Chapter 37 Thor
Thor
Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.
Kill the creature.
Tear his head from his body.
Defend your king.
The words echoed obsessively in my head, the voice of rage spiralling into one of madness—into something desperate.
But I didn’t feel the familiar icy tendrils of control trying to take over my mind. They were weak, a tickle of something familiar, but there was no power behind them. Just a light fog that was easy to push away when I tried.
He had no power over me anymore.
His weakness permeated the air, bitter and pungent. The smell made my snout twitch. He had blood running from his nose, blood he wouldn’t wipe away despite the voices of the soldiers behind him warning him to.
Even his blood was wrong. There was something in the colour of it that didn’t look right. It appeared almost black, not red, and the smell of it was like acid every time I breathed it in.
The beast across from me rose on two legs. It was tall, built to stand like the soldiers, but it could move like a wolf if it needed to.
Fight him, the voice came again, whispering in my ears, even more desperate than before. Kill him. Defend your king.
Not my king, I thought, eyeing the male who once brought me terrible fear—and even more pain. Not my fight.
In the stands, the king screamed. He threw himself away from the barrier, his voice muffled by the sudden shouts of soldiers.
Watcher moved from his position, racing towards the angered king. Other familiarly cruel guards appeared to join the sudden frenzy of the king’s reaction to my defiance.
The magic that surrounded the arena flickered, as if they were trying to kill the wards and enter.
But for some reason, the barrier would not go down.
In the back of the Pit, where I knew the keepers of the magic usually stood, more shouting sounded.
Then, blood thickened the air, potent yet almost as acidic as the King’s blood that dripped from his nose.
I turned back to the looming creature. He had no name that I understood, though I’d heard Watcher speak it more than once.
I also knew he meant something to the female.
She was at the bars of her cage, staring into the arena with horror darkening her eyes, gaze flickering between me and the other world creature.
“Shut this down!” the king shouted, his voice carrying throughout the Pit. “Get her out of here.” He made a motion towards the cage the female was in, though he didn’t look at her as two guards appeared either side of her.
Dimly, I heard her telling them no, that she wouldn’t leave until we did.
Something about her words made my beast rear up onto his hind legs before slamming back onto all fours, another roar leaving my mouth.
It had the entire cavern trembling, loosened rock falling from the ceiling and onto the barrier surrounding us.
Each piece bounced off the dome of magic, which sparked, letting all those outside know we were trapped within.
My heart pounded as I took in the activity beyond. Soldiers fought the keepers of the magic, their blood spilling. The barrier would not go down.
The female in the cage wouldn’t move. Her eyes were locked on us, on the chaos.
And the king…
He was gone.
A growl rippled through me as I met the eye of the other world creature. The beast cocked his head, dark eyes narrowing. “Can you shift?” he asked, voice so low it could barely be heard over the chaos beyond the arena.
Shift. I couldn’t even if I tried. I couldn’t remember what it felt like to be in my mortal body. All those memories were laced with pain and anger. They’d done so much to lock me in this form that I wasn’t sure I could escape it even if I tried.
I shook my head. The other beast growled and moved to the side of the Pit closest to the female, and although I knew I shouldn’t, I followed.
The two guards flanking her, still trying to pull her away, stiffened at our approach. But she didn’t flinch.
Her eyes roamed the length of the other creature, concern glinting in the darkness of her irises. “What are you doing?” she asked, ignoring the soldiers either side of her as she tried to reach through the bars. Her fingers skimmed the barrier, light dancing at her fingertips.
“It is time we leave,” the other creature said. “I should have gotten you out before—”
“You couldn’t,” she replied, pulling her hand back. “Let’s be real. We never would have escaped. And we can’t do anything without Hawk.”
The shifter growled. Was that the winged one? He’d fought the king’s control. But then he’d been taken away, the king following soon after. When he returned, there’d been something different about him.
That was the first time I noticed the weakness.
“He might be lost to you, fated,” the creature said.
She shook her head, tears glinting in her eyes. “I refuse to believe that. I saw him come back. And I’m not leaving him here. I won’t.”
A pit formed within me, filling with a sadness I couldn’t understand.
The shifter said nothing. Neither did the guards. They stood eerily still on either side of the cage. They were two I didn’t recognise. They’d never been down to the cages before. I didn’t even recognise their scents.
But why had they not taken her away already? Why were they hesitating?
