Page 68 of Veiled Fate
“None of your fucking business,” Kiel spat, moving to stand in front of me, arms out to his sides, muscles bulging as he took up a protective stance.
“Your determination is admirable,” the Nehringi said with quiet precision. “But it will not avail you. I am Tellenous. First of The Eight. Today, you will die unless you step aside.”
Kiel snorted, cracking his knuckles and rolling his shoulders. “Tell me,Tellenous, did your master ever tell you what happened to your predecessor, hmmm? The prior ‘First of The Eight’ and his demise?”
The Nehringi tilted its head.
“Yes, that’s right,” Kiel snarled. “I killed him. Just as I’ll kill you. All you Nehringi are the same. You train the same. You learn the same. And I will gladly show you that you alsodiethe same.”
My vision swam out of focus as blood loss threatened to suck me down, replacing the green tinge to my vision with an inky black that I would never rise from. Eternal sleep.
No. Not yet.
I blinked it away as Kiel advanced on the Nehringi, his form bulky and huge beside the Nehringi, its muscles more like corded steel than the thick beam that was Kiel.
The great sword came up and out in the blink of an eye, moving faster than I could register, aiming to take Kiel’s head off in one swoop and end the contest before it began.
But Kiel wasn’t there. He was already ducking out of the way. Yet not retreating. He slippedunderthe attack, and his shoulder took the assassin in the gut. The big shifter stood up and, with a roar, hurled the assassin backward.
Metal clanged against rock as the broadsword went bouncing down the slope. The Nehringi back rolled as it fell, coming into a crouch with its other sword up and ready to protect it.
Which was when Kiel let fly with the rock he’d picked up. It sailed in, forcing the Nehringi to bat it out of the air or be knocked unconscious by the projectile.
The short, thick blade came whipping back around fast enough to whistle as it sliced through the air, but somehow, Kiel was still faster for all the assassin's speed. His fist drilled into the smaller shifter's cheek, splitting skin and breaking bone.
“Argh!” Kiel roared, clutching at his stomach and rearing backward as the assassin withdrew a knife dripping with fresh blood that had appeared in his other hand.
“I told you, I will kill you,” the Nehringi hissed, moving fast as a snake and striking again, leaving a gouge across Kiel’s left biceps. It was a painful wound but nowhere near debilitating.
My eyes closed without asking, the sound of scuffles and grunts filling my ears. It was impossible to tell who was winning. Maybe Kiel? Or perhaps the assassin was getting the better of him.
The darkness was beckoning, and bit by bit, it was winning the fight.
“Jada!” Kiel roared, the sound cutting through the ringing increasing in volume. “Don’t you dare give in!”
I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t. I was just taking a nap to regain some of my strength, nothing else. He needed to stop worrying.
There was a surprised shout, a hiss of pain, and then something was bouncing and rolling away into the distance.
“Jada!”
Kiel was there, his strong hands scooping me up, holding me to his body, his muscles swollen with blood and adrenaline from the fight. So strong. So powerful. It felt good to be in his arms.
“We’re almost there,” he said. “Stay with me, Jada.”
I tried to speak, but I couldn’t. So, I said it with my eyes.
I am with you. All the way to the end.
Chapter Thirty-Four
“We’re almost there,” Kiel said as he hurried up an overgrown but clearly handmade path in the mountainside. “Just up this little hill. You can make it. We’re so close.”
The path wound around Mount Triumph as it took us up toward the peak, toward the temple. Toward my salvation. Despite the blood loss and the green-tinged electricity jumping through my wounds and occasionally out and across my body, I was somehow still alive. Nothing more seemed to change at that point. Reaching the shadow of Mount Triumph had somehow put me into a sort of stasis.
I wasn’t dying, but I wasn’t healing.
Up and up we went. Kiel never slowed. Never deviated, his attention focused upward. Every step bounced me in his arms, the movement producing new waves of pain, but my mind had become so dull, so numb, over the past hours, that I simply couldn’t react to it, even involuntarily.
