Chapter 27 #2
Everyone sprung into action. Khort was in the air before anyone could blink, wings creating a windstorm for Vega to play with as Arlet’s dragon—or whoever or whatever it was—soared into the sky and disappeared.
It was still there, camouflaged with the clouds. “That’s the craziest shit I’ve ever seen.” Vega laughed, a newfound excitement in her tone.
We’re going to be unstoppable.
How many surprises would the bonded have now that their powers and connection weren’t being suffocated by a curse?
Bridger hopped over the tendrils of electricity beginning to surround him. Even without any weapons, Bridger could wipe this battlefield clean, so she let the power be his distraction. The lightning followed him, wriggling towards him with a magnetic drawl.
Vega wanted to watch, to see how her powers reached for Bridger’s touch, but Marlena started prowling around her in a tight circle, her beast-like claws tearing through her skin.
“You think because you broke your curse, you’ve won?” Marlena asked.
“One step closer than you are right now, and doesn’t that just really, really piss you off?” Vega put space between them, watching her sister’s every move. “I know more about the curse you created than you ever will.” Her smile was big, stretching ear to ear as a taunt to Marlena.
“All you did was level the playing field for the first time since this began. I don’t mind a little excitement. A little pressure,” Marlena hissed, diving towards Vega with her claws.
With her powers fully restored and a new one waiting to be released, Vega couldn’t waste any time, couldn’t let herself think about what was next. She had to show Marlena who she’d helped create.
Marlena’s claws dug into Vega’s back, breaking the skin and sinking into the meat of her shoulder. Ignoring the pain, Vega wrapped her hand around her sister’s wrist, and an explosion no one but Vega could feel ruptured inside her mind.
The vibration she’d felt under her feet outside the door leading to Bridger erupted, shadows shooting from an infinite pit.
A darkness unlike anything Vega had ever felt before crawled its way out, but when it emerged… it didn’t come after Vega like she’d expected.
No. It’s sitting at my feet, waiting for its first kill.
“Feed me,” it growled with a voice that sounded like it hadn’t been used in thousands of years.
The world moved on around them. Vega could hear the wind clipping the wings of the dragons overhead, feel Bridger fighting with a rebellion soldier—not killing any who came after him.
Saw him wielding a… sword of lightning? When she blinked and took a breath, everything else fell away, and all that was left was Marlena, Vega, and her hunger for death.
A piercing scream tore through Marlena’s lips, her face turning red and eyes bulging as frigid heat traveled down Vega’s arm. Marlena couldn’t fight Vega’s hold, couldn’t move underneath her paralyzing touch.
Vega’s veins turned black at her wrist, creeping up her arm as Marlena’s claws retracted, her fingers scarred and bleeding where they’d once been. A splatter of blood peppered Marlena’s face in red.
Vega lost herself to the surge of power, eyelashes fluttering from the gentle ripple of something new making itself at home inside her. Her darkened veins looked like black lightning skittering up her arms, pumping a rush of pleasure straight to her brain.
Pleasure.
Fear iced her senses, immediately washing away anything else she could have felt… The sight of death under her skin made Vega jump off Marlena, who had somehow ended up on the ground underneath her. How did she get there?
Vega’s chest heaved, her vision spotty. Through the black spots, she could see Marlena gaping up at her like she was seeing through a new pair of eyes.
“How does it feel to be taken from? To have a piece of you ripped out?” Vega grinned, claws shooting from her hands like they once had Marlena’s.
“I’m going to take them all from you, Mar.
” She used her nickname for the first time in decades.
“And then I’m going to come for whatever’s left of the scared little girl hiding inside you.
” Lightning flashed behind Vega for emphasis.
The people around were frozen in place. Vega didn’t know when it’d happened, only knew everyone watched the sisters now.
The fear in Marlena’s eyes did something to Vega—morphed her into a person she didn’t know.
It felt good.
Wicked.
And Vega liked it.
