Chapter 32 #3
Only the goddess knew how long the Martell cult had been wanting to overthrow Dariah’s kingdom. For years, they’d remained in the darkness, hidden, waiting, until crossing paths with the RavenWolf idiots who told them of my existence, giving them the only thing they’d been missing all this time.
A way to wake up their leader—Charles Martell.
“Heading toward you,” André replied, his fight had taken him farther away than we were comfortable with or had agreed.
Unfortunately, it was impossible to truly stay next to each other in this mayhem.
I jumped out of the way of a screeching crawler. My blazing hand connected with his arm when he tried to grab me, his dead eyes widening while my fire rushed over him and I scissor-kicked him into oblivion.
Spinning, I caught Dante disappearing into his darkness. From the guys, he was the farthest one away from me, but I knew he’d be here in an instant. His shadow bands began to swirl before me the next second, but an unseen force dispersed his power, blocking Dante from exiting the darkness again.
A massive form became visible instead, and I staggered back from the shock, falling on my ass.
His sinister leer stretched over thin black lips, showing rows of ragged red teeth while all-black eyes bored into mine.
Fear gripped me when the Dark One stood over me.
“Do not fret, little one.” His voice tried to reassure, sounding eerily beautiful to the point of being hypnotic. His sickly green skin gleamed under the sun, showing a multitude of collected scars. “I shall not hurt you, too much.”
His hand lunged toward me with twisted claws, and the sight snapped me the fuck out of it.
Wings burst from my back, swiftly thrusting me into the sky to fly away from him as far and as fast as I could, just like Bj?rn had warned…
His grip caught my leg before I could successfully get away.
Twisted claws effortlessly tore through my leather boots, slicing my skin open with every attempt to kick him off me.
“Aaah!” I roared, sending raging fire straight to his face.
My blaze engulfed the Dark One’s entire head, but he didn’t let me go.
Alarmed, I watched my flames disperse from him… unable to cause a single burn. Bj?rn had told me that the Fae race was the first one that ever existed, and their powers far exceeded anyone else’s. Unfortunately for me, he’d been right.
The Dark One smirked again, wrenching me down from the sky and tearing my leg open. My back crashed against the sand harshly.
“The Dark One found me!” I shouted into our shadow link, immediately feeling the fear and rage from my mates inundate the connection.
“Where are you?!” Hannes roared, his voice barely human.
“I’m just behind you!” I answered, kicking my captor’s face, chest, and every other part of him I could while shooting fire hopelessly into his body over and over again.
My head turned toward my shield. Hannes was so close. I could literally see him from where I was. He’d been by my side since we got here. How could he not see what was happening?
“Hannes!”
Sinister laughter left the Dark One, like my deathly blaze did nothing but fucking tickle him. He began to drag me closer.
Relief rushed through me when I saw Hannes run toward me. Dante and André arrived too, but they all stopped a few feet away.
“What are you doing?! I’m right here!” I shouted, jerking my body against the Dark One, but his venomous claws sank further into my calf every time I fought back.
Damn it.
“We can’t find you!” Dante replied, true fear gripping his voice. Their bodies turned in every direction, desperately looking for me.
“I can’t see you!” André shouted too, fully panicking.
My fight halted when I noticed a see-through force that seemed to surround the Dark One and me. Unlike the yellow energy, this was barely visible. I’d only noticed it because the blaring sun above us made it shimmer when it caught its light.
We were in the middle of the battle, right under my mates’ noses, but the force was keeping me from them. The Dark One was not only able to become invisible himself, but he could also manipulate others’ visibility…
The realization suddenly filled me with new urgency—it was his power the Martell cult had used to make the blocking bracelets.
Clearly, it wasn’t an exact science because he wasn’t fully blocking my power, I could use the fire, but he was blocking its effect.
Fuck this shit, I wasn’t going out like this.
“He made us invisible,” I informed my mates, figuring out a new plan. “And he’s a blocker!”
“But we can still hear you through my shadow link,” Dante pointed out.
Hannes frowned. “Natasha and I had not mated when they used his power against her last time.”
“Could it—?”
“Stop chatting and pay attention!” I growled at them, cutting off André while sending more fire to the Dark One. Sure, it didn’t burn him but at least it was distracting him. I couldn’t let him drag me away from them. I had to act while they were still nearby.
“Beast, wait for my signal!” I ordered, taking a very, very dangerous risk.
Hannes transformed without hesitation.
Using the Dark One’s hold on my ankle as leverage, I thrust myself up, jumping on him and surprising him. My sharp wolf claws plunged into his face, dragging down with force.
“Tackle him! Straight ahead!” I roared.
Hannes shot forward with all his might, his massive Beast form colliding against the Dark One and taking down both of us.
My body crashed onto the ground, rolling away free.
The instant the Dark One fell, his invisible field disappeared from around us, letting Dante and André finally see me. They ran to my side while I scrambled toward them and away from the fight, Dante and André lifting me to my feet.
A hiss escaped me when I was forced to pull my foot up, unable to stand on my right leg. I looked down, to find a piece of twisted claw protruding from my skin—ripped right out of my captor’s hand. Probably the same thing that had happened to my dad.
Fuck!
“My fire can’t hurt him,” I alerted my mates, and they exchanged a glance—confusion and shock coloring their expressions. “I know,” I agreed, it was fucking ideal. “I think he can block the effects of our powers on him, not the power itself. It’s how he protects himself.”
Hannes’s beast roared far behind us, and I glanced back to see he had overpowered the Dark One, pinning him down while he viciously growled, bucking to push my mate off him.
The wounds my claws gave him were nothing compared to what Hannes’s beast had done.
His obsidian claws extended to their fullest, piercing the sides of his head dangerously when the Beast gripped it.
I knew what was next—my mate was about to rip it from his sickly green body.
The Dark One’s mouth opened, showing rows of sharp black teeth before a greyish-white mist fired from his throat.
“Hannes!” I shouted when the mist engulfed his entire body, immediately hardening into a thick layer of ice and burying him in it.
Terror gripped every cell in my being as I watched the Dark One jump free.