Page 45 of Shadow Fall: Part Two

I flexed my hand on my knife, blood pounding in my ears. Mine. His. My mates’. A hundred distant heartbeats, getting rapidly closer. One was closer than all the rest. But… Gauvan’s? Where was Gauvan’s heartbeat?

“I’ve missed you, boys,” the monster said in a low, oily voice that made my stomach twist. I swallowed back bile, the taste—and the horror—making my eyes sting with tears.

“As long as you live,” I breathed to Cronus, watching them both from the corner of my eye, “the world will know discord and suffering. With your death, imbalance will shift to balance. The guilty will be punished; the innocent will be spared. Everything will end with you.”

“Or it’ll end with you,” Cronus countered, watching, waiting. For what?

Whatever it was, I couldn’t allow it to happen. I reached down all my mate bonds and gave them a strong yank, a warning, in the split second before I twirled and launched myself at Cronus. The ancient power of the Fury drove my actions, guiding my hand as I stabbed and slashed. Sweat beaded on my forehead and upper lip. Cronus didn’t move a single step, amusement curling his mouth.

I drove my dagger into the other side of his gut, twisting it deeper, cutting a vicious hole. He just smirked.

Be ready, an instinct warned, and goosebumps rippled down my arms. I sucked down air, tasting blood and rot and power, acrid and smoky—demon power. Our army was getting closer. Soon, soon.

“Aren’t you going to give your uncle a hug?” Gauvan asked, his voice slippery, cruelty masked by charm.

My blood boiled. My upper lip curled. Cronus’s blood burned my knuckles where it ran down my dagger, strangely golden in colour.

“You fucked up,” I told Cronus, still in that voice of limitless power, that voice of ancient judgement. “This—” I stabbed a finger at Gauvan, “will be your last fucking mistake.”

I yanked my dagger free of Cronus’s body and swung it, forcing him back a step. The tip of my blade opened a shallow slice on his tanned throat, but it was far from the cleaving strike I’d planned. Shit. My pulse hammered in the base of my throat.

Soon, soon!

I didn’t know what I was readying for, didn’t know what the Fury’s power was forewarning, but I tensed, angling my dagger across myself to protect my torso. What the fuck was I doing fighting a titan when I was pregnant? I should have run.

But Cronus would follow.

Now!

I jumped to the side in case Cronus charged at me, not daring to look at my mates even as my bonds erupted with panic and I was painfully aware that Gauvan stood between me and them.

Cronus gurgled, a wet sound that heralded blood and internal injuries. I stared, my heart skipping, as he stumbled forward a step, reaching for his face where an arrow had thrust through the back of his neck and out through his lip. The gruesome sight twisted my stomach. Hope made my breath catch.

Now, now, that ancient Fury magic urged.

I shut out the threats and warning growls of my mates at Gauvan and renewed my efforts to weaken Cronus. To kill him.

My arms blazed with symbols and light as I swung my beloved dagger, and a shudder trickled through my body when a dozen different colours rippled down the blade—violet, indigo, turquoise, coral, gold, and silver, chased by so many others I lost track of them as I propelled the dagger at Cronus.

I buried it in his heart and stared into his coldly amused eyes.

“I wondered when the pretender queen would show her face,” he said, as if there wasn’t an arrow speared through his lip.

A chilling laugh made my blood freeze in my veins. “I’m no pretender.”

I tore my dagger out and drove it back in, blood spilling over my hands. Gold blood—the blood of gods and titans and immortals.

“Why won’t you defend yourself?” I snarled, driving my dagger with its myriad of powers into his gut.

I caught a glimpse of who the cold, dangerous laugh belonged to, and a jolt of shock slammed my heart against my ribs. It was Lili, but not like I’d ever seen her before. A fierce orange flame coiled around her arms like twin whips, spilling from her palms like waterfalls as she spread them in front of her, and at her brow a crimson halo throbbed with palpable rage and devastating power.

I took a step back without meaning to, my heart quickening, breaths coming shallowly.

Her eyes were pure white, pupils ringed with red, and I could have sworn the light circling her head was a crown of Hell.

A violent rainbow of light flickered across the muddy ground as my hand shook, my soul quailing as I looked at my friend. She was as powerful as any goddess and titan I’d met, and a thousand times more wrathful. My own fury recognised hers, that ancient, endless force I’d taken on when I killed the Furies in the Labyrinth inclining its head in respect.

Lili met my stare for a split second, the depths of her rage endless, fire burning so hot in her hands that I felt its ripple of heat from the other side of Cronus. There was something less than human in her gaze, a gaping lack of compassion, a hunger for destruction and death that made my blood freeze.

---