Page 36 of Destined to the Reaper

“Wow! So mean,” Grizelle said in an overly dramatic fashion. “Clearly, you were not taught proper manners. But that matters not. However impolite you may be, I’ll still enjoy feasting slowly on you.”

“You will not,” Pharos said harshly, his voice dripping with contempt. “We’re done playing your little game. I’m taking my bride home.”

Grizelle recoiled, shock and a sliver of fear sparking in her eyes. “She’s not your bride! You still bear the scars of breaking the covenant!” she added, pointing an angry finger at the open wounds that still hadn’t fully closed.

“She wasn’t then, but she is now,” he replied smugly.

“You lie!!” she shouted.

“What?!” I whispered, my head jerking back towards him. “It worked?”

The most wondrous smile softened his features, and his eyes glowed with a possessiveness that made my stomach flutter. “Yes, my Kali. I told you you’d be my bride. We are linked.”

He kissed me, and the burning pain in both my upper arm and leg immediately dampened as the tingling sensation further spread.

His regeneration! He’s using his powers to heal me!

Healing was too strong a term. I didn’t know that he could use his powers to truly remove poison, mend injuries, or cure illnesses in someone else. But I welcomed this notable reduction of the increasingly debilitating pain from my wounds.

Grizelle’s enraged scream broke the magic. With a wave of her hand, she flung the doors wide open. The nightmarish horde that had been attempting to break in tumbled inside as if the floodgates of a dam had broken. They barely even got a couple of steps inside before Pharos blasted his death aura on a ten-meter radius. Every single creature that made it into the room and a short distance outside just crumbled into ashes.

But that didn’t stop the swarm behind them from trying to rush in. Pushing me behind him, Pharos turned to face the incoming threat, and flung his hands out sideways, as if trying to throw something sticky. Instead, a luminous pair of ghostly scythes appeared in each of his hands. A chain made of bones connected the two shorter weapons.

“No! You can’t use that!” Grizelle shouted, true terror descending over her nightmarish features.

Ignoring her, Pharos surged forward, swiping and slashing with both hands at the creatures. Every single one touched by the ghostly blades shattered into pieces, their bones piling up haphazardly where their owner previously stood.

By the ear-splitting, shrill sound the Keres emitted, I first assumed she’d also been wounded somehow, even though she was nowhere near where Pharos was battling. But then I sawthe tentacles of her hair bleeding at the tips where the skulls previously dangled. I realized then that the scythe was inflicting permanent death to whatever it touched. I’d seen her regrow the eyes and skulls in her hair after the Skarach and Bone Fiends they’d previously animated had been destroyed.

But this was truly harming her. Except, thanks to yet another loophole of the covenant, Pharos was not attacking Grizelle, but merely defending his mate—me—from the monsters threatening me. It wasn’t his fault that doing so also maimed her.

She pleaded and begged him to stop, her voice drowned in the cacophony of dying screams of her minions. To my shock, Pharos stretched both his scythes apart, pulling taut the bone chain connecting them. Its glow intensified for half a beat before turning into a staff with a bladed scythe at each end. He flung it like a boomerang through the open space of the stair maze outside, and the blade just flew around slicing through countless creatures.

Grizelle fell to her knees, gaping wounds appearing all over her shriveled body. Only then did I notice multiple creatures outside crumbling on their own. The Bone Fiend’s heads ran away, abandoning the bodies to which they were previously attached. A couple of them raced directly to their mistress to reattach to her hair. Similarly, the spider eyeballs scurried out of the cyclops orbit in the forehead of the Skarachs. Half stumbling, half running, Grizelle stormed out of the room before taking flight. From where I stood, she appeared to be rushing back to her sacrificial chamber, where the spider eyeballs and walking skulls were also headed, undoubtedly to seek refuge from the Reaper’s wrath.

With their mistress fleeing, the remaining horde also scattered, most of them taking cover inside the many alcoves pockmarking the walls of the vast chamber.

I stood transfixed as Pharos turned back to face me. The deep wound he’d sustained for breaking the covenant to protect me earlier had completely vanished. He glowed with an almost divine aura and insane power that made my skin tingle. He smiled and extended a hand towards me. Without hesitation, I rushed out of the room and took it. He drew me against his body. For a brief instant, I thought he would kiss me. Instead, he took flight.

I gasped and threw my arms around his neck to hang on—not that I needed to, considering his phenomenal strength. As we flew towards the next platform, a savage roar resonated below us accompanied by the loud splash of water. I turned my head to look down at what it could be, but Pharos’s massive black wings blocked my view. A single flick of his wrist sufficed to draw a loud shriek out of whatever had meant to mess with us. Another big splash seemed to indicate the beast had realized the error of its ways and backed off.

While it had taken me approximately forty minutes to reach the sacrificial chamber on my way in, Pharos completed the journey back in less than five. He didn’t even slow down when we reached that narrow passage with the bone shelves on each side. He merely dashed forward and flattened his wings against his body at the entrance, shooting right through like an arrow, only deploying his wings again on the other side.

Undoubtedly lured by the previous ruckus, a few fiendish creatures poked their heads out from wherever they’d been lurking. But a glimpse at the Reaper sufficed for them to cower and return from whence they came.

Despite how quickly Pharos got us out, it was still far too long for me. Although his regeneration powers had initially dampened my pain, it was returning with savage intensity. My stomach roiled, and my head swam.

When we exited the mausoleum that served as entrance to the crypt, I was shocked to be greeted by the mid-afternoon sun. It had been so dark and somber below, I had lost all sense of time. In my mind, we were in the dead of night.

But the daylight lit a fire under the poison spreading through me. My skin burned and seemed on the verge of combusting. The dull throbbing in my leg was now feeling like a thousand needles stabbing repeatedly at the muscles all the way down to the bones. Even the wind blowing past us as he flew at great speed failed to cool the heat engulfing me. It took me a moment to realize the pained moans filling my ears were actually mine. Through the fever setting me ablaze, I felt the tingling of Pharos’s regeneration, but it did little this time. I needed more than just an antidote. Only magic could heal me at this stage.

“Hang on, my mate. I will take you home and tend to your injuries. Your thread does not end today,” Pharos said in a reassuring tone.

A neighing sound startled me. Through my growing confusion, I realized he had taken me to my horse. I wanted to feel ashamed for having forgotten all about the poor animal. Pharos settled me on top before sitting behind me. That confused me. Flying would be much faster. I doubted I could last through the long ride back home.

My head spinning, I attempted to cast a healing spell on myself but failed miserably.

“Rest, my Kali. We will be home in a second,” Pharos said softly.

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