Page 17 of Pain Run Rampant

The half-snake, half-lion creature swipes a claw at me moments after I dodge its first attack. I’m too slow, and with nomagic to shield me, its claws find their mark. Two of them dig into my side and scratch the fuck out of my arm.

As hot, searing pain engulfs me, I hear Frederick yell my name. The creature curls around, swinging its long tail in my direction, and before I know it, I’m swatted aside like an insect. I fly through the air a good twenty or thirty feet and land with a thud.

I try to get up, but my side hurts too damn much. I’m not steady on my feet. I fall back down, and the creature is readying another attack—this one an attack I can in no way evade. I set a hand on one of the wounds in my side and close my eyes, waiting for the inevitable.

But the inevitable doesn’t come, because Mr. Inevitable himself flashes between the creature and me and throws up a golden, shimmering, semi-translucent shield to protect me. The creature is pushed back the moment it connects with the shield.

I’m on my knees, already feeling weak and woozy.

Shit. Guess this wasn’t a good idea after all, huh?

Frederick races over while the creature is recoiling from the sudden shield, and once he reaches me, he drops his dagger into the dirt, a look of pure worry on his face. “Rey, what—” He touches my side, just for a split second, and his hand comes away bloody.

Yeah, those claws are fucking sharp. I don’t know how deep the wounds are, but the way my body is on fire, I’d say they’re pretty deep.

Invictis glances at me over his shoulder, still holding up the magical shield. I can’t read his expression, because everything’s getting a little blurry around the edges, but I can tell he’s waiting for something.

So I give him what he’s waiting for. I tell him, “Kick that thing’s ass.” I swear, before he turns to face the creature again, I see him smirk, like he’s going to enjoy this.

And he does. He doesn’t transform into his ascended, eight-foot-tall, six-winged form, but he doesn’t need to. Invictis is free to use any of his magic to defeat that thing, and honestly, even with Frederick fretting over me and my injuries like a mother hen, I can’t take my eyes off him.

He’s here, then he’s there. He flits around, golden light following him anywhere he goes. Spears of light, spheres of molten gold; he launches everything he can at the magical creature, overpowering it by sheer force in mere moments. It’s the opposite of a fair fight, and it just proves once again how strong he is.

Invictis really is the inevitable, isn’t he? He may be a god, he may not be; either way, he’s a weapon of absolute destruction and he is in his element when he is destroying something.

“Why didn’t you use your magic?” Frederick is busy asking me, though I can hardly hear him, too busy watching Invictis take care of the giant creature. “These wounds are bad, Rey. You’re losing a lot of blood. I need to make a tourniquet. Here.” He takes my hand and holds it firmer over one of the punctures in my side. “Keep pressure on it.” He then starts to dig inside his bag.

I don’t answer him. I can’t. Mostly because I’m getting lightheaded, and also because I can’t stop watching Invictis.

Now that he’s not fighting me, I can appreciate just how beautiful he can be when he’s giving the battle everything he has. The tattoos on his arm glow a glittery gold, and I’m pretty sure I see the markings on my arm doing the same, but I can’t be sure. He is destruction personified. How in the world could I ever believe something like him could change?

This is what he is. This is what he does. He fights and he wins.

Am I only delaying the inevitable by binding him to me? Is Laconia not safe after all?

The creature, as incredible as it is, is overpowered by Invictis. Invictis’s golden light comes from all angles, surrounding the magical creature, and that light shifts into a hundred blades. They launch themselves at the creature all at once, digging themselves into its flesh, in its body, in its legs, in its head.

And just like that, the creature dies—although it vanishes before its large body collapses onto the dirt. Within seconds, it’s as if it was never there to begin with.

Invictis is on my other side within another second, kneeling down and reaching for me, but Frederick stops him. “Whoa. What do you think you’re doing? I’m making a tourniquet, and then—”

My fingertips are cold all of a sudden, and it’s hard for me to speak, but I manage to whisper, “He can heal me, Frederick.” My lips feel cold, too, like the blood that should be in my fingers and my lips all raced down to the wound to spill out.

Frederick says not a word as he moves back and gives us space. Invictis kneels on the opposite side of the wounds, so he has to lean over me to get to them. I stop applying pressure to my side and let him pull my shirt up to expose the wounds. The only reason I don’t fall back due to a lack of strength is because his left arm curled around me to hold me up.

I hold my breath when I feel Invictis’s hand curl around my side, touching me right where the wound is. If I wasn’t so cold, it probably would’ve hurt, but as it is, I think I’ve lost too much blood and went numb.

The tattoos we share glow when he heals me, and I swear to God I can feel the skin on my side stitch itself back together. I may have fast healing thanks to being an empress, but you can’t beat this. This is instantaneous.

Once the biggest puncture hole is healed, his hand moves to the next, and I breathe a sigh of relief when I feel his magic fixme. Of course, it can’t fix the amount of blood I lost already, but that’s okay. At least I’m not going to die here.

I meet Invictis’s gaze and find that it’s blue color was replaced by a glowing, molten gold. An unnatural set of eyes, and yet it’s just his true self peeking through his human mask. His golden eyes are reminiscent of his other form, shimmery and ethereal, like the color moves around his irises.

“Thank you,” I whisper once the wounds are all healed. I’m caught by those golden eyes. I can’t look away; it’s physically impossible.

Invictis doesn’t pull away from me. His hands still rest on my side and my back, our shared tattoo glowing in a similar way to his eyes. “I didn’t have a choice,” he mutters with a slight frown.

But he did. I said he could heal me. I didn’t order him to. Granted, the end result would have been the same, but he chose to do it before the command came and he was forced to. And beyond that, it’s not the first time he’s healed me—the first time he did so all on his own, right after he…

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