Page 39 of Shadow Fall: Part Two

"Keep going!" someone yelled. Lili?

I kept going. I didn't stop until there was a slash from edge to edge of his gut, and my head spun dangerously. Magic rampaged through my chest in a storm without end. Even now, there was more. My magic was a bottomless well, and it scared me. My conviction weakened; my power faltered.

But it was done. Cronus was cut open, and when I fell back onto his hip bone, hands were already ripping the gap wider. Hands from inside.

The gods fought their way free. I watched in fascination and disgust at the viscera, my head spinning faster, faster. Heat roared like a whip crack through my body, and I inhaled sharply. This wasn’t heat cramping my pelvis like the mating cycle, but razing through my insides, burning through my core of magic until there were only ashes inside me.

For a terrifying moment I thought Cronus had infected me, somehow got inside me. But in those ashes, I felt something stir, like a phoenix reborn. Stronger. Far more deadly than any magic I’d grasped before. Like it had been waiting for me to plummet through my core of power, brushing each kind. Awakening it from slumber.

With the heat came weakness, dizziness. I slumped against Cronus’s hip with a groan and gravity, that opportunist bitch, seized her chance. Too weak to stop it, I slid from Cronus's body, racing towards the ground at an alarming speed.

No, a primal panic screamed inside me, and I twisted my body, curling around my stomach. I can't fall. The baby…

When I tried to manoeuvre my wings, to catch air and stop my fall, they struggled to respond. I'd triggered something dangerous by funnelling magic into Cronus, and now with ashes and sparks of something deadly inside me, my strength waned. Like whatever was happening in my core of magic needed every last iota of strength.

I fell and could do nothing to slow myself, nothing to stop the inevitable impact. All I could do was twist myself to protect the precious life inside me. The life that should have been a priority no matter how scared I was, no matter how convinced I was that they wouldn't survive.

I fell into darkness that wrapped around me like a soothing blanket, like familiar arms, like a promise to keep me safe.

When those shadows stopped my descent, I could breathe again. But then Cronus roared, the magic that had gagged him shredded, and he regained control of his body.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

WANE

My arms shook as I pulled Haley against my chest, my shadows covering her like a cocoon, as if I could keep her safe within it. I could shatter shadow cities and rebuild them in my own image, but I always failed to keep her safe.

"I'm sorry," I rasped, leaning over her to brush my lips to her forehead, a clang of alarm going through me at how hot she was and the sweat slicking her body.

"Let go of her," Harvey snarled, pure venom in his voice as he shoved past me, his shoulder slamming into mine, knocking me further away from the titan. From my torturer and captor. But never master. You have no master. It was something I heard my mate say to Wynvail, but I took the words to heart, too. "Give her to me," my twin demanded, no softness or understanding in his voice or in his quicksilver eyes.

He hated me.

"She needs to be protected," Kai agreed, matching rage on his face as he stalked closer, the ground rumbling as his power trembled around him. "Not sent to fucking war."

My stomach knotted, but I kept my expression neutral, masked every once-healed piece of my soul as it cracked and shattered again. My family hated me. All of them. And I couldn't blame them; I hated myself. I'd known Haley was pregnant and I let her walk into a battle against the most vicious and powerful being in creation.

But I didn't want to let go of her. I couldn't. Instinct made my heart race, made blood pound in my ears. "She's my mate, too."

Harvey scoffed, a deep, throaty laugh. There was no kindness in the sound. "Your mate. Yeah, you're doing such a good job of being her mate. You should have—"

"Locked her up?" I asked, my voice calm, flat. "Is that what you're saying?"

"Stop," Haley slurred, her eyelids fluttering. I held her tighter, surrounding her soul with love and promises to keep her safe.

I looked each one of them in the eye. "I should have thrown her into a room and barricaded her inside, like she was a prisoner? Like the titan had locked her in a prison matching mine?" My calm showed the first signs of cracks. I couldn’t breathe. "Is that what I should have done?"

"You should have told us," Emlyn sighed, heavy with disapproval that killed me as badly as Harvey's hatred. His attention snapped to something behind me, and he surged forward. I froze as Emlyn reached through my shadows and—grabbed my shoulder, pulling Haley and I away just as the titan reared up, casting off his restraints like they were cotton thread instead of lethal power.

He … Emlyn grabbed me, pulled both of us out of danger. I swallowed the lump in my throat, falling apart inside where no one could see. He should have taken Haley and left me to be crushed or captured.

"Would you have ever told us?" Kai pressed, sending a ripple through the air as his snakes hit the edge of my shadow, trying to find a way in. "If Wynvail hadn't, would you have told us?"

"She begged me not to," I breathed, trying to lock down the shaking moving through my limbs. I needed to keep her safe, keep her close to me. I needed to. "Telling you would betray her."

"By not telling us, you betrayed us," Harvey snapped, shaking his head. "We need to move away. Now. Give her here."

I held Haley tighter, closer, but my stomach was a knotted mess and … maybe they were right. Maybe I couldn't keep her safe. Maybe I was a useless mate.

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