The female, as if remembering they were there, finally looked over at one of them. Hesitation darkened her eyes, a flicker of doubt appearing as she considered the male to her right.
“Why haven’t you dragged me out of here yet?” she asked, voice hard. “I thought your coward of a king gave you an order.”
The male with the white hair flinched before looking over his shoulder at the empty throne. There was no king in sight. Not even his personal guard were anywhere nearby.
Watcher had disappeared. I could still smell his pungent stench somewhere in the Pit, but he wasn’t close.
The male glanced back at the female, colour draining from his skin. “I am not sure,” he stuttered, looking behind her at his companion.
The other male, who appeared younger than the first, with eyes that were almost white, shook his head. “Our orders were to take her away. But…” He stopped and finally met the stare of the other male. “Why aren’t we?”
“What the hell is going on?” the female snapped, taking a step back. Her hand went to the collar around her throat, though she only brushed her fingertips against it. “Are you loyal to Dante, or not?”
They shared looks of confusion, hesitation, and uncertainty. Perhaps they’d somehow broken free of his control as well.
Maybe he really was weak.
But I could tell them none of that. They had no idea what I knew. That the winged one was no longer under the king’s control. That I wasn’t, either.
Though maybe the female suspected I wasn’t.
Her eyes flickered to mine before going to the male on her left. “If you aren’t sure, then you aren’t with him. You aren’t loyal. Let me out.”
The male shook his head. “I can’t just do that.”
“Do you have much of a choice?” the creature growled. “Once this barrier releases us, I will tear you apart and free her myself.”
The one with the white hair flinched, fingers moving to one of the bars. He hesitated, hand hovering over the runes that would free her. I’d watched it a thousand times. Even the creature knew; he’d seen it before.
The female’s heart raced louder, thundering with fear and anticipation. Her scent, still mixed, somehow grew heavier in the air. Her fear made my beast angry. He wanted to break through the barrier and tear her free from the cage himself. Protect her in the only way he knew how.
By tearing soldiers apart.
The dome around us flickered again, this time the magic weakening significantly. I looked over my shoulder at the dark corner where the keepers of the magic usually stood, but rather than darkness, there was a ball of light.
Not fire. There was no smoke in the air. It didn’t tickle my nose when I breathed in. There was no scent to it at all.
“What the hell is going on over there?” the female asked, her voice tight with fear. “What is that?”
When I looked back, both her guards appeared startled by the light. If I could form words, I would tell them that I didn’t know, either. It was nothing I’d seen before.
The other world creature moved to stand directly in front of her cage, like he could protect her if it exploded. If the barrier went down, then he possibly could. But her cage was likely protected from any kind of danger. It was the safest place for her to be.
But the ground rumbled beneath my feet, and from the other world creature, a fissure opened in the stone. I watched, feeling the rise of magic shift around us, as the crack moved across the arena, opening the wall at the other end of the ring and splitting the cavern in two.
The dome of magic trapping us blinked out of existence. I felt the moment it disappeared; the magic dimmed to nothing, and as soon as it did, the other world creature jumped over the wall between him and the female.
With us being able to escape, it also meant we were no longer safe from the soldiers.
They flooded the arena immediately, pulling weapons from their belts.
It took me too long to climb over the wall, my large body not made for it.
Not with the pains that radiated through my joints from the different punishments Watcher used against me.
The skin of my back, which had been split so many times by his whip, grew taut with each movement I made climbing over.
When I landed on the ground, her guard jumped back. He reached for his weapon, fingers curling around the grip. My lips pulled in a snarl, though when he pulled it from its holster, he didn’t aim it at me.
He fired the gun, a loud bang echoing through the Pit. I didn’t have to look back to know he’d hit one of the approaching soldiers.
In the cage, the female made a sound in the back of her throat. When I looked at her, she had her mouth covered with one of her hands, while the other was pressed firmly against her stomach. The white cloth she’d been clutching between her fingers floated to the ground.
The guard put his gun away with a trembling hand and looked at his companion. “Let her out.”
The other male said nothing, activating the runes on the cage and opening the door. He didn’t reach for the chains they would put her in to drag her back to her cage. For a heart pounding moment, my beast watched them help her from her prison without shackling her.
As soon as her feet hit the ground, the earth rumbled again, shaking more debris free from the cavernous ceiling above.
“We must leave,” the other world beast said, “before the mountain takes us, too.”