Page 39 of Jagged Souls
I’m a split second away from barreling into him.
I don’t have time to stop. I don’t even have time to pivot around him. All I can do is duck my shoulder and slam into his. A loud crack resonates from his body as he goes flying. A hit like that normally wouldn’t hurt him, but I’m running at hybrid speed, desperate to reach my wife.
I can feel her terror of pain, her fear that she’ll never be saved, that she will die in Antonio’s compound. I can’t lose her.
I won’t.
“Varius!” Khalid says, his voice just loud enough for me to hear him.
Danger flares across my neck, and I twist my head to the right. Mother is tending to Ezriel, bathing his chest in a white light as he struggles to breathe. Beside them Khalid raises the reaper mask to his face – a black skull with four golden horns at the top and a death rune on its forehead. His mien is one of emotionless indifference. In his right hand, his only hand, is a double-edged scythe, a cursed tool. One cut from it, no matter how small, will cause me to bleed out.
If I want to escape, I’m going to have to kill him.
Pain squeezes in my chest, but the irony of this isn’t lost on me: how I’m forced to hurt him now in order to save my wife. I love him, and he’s the only person I trust, the only one I confide in. But if it’s between him or Micha...
Pivoting towards him, I grab a knife.
Only –
Some fucker removed them all while I was out.
Shit.
I’m just going to have to rely on my speed. My increased strength. If I can take the scythe from him, I might actually stand a chance.
I take a step towards him, and a thousand blades of grass shoot up from the ground. They grow rapidly, crawling up my waist, wrapping around me, and slicing me apart with their sharp edges. A thousand cuts. A thousand more. I tear the strands off me, but they’re instantly replaced by fresh shoots. Still, I keep fighting, knowing Leno can’t keep this up for long. The ground is already half-dead from whatever Antonio did to it, so he’s pulling on nature from a hundred yards away. That’s a massive drain on his body, and I’m recently fed. But the danger isn’t coming from the grass.
The fucking reaper is stalking towards me, and he’ll get here long before I can break free.
Leno whistles three sharp notes of different pitches, and Krypto comes tearing across the yard towards me. I look at him dryly. It’s such a fucking ridiculous thing to do – to get his dog to attack me too, that I can’t help myself. Useless overkill is just so Leno.
But he does something that makes me still completely.
Krypto stops in front of me, his hackles raised, his teeth bared, and growling low. Only, he’s isn’t facing me.
He’s facing Khalid.
My brother will kill without mercy; when he dons that mask, there is no pleading with him. No begging. Nothing will save you. But there are two things that will cause him to hesitate.
His kira.
And an animal standing in the way.
In over a decade of being a reaper, Khalid has only killed one creature. It was an accident, but it still haunts him.
My head jerks to Leno, but he doesn’t see me, his eyes on Khalid. My chest burns with shock and disbelief. He put his own dog on the line – his best friend.
Why would he do that...?
More movement snags my attention, and I turn to see Maddox joining the mutt in front of me. “Come on, Khalid. Don’t do this.”
“Move, Maddox,” he says softly. “He’s lost to the Craving. We can’t save him.”
Ezriel joins the two in front of me. He breathes out low, like he would rather be anywhere else, like he thinks it’s the worst idea ever to stand against the reaper.
But he’s there.
And my throat closes a little bit more.