Vega leaned down to Marlena on the ground and asked only loud enough for her to hear, “If you became a god by inviting the gods inside your head, what would letting death inside make me?”
She didn’t miss the tremble in Marlena’s spine before she disappeared, smoke wafting into Vega’s face as the only proof she’d ever been there in the first place.
This wasn’t over. It had only just begun. The last fifty-five years had been child's play compared to what was coming.
Now, Vega had a direction, an idea of where they went from here. Of how this ends…
Everyone stared as the claws retracted, and Vega buried them deep, letting whatever was inside her now drag Diana, the goddess of Demuto, into the shiny new abyss of the circular room in Vega’s mind.
When the darkness descended and Vega’s mind was clear, she repelled the surge of pleasure grappling to stay alive.
A sinking feeling crashed into her like a tidal wave: this is what it feels like when the hero decides to sacrifice themselves for the people they love.
Vega would suck Marlena dry and send them both straight to the underworld if it meant her friends got to live.
A group of rebel soldiers surrounded Bridger, weapons drawn.
Leo, the fire-wielder from Ardor who had been assigned to babysit Vega at Castra, pressed the tip of his axe against Bridger’s jugular…
but he didn’t back up. He stayed planted in place, slowly raising his arms in a lazy surrender.
He could kill Leo without breaking a sweat, but he wasn’t resisting. Bridger’s stunned gaze never left Vega.
The doorway to her mind was still closed, but she could feel him banging against it, the urgency of his knocking begging her to open it.
She almost did until Khort reached out and stopped her from getting too close to Bridger.
Vega hadn’t even realized she’d been moving, Khort’s light grip on her forearm waking her from a daze.
“Do I need to see if I can use this on you too or are you going easily?” she asked Bridger as Khort’s hand fell away.
Bridger shook his head, ignoring the axe at his throat as he marveled at her. “Let me in, please.”
“How long have you known?” she questioned, holding herself together.
“Vega—”
“How long have you known?” Vega yelled this time, the strain from her tightened throat hard to miss as she fought against the surge of betrayal.
Bridger bowed his head, looking at the axe still at his throat, and sighed before returning his eyes to Vega.
“I had suspicions before Marlena’s capture.
We just never got the chance to test it out with my shields acting as a barrier between us.
” The shields their bond had taken down.
“I knew for sure we could when I begged you to come back after your last death.”
One nod. That was all it took. “I heard you.”
Khort’s touch returned, his hand cupping her elbow.
Bridger’s eyes locked in on where they connected, a muscle in his jaw quivering, and a rush of irritation she shouldn’t have been able to feel flooded Vega’s senses.
No. Too much of us is connected.
“We should get out of the open,” Khort mumbled, looking around.
“No one’s going to attack you.” Bridger's voice sounded far away, like he was focused on something else completely.
Leo let out a chuckle, his axe yet to leave Bridger’s throat. “We’re not ignorant enough to trust anything you say.”
Bridger rolled his head to face Leo. “And who are you? I don’t believe I was talking to you, but—”
Fire blazed through the tip of Leo’s weapon, searing Bridger’s skin like a tiny branding iron. With one sweep of his leg, Bridger took Leo’s feet out from underneath him.
Vega wasn’t the least bit surprised he’d done so with his hands still raised around his shoulder’s height.
Leo jumped up, ready to retaliate, but Vega stepped in between, her eyes fixed on the fire-wielder who looked ready to detonate. “He can’t die, but you can. Stop.” Vega pushed Bridger back with a hand to his chest, his smug-ass grin dying the second her palm touched the skin between his open shirt.
She didn’t have time to think about the way her body begged for more now that they were back in Tolevarre with their powers and a broken curse. Everything was heightened—her senses, her connections to the bonded.
And more importantly, a hunger for something more rumbled in the open pit of her mind… Vega couldn’t stop staring at Bridger, the softness she’d seen coming back on Earth returning now that Marlena was gone.
“Take him to the caves.” Khort ordered.
The caves.
Back to where the rebellion had first begun.