60. Lenna
60
Lenna
L enna had never seen someone kill like Hope. She was death incarnate, dressed in black and blood. Her daggers flew around without faltering, with unnerving perfect aim, strength and will.
A couple of roixers confronted her in hand-to-hand combat, and Hope fucking smiled at them. Maybe Jake and Hope had something in common after all. Because she was still smiling when she kicked and destroyed the balls of one, and as soon as he bent in half, her dagger was waiting vertically under his now-bleeding chin. Cardinals, she was fast.
The other roixer grabbed her other arm, aiming to twist it around as he approached the blade of his short sword to Hope’s neck. But it never made it to her neck. The dagger was now out of the other’s chin and blocking this sword instead. She slid blade against blade masterfully, removing the roixer’s ability to push it against her body, until her dagger was in his abdomen, and his blood leaked into his red uniform.
Around Hope’s non-stopping kills, continuous swirls of shadows snapped from Ciaran’s fingers, wrapping around other roixers’ throats at impossible speed. Wherever the shadows went, sounds of snapping bones followed and bodies on the floor appeared.
Alone, Ciaran and Hope were devastatingly efficient. Together, they were absolutely lethal and utterly terrifying.
Lenna had no clue what the shadow business was about, but if it helped Ciaran not end up unbalanced inside from Harming to kill roixers without wasting time to Heal anybody, she was on board with it.
Jake had taken Hope and Ciaran’s opening as the cue to break all hell loose, and Cardinals damn him if he didn’t look like he was enjoying Harming roixers in creative ways before ending them.
He hadn’t stepped away from Lenna, and his warmth on her back was reassuring in the middle of the bloodshed. Whichever roixer he set those silver eyes on, whichever roixer screamed in agony. Unless he removed the air from their lungs instead, made their eyes roll backwards into their brains, or made their necks twist, in which cases they could not scream or beg for mercy.
As if the man that Lenna wanted in her life knew what mercy was.
If Jake was feeling any pain as his inner magical balance became uneven with so much Harming, he didn’t show any signs. But hadn’t this man been submitted to pain so many times that it was as natural to him as breathing?
There was only one being in the corridor that Lenna wanted to focus on. The being that she had considered a friend.
The man fighting next to the Roix Reigner with all the skill in the world.
How stupid had Lenna been to never give two damned fucks about where had Theon learned to fight? On this island or any other, someone as skilled as Theon had to have been trained by the best and only Thyrian military force. It was so obvious now. And it was also obvious that Sasha, Brendon and Indianna were nowhere as able to fight the Roix, and the multiple cuts and bruises on their bodies were evidence enough.
Lenna risked another quick glance to the corridor to find… There, a sleek mass of red hair surrounded by silver sparks. Ayla was still keeping up against the roixers attacking her, and side-by-side a white-haired woman was fighting with all her might despite the blood falling from a deep cut in her neck. Ayla and Nina were still alive.
Fuck, Lenna knew she had to kill Theon, and she had to do it now, before he killed anyone else. She also knew that if she asked Jake, he would do it without asking questions or batting an eyelid.
The sharp feeling in her gut caused by his betrayal was more painful than any physical hit she would receive tonight. She doubted that the pain would go away anytime soon. Yet she would not stay still for a second longer. Not when he had fucking played with her for years and he had just dared to kill Carson as if his life was absolutely nothing.
It was cardinally poetic that Lenna’s first ever Harming was going to be against the traitor who had handed them to the Roix.
She made a mental note to thank Jake for explaining the theory of Harming in that cell. And for providing multiple examples in the past couple of minutes, even if some of them were sophisticatedly complicated. Bodies in red kept falling down.
It must have been the bloodbath around Lenna doing funny things to her mind, because if she looked at Jake’s side grin, at his silver eyes focusing on his next targets… If she focused solely on him, on the precise and non-ceasing movements of his panom hands in front of him, on how he hadn’t left her side and how his navy sparks seemed to caress her skin… She couldn’t wait for all this fucked up rescue to be done with.
Lenna raised her hands in front of her, golden sparks warmly tickling the skin on her palms as if they were giving her encouragement and reassurance that she could do this.
“You shit-eating cunt!” Lenna shouted, and Theon turned to face her, earning a hit on his cheek from Brendon’s elbow. “I hope your miserable life was as mediocre and worthless as your friendship. I hope the Fifth makes your unaliving existence as wretched as you deserve.”
Theon opened his mouth as if he was going to say something.
Pity that Lenna had already heard him say enough bullshits for the rest of her life and many others. Pity that her hands were already tracing a vertical cut in the air as she visualized pulling the East petal from her mark and cutting Theon’s heart in half. As her own felt right now. There was no point in making him suffer for longer. Not when Lenna didn’t want to waste another second of her life with this being.
Theon’s body dropped to the floor, and Lenna bit her lips to resist the urge of tears made of anger and despair.
Jake lifted her chin and kissed her deeply, as if they weren’t surrounded by quite a few still-alive roixers and the damn Roix Reigner herself. He took his time, savoring her lips and allowing her to get lost in his. Lenna didn’t care if he had Given some sort of panom barrier around them to protect them from unwanted attacks, or if he believed the roixers wouldn’t dare interrupting them. Lenna didn’t care, because all that mattered in the world was him and the feelings that the warm contact of their tongues made clearer than ever.
Jake gently pulled his lips away. “I’m so fucking proud of you, sweet fire.”
Lenna would have loved to reply if she hadn’t felt so dizzy from his kiss. Not his kiss. From the Harming. That was her inner panom balance totally tilted, and she didn’t know if she could focus enough to Heal anyone in time before she fell to the—
Jake’s powerful arms grabbed her waist in time to avoid a pathetic fall to the floor. Cardinals. The world was spinning so badly around her. Lenna pressed her shut eyes against his very comfortable chest to avoid seeing the dead roixers above her instead of underneath her. She inhaled his leather and ginger scent deeply, as if it could somehow help. Thank the Fifth, it helped her feel safe, even if her uneven scale was still very much present. Jake walked somewhere, bracing her against him.
Lenna opened her eyes enough to see they were inside the security vault. That she saw a moving bed with a white head jumping from side to side was likely to be a good indicator that Raoul was indeed inside there.
How were they going to get out of the Beftac Center? Even if between Jake, Ciaran and Hope, they killed every single roixer and the Roix Reigner herself, there was no way they could walk all the way through the maze this place was back to the alley. Especially with Lenna unable to stand by herself, and Raoul unconscious.
The epitellia wards made it impossible to moure in or out of any part of this building. And yet—
“The windows,” Lenna whispered.
Jake either caught her trend of thought or had already formed the idea himself, because he said, “Everyone better be good at jumping in turns.”