Page 296 of The Lands Defying
Gods.
“I’ll do it!” I shout, and Darius whips his head my way in shock as Charles smirks.
“The fuck you will—” Darius is knocked out of the way from being distracted, flying through the air and I swallow my nerves as he crashes into a tree.
I don’t look at him as I head toward Charles, who is grinning from ear to ear.
“Rhea! Don’t you dare! Move away from him. Now!”Darius continues to shout in my mind with every step I take toward the monster of my childhood.
“Call them off,” I say to Charles, as he rights his clothes. They are dirty, have rips in them but the way he stands, it’s not like he has even been in a fight.
“I will, once you put these back on.” He lifts a hand, palm to the sky, and a pair of cuffs materialize.
“Rhea!” Darius shouts as he fights off Charles’s violet power that is trying to restrain him.
I swallow over the lump in my throat. Those will suppress me, make me helpless once again.
Another cry.
A scream.
A snarl.
A choked breath.
I hear the battle as if it were right next to me.
Hear the people dying.
Feel blood splattering me, my hands covered in the innocent lives that are lost.
I take the last few steps to Charles as Darius screams in my mind. He sends magic my way, trying to wrap me up in it, but it’s blocked once again by another barrier. This time it is around me and Charles.
It shrinks as he steps closer to me, and I step back on instinct, feeling the tingle of pain at my back as I’m a breath away from touching his barrier.
My hands shake as he opens the cuffs, his nostrils flaring and eyes full of delight.
“Call them off,” I croak again, hating the waver in my voice.
His head dips a little, his dark eyes flickering with purple for but a moment, and then I hear less shouts, less pain.
Less death.
I look toward the beasts and see they have all stopped moving. Some are mid-bite, some have their claws raised, but they are at a complete standstill as the people look at them in confusion.
I breathe out, letting my head fall to my chest in relief as Charles takes hold of one of my wrists, painfully. He runs his thumb over the red marks there, never healed since the last time, and he smiles, pressing down on one until blood seeps beneath his fingers.
I hiss as he sends that fire of his into it, and abangat my back has me jolting, and I can feel Darius there, sending so much power to break the barrier around us, trying to get to me.
Charles laughs, shaking his head as he clasps one cuff around my wrist.
“You were never going to defeat me,” he tuts, shaking his head at me like a child. “I am more than both of you, and you will all bow to me when I have punished you for defying me. What a mess I have to clean up,” he sighs as his nose wrinkles. “I will say, you saved me the effort of removing the other Highers.” He chuckles, yanking on the cuff and pulling me toward him.
His hand goes around my waist, pulling me against his chest and I want to throw up.
Darius goes feral.
The snarls at my back are tinged with so much darkness that I think it will swallow us all.
