Page 292 of The Lands Defying
Someone screams behind him, Leo shouting orders, Taylor dragging a villager to safety, Anna fighting with her magic as Zaide slices a rogure nearby.
There is so much slaughtering, and my heart is in my throat for anyone getting hurt.
But Darius?
He doesn’t even look back. His sole focus is on me.
“Let her go, now!” Darius brings his hands up, that mist of his violently swirling around them.
“She is mine! She has been mine since she was a child!” Charles roars, and the platform beneath us rattles from the force of it.
“No,” Darius says, quiet but deadly. “She has beenminesince her soul was formed.” Then, black rises from below us and he rushes for Charles.
It all happens so fast.
Darius’s power snakes up the two pillars, spiraling upward, then it’s moving down the chains, focusing on my wrists while another wraps around Charles’s arm, yanking it back and effectively taking the blade away from my throat.
I hear a sizzle, and I watch as black flames appear, my wrists burning as he melts the chains wrapped around them, then I drop to the floor with a harshthud.
I cry out, my left side taking the impact as my head bounces off the stone below me. I gasp through panting breaths, my eyes watching as Darius and Charles are colliding.
Charles has his own power around Darius, trying to restrict his arms but Darius fights him off with his black fire, dispelling it. Darius sends shards out, and Charles puts up a barrier to deflect them, and then Darius turns wolf, his big black paws landing on the ground.
I need to help, I need to move, but my legs feel numb.
Runa?
There is a small tingling inside of me, and I focus on it.
“You think you can take her from me? You are a boy! A swine!” Charles throws multiple balls of power at Darius, sending the rogures to him before he turns and wraps a barrier around me, closing me in.
No, not again.
I look around at the barrier, watching it shimmer in and out, knowing it can cause me the same pain he has been inflicting on me for what feels like hours.
Darius claws and bits through rogues, his side now bleeding and my heart is in my throat as he quickly turns back and grabs a blade, hitting it into a rogure’s side and slicing it.
“You will die today, Charles,” Darius says, his tone dark. “For everything you have done, the crimes you have committed.” Darius launches himself at him and connecting his blade with Charles’s own as Drax tears into a rogure, flames licking over them.
My vision blurs in and out as they continue to go at each other.
“I have the power of both the Gods within me, and you thinkyoucan kill me.”
Darius grunts, attacking Charles, making him go on the defense as they circle the area, while the others continue their own fight.
And I’m here, useless.
I watch as Leo takes a hit, the beast’s claws swiping at him as he stumbles back, Zaide thankfully grabbing his arm and hauling him behind him. I look further and see Anna, hands out, red swirling as rogures seem to be coming for her in slow motion. Josh is there too, stabbing a beast in its thigh as Colten shoves a sword though its neck. A wolf I recognize all too well, Hudson, is in the fray with Jerrod’s wolf, snarling and biting. I see them all continuing to fight.
All bruised.
All bleeding.
And I think we are losing.
I look at Darius as he grits his teeth in pain, holding the top of his shoulder for a moment before dropping his hand as he lunges for Charles again.
His armor is ripped there, and the skin bubbles as I catch the remnants of Charles power sizzling into his skin. Darius forms a defensive position, his face full of pain and I think he is causing him the same electrifying pain that he caused me. Charles’s laugh seems to confirm it.
