Chapter 68
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
Dolion connected with Helaina’s gaze.
No more hounds were coming. The awakening of the Divine seemed to siphon off their supply. Yet he made no effort to run. Instead, he started sauntering in her direction to meet her, stopping just at the base of the hill.
Helaina stopped, too, her shadows circling them, creating a ring.
He chuckled. As the shadows left his feet, his red eyes returned. “They let you use the dagger? They denied me but thought you fit to use it?” Dolion scoffed. There was a tang of jealousy there. “That alone should tell you how fucking ridiculous your gods are. You could never be worthy.”
Helaina lifted her arms to either side, allowing her shadows to curl and coil up around her sleeves. “Envy doesn’t look good on you, Dolion. It makes you look fucking hideous.”
She watched his jaw tic. “Envy? How could anyone be envious of you? You’re weak, Helaina. You couldn’t even get up off the ground the night I gutted your sister. You sat there and let it happen. I should have killed you, too, for being so goddamn worthless.”
She tilted her head. “You’re right, you should have.”
Her shadows snaked back toward him, crawling up his legs. He abruptly dropped his slick smile and blinked. His fangs disappeared, and his eyes turned from red to those deep pools of blue she remembered.
“Helaina?” He sounded suddenly lost and fearful. Mortal, he looked just like the youth she had met in the stables all those years ago.
“Helaina, your power . . . it—it freed me.” Dolion stepped forward, relief rushing over his face. “You have to save me from her. It was always real, what I felt for you. I love you. I’ve always loved you, Helaina.”
She allowed him to get close enough to grip her shoulders.
“Please, don’t make me go back to her.” His voice became feverish. “Drayella, she’s too powerful. I couldn’t fight her. I couldn’t stop her. You have to see . . . she made me do all those awful things to you. She made me! I had no choice!” He looked close to tears.
She stared at him curiously, watching his eyes dart back and forth, beseeching her to believe him.
“Helaina . . . I love you,” he repeated again in a whisper, roping his arms around her, bringing her body close to his.
“Oh, Dolion.” She returned the embrace. Hugging him and smoothing his familiar dark hair between her fingers.
She felt him pull the dagger from his hip. Felt him raise it behind her back.
“No one could ever love a monster like you,” she whispered. Shadows erupted from the ground in a thundering wave. They whipped around Dolion’s wrist, forcing him to drop the blade.
“Fuck you! I will suck every last drop of you dry, you filthy bitch!” He lunged for her neck. Even without his fangs, he was still trying to rip out her throat.
She sighed, and her shadows lifted him in the air by his hands and ankles. He bucked and thrashed, hovering above her as she stretched his limbs in opposite directions.
Helaina walked below him, her black eyes vacant of emotion. She looked to his right arm and flicked her finger in a circle. Her shadows twisted around Dolion’s wrist, then squeezed, shattering and splintering the bone. He let out a bloodcurdling scream.
She laughed.
Theo came up behind her, placing his hand delicately on her neck. She felt his lips brush the top of her head. He didn’t raise his sword. It’s like he knew that this retribution meant more in her own hands than in his.
“We could take days with him, you know, years even,” Theo whispered as he wrapped one arm around her stomach. “Time is nothing to me—to us.”
“I know.” She leaned back into his chest, savoring his closeness. “But he’s wasted enough of my years. I won’t grant him a single minute more.”
Theo looked up as Dolion grew hoarse. “End it then. Let Drayella hear his pathetic cries.”
She flicked another finger. Dolion’s opposite arm twisted.
“You took my family.”
Another flick.
“You took my home.” Both legs circled to unnatural angles. The audible crunch of bone mixed with devastating screeching was music to her ears.
“You burned my horses.” Sweat coursed down his pale face as his high-pitched cries flooded her ears.
Blood dripped to the ground, pouring from the grotesque mangling of his body parts.
She reached out her hand and allowed the blood to trickle on her fingertips like rain.
“You know, Dolion . . .” She let the blood slide down her arms as she raised her palms to the sky. “. . . you look pretty when you scream.”
And then she pulled her hands down in a flourish, ordering her shadows to tear with impossible force in all directions. His body ripped to pieces. Warm blood rained down upon her as she lifted her hands to cup it.
Helaina smiled.