Page 290 of The Lands Defying
But he is not alone.
Wolves run beside him. The Elites, my pack, and other people of Vrohkaria.
My heart warms despite the circumstances, but fear still licks up my spine at the danger we are all in.
Charles isn’t natural.
“Rhea!”The sound of Darius penetrates my mind. I feel our connection, letting it sink into me and I feel like I can breathe again.
You came, I try to say back, but the link is closed off on my end.
“Just hold on, Vihnarn, I’m coming.”His voice flutters through my mind and I whimper.
It hurts.
Everything hurts.
I scream as that electrifying feeling rattles my body again, and I can hear a distant, furious roar as my back aches in agony.
Make it stop, make it stop.
“How foolish,” I hear Charles say, and I watch through blurry eyes as he spreads his arms wide again.
Bringing them up high, his hands coated in violet, he brings them down in an arch, fingers extended toward the floor. More black holes appear, the ground bubbling as more rogures and beasts appear.
Oh Gods, there are so many of them.
I struggle in the chains that hold me, grunting in frustration and pain that I still can’t get free.
I kick my legs from side to side, the metal digging into my wrist, causing more blood to drip down my arms.
Charles turns to me with a cruel smile. “You think you will be free of me?” he asks, once again coming closer to me. “You wereneverfree of me in the first place. The marks on your body prove it.”
The marks on my body were cherished by Darius. He kissed every one of them, his touch cherishing.
Charles waves a hand, and I feel my glamor disappearing in an instant. Charles’s eyes roam over the scars on my body, turning my stomach.
“Fuck you,” I croak, and he bares his teeth.
“In good time, but I will do it as I repeat exactly how you got those scars, while the other Heir watches.”
I pale at that, instantly remembering the pain, the agony, what he put me through, what he ordered others to put me through.
He lifts a hand and that fire of his is there, and I remember it on the soles of my feet, how I smelled my burning flesh.
It reminds me a little of Draxton’s.
I hear the colliding of wolves and beasts before I see it. The screeching howls, the snarling growls, and the shouts and cries of battle all penetrate me.
“Call them back!” I say to Charles as I see half of a body being flung through the air, intestines spilling out of the body as a rogure jumps on a villager. A beast has an Elite in its mouth, his claws on another and I spot Damian jumping on its back.
It’s chaos. Carnage. A massacre.
“What will you give me?” Charles smirks, as he calls more and more hounds.
I look to see Darius upon Drax’s back, his eyes trained on me, hands covered in black, those two mass-like tails at his back swishing violently.
Darius is closer now, heading toward me but four beasts are directly in his path.
