Page 76 of The Salvation

“I’m the storm of your soul, Merikh.”

MERIKH

Reaverand his fucking followers haven’t left the Hollows.

And while everything in my being pulls me to those gates, at the first sight of the swift-moving shape on the horizon, I beat my wings and take to the skies. Drago and Mayce remain at the Hollows border.

I soar across the Sea of Bones to meet my partner.

The storm bruising the sky to black and gray is not natural. Tension invades every muscle, every pore, every molecule of my blood with the understanding. The God of Air is bringing it.

Several minutes pass before I make out his features. The subtle waves blur below me, along with a small spit of an island—one that disappears with every rising tide.

His gold figure manifests, but one look at his face, I know beyond any doubt. No equivocations whatsoever. That isnotKyan. The darkness is too damn alive, too raw—fuck, even his wings are more black than gold. And with the storm brewing, thrashing its violence all around him, pain and blood wait for me there. Pain and blood that can match mine.

Because my heart is a decrepit corpse in my chest. Even the Devil can burn and feel. He’s no match for my hate.

I can’t begin to fathom what Shadow knows, how much he has learned, but he is about to unleash his vengeance upon me.

Let it fucking come.

Pumping my wings—stronger to his faster—striking them brutally against the force of the wind, I rage against the storm. Dare him to bring more on. I meet him dead on, bringing my own damn storm. One of blood and riptides. Snarling, baring my fangs in far more of a taunt than a warning, I flick my eyes to the waves and raise the damn waters. The bastard is too fast for the sea wall pitching toward him.

A sudden force careens into that watery wall, redirecting it toward me. I deviate at the last second, the edges of the wall narrowly skirting my wings. Gods, that fucker. I resist the rising smirk because it’s not the time to appreciate our dynamic. Of iron sharpening iron—the wind tearing through my water just as Kyan’s blind love and Shadow’s trauma tore through my blood all those years ago.

Icy ruin rips through my veins. That is what I’m bringing him tonight. He is bringing the burning wrath of a demon.

The storm's fury thrashes with an energy born from the bloodline of the origin God of Air, who soared higher and swifter than all others. Innate and divine for my partner who influences my very sea, churning my waves to crash and dance with one another.

His chaos roars into me right before I catch that telltale, knowing smirk of a demon who is the Oracle she resurrected. He only embraces the Shadow for her. Shadows brawl with his features. He embodies them all.

Raw power courses through me. I drive myself harder, stronger through the turbulent air. Lightning pulses from Shadow’s figure, crackling from the veins and sinew of his wings.

We collide. A sick, disturbed dark crash of wings, teeth, fangs, and claws. Bruising. Biting. Clawing. Shedding blood. Of course, the feathered bastard knows I could strike him down with one blood clot. But he doesn’t give me one blink, one inch. My one mighty foe who could slip through my goddamned fingers before they could so much as touch him!

Like the wind, he never stops. And you cannot battle the wind when you cannot fight what you cannot see.

“I’m the Shadow in your blood,” the demon taunts me just as he did when he first emerged that pivotal night. An echo of Kyan’s egotistical mockery. But Shadow’s lacks the arrogance because every goddamned word he speaks is the gospel truth.

I snarl, throwing a punch at his cackling figure, but my fist strikes nothing. Because any time I try to touch Shadow, much less get my hands around his throat, he surges beyond my grasp. Striking those wings, he lands on my back to slash my wings.

I get one solid blow to his steel jaw, but he catapults through the air and attacks again. Uses the storm to his advantage. One powerful break to the center bone of my wing. I roar above the sound of the tempest, sending blood cells to repair the damn bone.

My power begins to wither. Too long without burying myself inhercelestial conduit of a sheathe.

The momentary lapse is too long, and the fastest flying asshole this world has ever seen drives his whole body against mine, crashing us both against that spit of land, shattering the very rocks to smithereens beneath our supernatural forms.

All the pain does is shoot the blood harder and hotter right to my fucking cock. Balls tightening, I lash Shadow’s chest with my claws, slashing his flesh to ribbons, growling, and roaring the whole time.

Bastard gives as good as he gets, using his unlimited power against me—that wind spurring on his beating fists, giving themmore power to fracture my rib cage, collapse my lung, and break countless bones.

He doesn’t tire. But I do.

Powers all but depleted, breath shriveled to a thread, I fall, surrendering the battle for the first time in our fucked up history.

Then, Shadow’s mouth crushes mine. He feeds me breath, inflating my lung. I use what little I have left to repair his blood cells. But his godhood is already healing him because his curse has ended—unlike mine.

Fisting his dark soaked strands, I steel my jaw and arch my neck to break free from his mouth and say, “I’ll take your blood.”

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