CHAPTER 15 #2
The hole in her side closed up as well. Not because it had healed—her regeneration still refused to touch any damage done by Ishtar’s sacred weapon—but because that was Greed’s power.
Her sister permitted nothing of hers to be stolen, and now that Greed’s demons had bowed their horns to her, neither did Bex.
She could already feel the protection wrapping around her like a fist. While the Queen of Greed’s power was squeezing, nothing that belonged to her could be taken or broken.
Bex wasn’t sure if that protection extended all the way to death, but after watching Greed’s sword put the haughty prince she’d diced back together in Adrian’s forest and repair the madman she’d burned to a crisp in Limbo, she was feeling pretty confident.
Keeping the power up took a lot of energy, but Bex’s flames were getting her nowhere, so she threw it all in, pouring herself down Greed’s maw as she dug her boots into the softened gold floor and charged, turning the tables on the Crown Prince as she swung for his head instead.
He dodged the attack with room to spare, moving with beyond superhuman speed to strike Bex’s open flank.
She spun around to meet him, slamming Drox’s blade into the Sword of Ishtar.
Just like before, the black blade cut straight through hers.
This time, though, Bex was able to push back, using Greed’s power to replace Drox’s sword as fast as Ishtar’s blade cut it.
The victorious smile was still spreading across her face when Alexander hooked the toe of his golden boot around the back of her ankle and yanked Bex’s legs out from under her.
She fell on her back with a slam. The prince’s sword followed, almost slicing her in half before Bex rolled away. She’d thought she’d made it until she felt a cold breeze on her left shoulder and realized Ishtar’s unthinkably sharp blade had cut her arm off.
Bex was still staring at the bleeding stump in shock when Greed’s power reversed it.
Just like when the princess pulled her prince’s white blood back into him, Bex’s severed arm picked itself up off the floor and stuck itself back onto her shoulder like the damage had never been done.
It was an unnatural, almost comically macabre sight, but the moment Bex saw it, she saw her path to victory.
Be wary, Drox cautioned as she rolled back to her feet. Greed’s power is not natural to your body. You were made to burn, not to replace. If you keep using it so recklessly—
“It’s the only thing that works against him,” Bex argued, fixing the circling prince with her eyes as she raised Drox’s once-again-pristine black blade. “We’ll just have to end this quick.”
A tremor of fear ran through her sword at those words, but Bex didn’t have time to heed it.
The prince was already swinging for her knee, his sword moving like a bolt of black lightning.
Bex couldn’t possibly dodge something so fast, so she didn’t even try.
She opened her defenses instead, practically offering the prince her leg, because if his sword was in her thigh, then it couldn’t block her counter.
She could already feel her balance tilting as the black blade cut in, so Bex swung with all her might, throwing what was left of her weight into the strike that should have taken off the prince’s head.
“Should have” turned out to be the operative phrase.
The blow had looked certain when she’d started, but by the time Drox’s blade was actually within range of his neck, the prince had already ducked.
His attack changed with him, transforming what had been a chopping strike into a thrusting one as the prince’s body went down and forward, driving Ishtar’s thin black sword like a nail through Bex’s kneecap.
She howled in pain. Even with Greed’s power reversing it, that hit hurt so bad she saw spots, especially since the prince still hadn’t pulled his sword out.
He used it as leverage to push her over instead, toppling Bex back onto the floor she’d just gotten off of.
She responded with a kick from the leg he wasn’t pinning, slamming her boot into the prince’s armored elbow, but not nearly hard enough.
The moment she made contact, the prince shifted his weight, fading under her foot and spoiling the kick’s momentum.
He twisted his sword at the same time, almost taking off the bottom half of her right leg before Bex got herself together and ripped free, dumping a ton of black blood on the floor in the process.
Greed’s power pulled it right back into her, but the few seconds it took for her mangled leg to revert back to its pre-injured state felt like running a marathon.
It was the biggest wound she’d undone yet, but while Bex did eventually get her knee—and even her leggings—back together, her heart was pounding like a jackhammer.
I warned you, Drox said as she gasped. You can’t keep this up.
