running to the edge of the wards, slamming my fists against the shimmering barrier.
Fire flared from my palms, searing the magic as if I could burn my way through. "Asher, STOP!"
Ezra's voice thundered beside me, cutting through the chaos like a command. "ASHER! ENOUGH!"
But Asher didn't hear.
Or maybe he did, and he simply didn't care. Jeremy was on his knees, blood dripping into the dirt, his face pale with shock and pain.
And above him stood Asher Maddox, grinning, every inch of him poised to land a final, lethal blow.
He didn't stop.
as the shadows swelled, massive tendrils clawing higher and higher until they struck the barrier with a sickening crack.
And then it broke.
The ward shattered like glass.
My heart slammed against my ribs and I lunged forward, but a hand yanked me back, shoving me into a solid chest. I looked up and met the deepest blaze of orange.
"Ava, you're not fucking going out there," Ezra seethed, his grip iron.
Ember was beside him, her green eyes wide with panic. Beyond her, the other girls were sprinting toward us, terror etched across their faces.
"He will kill him," I breathed, my voice raw and pleading.
Something broke in Ezra's gaze—and gods, I didn't just see it.
I felt it.
It was as if his fear and his fury cracked open and bled directly into me.
My brows furrowed, confusion flickering through my panic, and his eyes widened for a split heartbeat, as if he felt the connection too.
But there was no time.
No gods-damned time for questions.
I reached for my power, clawing deep into the core of my magic, and fire tunneled out through my skin in a searing wave. Ezra flinched, his own shadows recoiling from the heat, and his grip faltered.
I bolted. Straight toward the darkness. Straight toward Asher.
I heard Ezra swear behind me, his shoes pounding the ground like thunder, but I didn't stop. I needed Asher now.
But the shadows weren't Asher's anymore.
They moved like a living god's fury—coiling around him, thick and endless, blotting out the very air.
His eyes were bottomless voids, his grin twisted, his chest heaving beneath the weight of his power.
And the voice that slid through the bond was not his.
"No one can have you. You are mine. For eternity."
It wasn't Asher. It was something older. Hungrier.
Its words slithered cold over my skin, seeping straight into my marrow. Bile rose in my throat.
"Asher!" My scream ripped out of me, tearing at my lungs. "Stop! Please, come back!"
There was no recognition in those black eyes. Or worse, there was, and this thing inside him answered instead, wrapping his power tighter around the world until there was nothing left but the dark.
Jeremy was on his knees, bleeding, swaying, one hand pressed to his ribs as he struggled to draw air.
The shadows didn't care.
They surged at Asher's command—or its command—gathering sharp and lethal at his outstretched hand.
A spear of pure darkness was poised to strike, aimed straight through Jeremy's heart.
Zya was there on Asher's other side, hissing at him, her feline form arching in terror.
Her voice slid through the bond, cold as a knife at my throat.
"He's too far gone," she hissed.
"No," I gasped, the word catching on the iron tang of blood in my mouth. "No, I don't believe that."
"Ava, please!" Ezra's voice came from behind me—desperate, breaking—but I spun, flames sparking off my skin in jagged bursts.
With a flick of my hand, a circle of fire hissed to life around me, a blazing ward of white-hot protection.
Ezra jumped back, swearing as the heat singed the air.
"Fuck," he breathed, his eyes flashing like dying embers. "Ava—"
"I need him back!" I cried out, my voice cracking against the rising storm.
I raised my arm, reaching for my power, for the bond that tied me to the male beneath the monster.
My magic flared up from my chest, wild and relentless, licking over my skin in arcs of liquid gold.
Above us, the sky split. The rain came down in sheets, fat drops turning to steam the second they hit my flames, hissing as if the gods themselves were weeping for what we'd become.
With one final, agonizing flare, fire erupted from my palm.
But it wasn't just fire. It was molten—yellow, orange, red—power searing through me as if my veins had been replaced with lava.
It poured out of me in a divine torrent, burning the very oxygen from the air.
"Ava, you'll burn out!" Ezra's voice tore across the pitch, raw and terrified.
I knew he was right. Gods, I knew.
But I couldn't stop.