Page 92 of Bellamy
“Because I love your misery.” Asa placed his mouth at my ear as he said, “The only reason you still breathe is because I know it’s more painful for you to be alive right now, knowing you were the key to sending your lover to his death. And hewilldie. Painfully. I wonder if he’ll say your name with his final breath.”
I grabbed the dagger concealed in the waistband of my pants and struck. I had known he would refuse my offer. I had also known he’d get close to me. To taunt me. To be his cruel self. All of it had been a ruse to get him right where I wanted him.
Before the dagger plunged into his neck, he raised his hand to block it.
“There’smy Phoenix,” Asa said with a wide grin. The dagger had lodged into his palm, and blood dripped on the floor between us. “Always with a trick up his sleeve.”
“Your Majesty!” Duke shouted.
“Stay back,” Asa told him. “That goes for the guards as well. I have this handled.” He pinned me to the floor and yanked his hand free, licking at the oozing blood. The dagger clanged to the floor out of my reach. “So that was your real plan. To kill me. I give you points for creativity. However, the execution needs some work. Because you forget.” He squeezed my neck, cutting off my air. “I can see through you. I always have. It’s why I knew you’d betray me for that Nephilim bastard.”
“Spare me the monologue,” I gasped, struggling to breathe. Funny how I thought of Castor in that moment. He had often said shit like that in the past when I’d shown up to wreak some havoc on him and his brothers. “If you’re going to kill me, just do it.”
“You know what?” Asa bit at my bottom lip, and I jerked my face to the side to get away from him. “You’ve pissed me off enough that I think I will.”
He then plunged my own dagger into my chest.
The cold bite of the steel was excruciating.
“Mm. I love your cries of pain.” Asa nuzzled my neck, shoving the dagger in deeper and twisting it. “I really was fond of you once, Phoenix. But this is what happens to little pups who bite the hand that feeds them.”
I need to get away from him.
Thinking of the first place that came to mind, I teleported from the throne room. The scenery around me shifted to tall trees with leaves that were on the cusp of changing. I lay below the branches, my hands shaking as I placed them over the dagger’s hilt. It was dark. Early morning if I had to guess. A time when the world slept, the sun not yet risen.
A sea breeze caressed my cheeks.
I had teleported to the forest in Echo Bay. The same place Bellamy had found me once. Sure, he’d kidnapped me and thrown me into a cage afterward, but it had been the start of the happiest days of my sorry excuse for an existence.
Almost poetic in a way for me to die there.
“I’m so stupid,” I said between wheezing breaths. Had the blade pierced my lungs? Probably.
Trying to assassinate Asa was the dumbest idea I’d ever had. But despite the odds being stacked against me, I had tried to make things right.
And I’d failed.
“Don’t betray me, Nix. I won’t be able to handle it if you do. It’ll break me.”
A cry escaped my lips. Though unintentionally, I had hurt the man I loved. Betrayed him. I deserved to be in pain. However, my wound didn’t hurt much anymore. My system was going into shock.
The dagger was the one Bellamy had given me, made of celestial steel. My powers didn’t work on it just like theirs didn’t. I couldn’t heal myself.
As the flapping of wings filled the air, I opened my eyes. I hadn’t realized they’d closed. Black feathers with shades of royal blue.
My eyes shut again.
“What did you do?” a familiar voice roared from above me. An arm slipped beneath my neck while another went under my legs. Something soft pressed to my forehead. “Goddammit, Nix. If you die, I’ll never forgive you.”
I knew his voice.
I knew his touch.
And then, I only knew darkness.
***
Something burned nearby. The stench made me crinkle my nose.
