Page 41 of Shadow Fall: Part Two

The titan roared again across the battlefield. I didn’t want to see him, but I couldn’t stand it anymore. I twisted to look at him just as a deep explosion of blood-red magic filled the sky around his enormous onyx form. I caught my breath, my trembling worse, vicious. He was overpowered. He was losing.

I wanted to run, instinct screaming at me that I wasn't safe, but I couldn't take my eyes off the sight of the titan's twenty-foot form shrinking to fifteen feet, and then twelve.

"It's working," Wynvail breathed, a laugh of disbelief in his voice. "Shit, they've actually—no!"

I knew what he saw; I saw it, too. The flicker of electric blue, the churning black pit of magic, and the glow of the titan's eyes that heralded pain and screaming, begging for death.

"What?" Kai demanded, holding Haley closer and making her moan in annoyance.

Wynvail didn't get a chance to answer Kai. The world shifted and tipped. I felt the impact of the titan's time magic like a stab wound as it grabbed us, crushed the fight out of us, and ripped us somewhere else.

I knew where we were the second my feet landed. Sulphur and blood laced the air when I choked down a broken breath. This was the realm where I'd been held captive for a hundred years. This was the Damned Realm.

CHAPTER TWENTY

HARVEY

Iknew Cronus brought us here because he'd controlled the Damned Realm for a millennium, and it had nothing to do with us or Iarlon, but I couldn't stand the fact we were in Hell again. I couldn't stand that he was in the same realm as both my vulnerable mate and Verena. I couldn't fucking function with them both in danger. All in danger if I counted the fragile life in our mate's belly.

And Wane let her march to war.

What the fuck was he thinking? Even if Haley begged and pleaded, he should have said no. He should have fucking told me—I was his twin. I could have talked some damn sense into both of them.

"Put me down," Haley murmured, struggling in Kai's arms. "I feel—better."

She would, now we were back in Hell. The demon part of her would be stronger here, like the titan and god part of her was stronger in Olympus. But she shouldn't have been anywhere near this place.

Empty fields stretched around us full of rotten fruit, the scent sickly and sour—and bodies. There were bodies everywhere I looked.

"Angels," Wynvail breathed, noticing their armour, their wings splayed in the mud.

Angels withered in Hell, and they'd die if they stayed longer than a few hours, but an instant death? Cronus had done this. He ripped them away from the battleground knowing every last angelic soldier would die. How many allies had we lost? How small was our army now?

Had the gods even survived?

Wynvail's hand glowed suddenly. He threw a hard look at Kai, who nodded, uncommonly serious.

"What?" I began, dread knotting my stomach. But I realised their plan when a beam of bright moonlight split the air. Relief made my shoulders slump. Right, Wynvail could transport people with his magic.

"No," Haley protested, trying to twist away from the sudden flare. But Kai set her on her feet, tightened his grip on her shoulders, and pushed her into the beam of light.

I held my breath in the suspended second after Haley was sucked inside the moonlight, her eyes so wide with panic. That split second took an eternity, and I didn’t breathe at all as I waited for the light to wink out, to carry our pregnant mate to safety, to—

"No!" Emlyn roared when a hand reached through the moonlight—and ripped Haley out of it.

Cronus. I knew it was him even if I'd only ever seen him twenty-foot-tall and made of stolen shadow. So this was what he looked like before he cut a swath of magic from Wane and stole it for himself.

Now, he grabbed Haley from within Wynvail's moonlight and stole her, too.

Her boots slipped in the mud, trying to gain purchase, to fight. I surged forward, plunging into that Feral part of myself, shifting between one step and the next. I was happy to be a mindless monster of fur, horns, and claws if it saved my mate.

Wynvail was the closest to her, close enough to leap across the distance and rip that murderous bastard’s hands off her, but Wynvail’s knees dropped from under him when Cronus touched a fingertip to the swath of moonlight and … it fell to ashes in the muddy field. Unmade, like Wynvail himself had been unmade.

I grabbed the back of Wyn’s armoured jacket in my beast’s teeth and hauled him back. Cronus already had Haley; we couldn't let him get Wynvail, too. Couldn't let him kill our brother again. Because no matter what he'd done, he was our brother. We were all bastards and monsters anyway; he fit right in.

Kai let out a war cry and threw himself at Cronus and Haley, the air full of so much magic, so many serpents, that it visibly rippled, obscuring Kai's face.

Cronus merely stepped out of Kai's path, taking our mate with him.

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