Chapter 45
Chapter Forty-Five
The end of it all
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Nik crashed to his knees, eyes rolling back as chaos erupted around me. I tried to run for him, a cry tearing from my lips, but Snake’s grip locked me in place.
Steel rang against steel in the confined space. At first I thought the crowd was just over excited at seeing Nik collapse. But something in the air shifted.
Above us, more Thorns gathered, taunting and jeering through the iron dome. Blood sprayed across the room like crimson rain.
I didn’t know where to look first as the world slowed around me. My ears throbbed in time with my heart. A heavy thud echoed—like a drumbeat calling the city to war. Snake roared orders, his arm cinched tight around my waist.
Three cloaked figures burst through the stands, blades gleaming, and Thorns began to fall like poisoned flies. Wings flared—sapphire, lilac, emerald. Adalia stood beside Matthias, her gaze locking with mine. I choked back a sob.
Relief crashed through me. They’d come for Nik.
They moved as one—swords blazing, vengeance written into every strike as they cut a path through bodies towards the ring. But the crowd was thick. Too thick. And numbers were not on their side.
I had to help. I had to get to Nik. Somehow.
Snake twisted, shouting commands at the chaos spilling through the stands. His grip loosened.
That was all I needed.
I wrenched free and leapt from his lap, heart slamming painfully against my ribs as I ran for the edge of the platform. If I could just get lost in the chaos, Snake couldn’t follow.
I almost made it.
A cold, boney hand snapped out and caught my ankle mid-step.
I went down hard. The impact drove the breath from my lungs, and rough wood tore at my palms. Snake yanked me towards him, pain flaring sharp and blinding through my body. I kicked and clawed, fingers scraping uselessly against the platform while the fight raged on around us.
Screams ripped through the air. Cut short, one by one, as the cloaked figures carved through the crowd.
“Let me fucking go!” I cried.
Snake dragged me upwards, fury vibrating through his grip. “Enough,” he snarled.
His hand found my throat, yanking me closer. His fingers crushed harder, stealing the breath from my lungs, my vision dimming at the edges. “I think it’s time to say goodbye to your friends for good.”
I clawed at his wrist, nails scraping uselessly over skin and leather. His face was inches from mine—eyes wild, mouth twisted ugly and furious.
“You deserve to rot in the abyss like the rest of the empty souls,” he snarled.
Something inside me snapped.
Brown. Grey. Blue. Eyes slashed through my vision and the world tilted, my pulse roaring in my ears. I thought of hands around my throat.
Another man.
Heat and pressure and the crushing insistence of fingers digging in. The burn of air denied. The panic raking up my spine.
Hands that had taken and taken until there was nothing left to give.
I hadn’t been able to stop Rhodes, or Kavish. I couldn’t change my past back in The Grey. But I could change my future here and now.
No more.
Never again would I let another male take from me what wasn’t his to own. No longer would I let another woman suffer at the hands of evil. Even in this dark, light forsaken place.
I couldn’t.
My fingers slid under the band at my waist, closing around the broken bottle neck. “I think it's time you died,” I whispered.
His eyes twitched, the realization of my words hitting him far too slow.
I pulled it free and in one blind, desperate motion, and slashed it upward.
The shard bit deep across his throat.
Scarred skin parted beneath the jagged edge, and heat burst over my hands, my face, my chest. Crimson blood pulsed between my fingers and splattered on the ground beneath us.
Snake’s eyes flew wide, shock cracking through his gaunt features.
His mouth opened, but only a ruined, wet gargle spilled out.
His grip slackened. Fingers that had crushed my windpipe twitched, then slid free.
He staggered back, grabbing at the wound that would not close.
I didn’t wait.
I struck again, driving the glass into one of his cold, grey eyes. It lodged itself there far too easily.
Snake collapsed to his knees, clutching at his neck as blood poured between his fingers. He tried to breathe. Tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
He toppled sideways, hitting the stone with a dull, final sound. I stumbled back, horror crashing into me. For a heartbeat, the world froze.
My hands shook violently, slick with blood. My chest heaved as air tore back into my lungs, each breath sharp and ragged.
I stared at him. At what I’d done.
And then—somewhere beneath the shock—I felt it.
Not triumph.
But freedom.
Snake lay twisted at my feet, blood pooling dark and thick, mixing with the white strands of hair beneath his head.
For a moment, I couldn’t move, but I forced myself to breathe.
In.
Out.
The noise of the room pressed back in, screams, steels ringing, bodies hitting stone.
I doubled over and retched. Bile burned its way up my throat, searing as it surged from my mouth and splattered beside the widening pool of blood.
Tears blurred my vision, hot and sudden, but I wiped them away with the back of my wrist, smearing red across my skin.
Whatever power Snake had held over me—whatever shadow he carried of the others before him—it lay bleeding out on the wooden platform.
Panic slammed back into me. I spun on my heel, chest heaving, as my eyes flew to the ring.
Nik was still there. Body slumped on the sand. Bloody and unmoving.
Hold on. I’m coming.