“What else am I supposed to do?” Bex demanded, rolling to the side just in time to avoid the prince’s next deadly swing. “This is the final prince before Gilgamesh. If I can’t kill him, we did all of this for nothing.”
It’s going to be the last thing you ever do at this rate, Drox snapped, his voice more terrified than Bex had ever heard it. Please, my queen, you can’t—
“I can,” Bex said, tightening her grip on his hilt as her eyes flicked to where Adrian was still saving Leander’s life. “I have to, or it’s all over.”
There was nothing Drox could say to that. Even if he’d had something, Bex didn’t have time to listen. She’d already launched into her next attack, ignoring the sword flying at her stomach as she leaped into the air to bring Drox’s enormous blade down on the Crown Prince like a guillotine.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Adrian had never been so scared in his life, which was saying something, considering the past six months.
He thought he’d become hardened to fear by this point, but there was something uniquely terrifying about seeing Bex—the fastest, strongest, most unbeatable person he’d ever met—being forced back by a prince who moved faster than lightning and cut through anything he touched without breaking a sweat.
Even thinking about it felt like a betrayal, but Adrian was pretty sure the Crown Prince was better than Bex.
Add in his unbeatable sword that could cut through Drox’s blade and slice her fire out of the air, and it was no wonder that there was now a pit where Adrian’s stomach used to be.
The only good thing he could say about the situation was that at least the horrific damage she was taking seemed to be instantly repairing itself.
He wasn’t sure how she was doing that, actually.
Adrian was used to Bex’s amazing regeneration by this point, but he’d never seen Drox heal before.
He would’ve called it a miracle if it hadn’t been so clearly taking a huge toll.
He’d seen Bex go entire fights without getting winded, but this battle had lasted less than a minute, and she was already gasping like a landed fish.
He had to go help her before she ran out of whatever she was using to power her miraculous recovery, but Alexander was moving too fast for Adrian’s once-again-mortal eyes to follow.
He’d get cut to ribbons if he tried to stick his nose into their fight.
Also, as much as Adrian wanted to focus on Bex, he had his own problems to worry about.
“Would you stop moving?” Boston snarled, sinking his teeth in Leander, who hadn’t stopped thrashing in Adrian’s arms despite the enormous amount of white blood he’d already dumped on the floor.
“I can’t!” Leander cried, lurching against the bandage Adrian was attempting to tie around the hole in his chest. “I have to help her!”
“You can’t help anyone if you bleed to death,” Boston pointed out, smacking the frantic prince on the head with his paw before turning to Adrian. “You should knock him out.”
“I’d love to,” Adrian replied through gritted teeth as he wrestled with his bloody brother. “But princes are immune to most common poisons, and I didn’t think to grab any uncommon ones from my cabin before we ran off.”
“Who said anything about poison?” Boston huffed. “Just hit him over the head. I know blunt trauma is risky, but you can’t possibly do more damage than he’s already doing to himself.”
Adrian didn’t know about that. Even for a Witch of the Flesh, the brain wasn’t something that should be damaged on purpose. Leander really was going to bleed out if he didn’t stop thrashing, though, so Adrian decided to try a different tactic.
“Calm down and listen,” he said, pressing the ball of his palm into Leander’s wound until the prince collapsed on the ground with a gasp. “Your princess is not in danger. Look and see for yourself.”
He grabbed his brother’s chin with the hand he wasn’t using to grind into his wound and yanked his head around to face the battle happening on the opposite end of the throne room from Bex’s.
Adrian hadn’t had time to glance in that direction yet, so he wasn’t actually sure if what he’d said was accurate, but he’d overheard Bex telling Nemini not to hurt Mara, and despite being revealed as a queen herself, Nemini always did what Bex said.
That fact held true yet again when Adrian turned to see Leander’s princess swinging wildly at Nemini, who was not swinging back.
It was a shocking sight to see. Despite working with Bex’s team for almost half a year now, Adrian had never gotten the chance to watch Nemini fight for real.
She normally just knocked her opponents out with a touch.
That trick must not have worked on princesses, though, because while Mara’s wild attacks were leaving openings so big that even Adrian could spot them, Nemini never tried to touch her.
She was just keeping Mara busy, exactly as Bex had ordered.