Page 128 of Dawn of Chaos and Fury
Panic and anxiety settled in. Theon was powerful; Tessa was more so. Brecken knew this. If he was worried…
“Where are they?” Luka asked.
“I can take you,” Brecken said, glancing at Tana, who nodded. “But they will know I have been betraying them this entire time. I need to know I can leave with all of you.”
“Done,” Luka answered without hesitation. “Take us to them now.”
Within moments, Brecken Traveled the four of them to the edge of a lake, leaving Tana to finish with the Fae younglings.
“Well, this looks familiar,” Razik grumbled under his breath. He was already pulling his shirt over his head and summoning his wings. Glancing at Eliza, he added, “If I kill more than you, I win that sword.”
“Fuck off,” she scoffed, her elegant sword already in her hand with flames twisting around the blade. She was bouncing on her toes, and if he didn’t know for a fact she didn’t, he’d swear she had Sargon blood in her for as much as she liked to fight.
Razik reached over, tightening some of the straps on the leather armor she favored. “Because you know you’re going to lose?”
She shoved his hand away, grey eyes scanning the scene before them. “Theon and Tessa are by the edge of the lake,” she said, pointing in their direction, but Luka had spotted them the moment they’d appeared here.
Theon had Tessa shoved behind him. His darkness was a writhing swarm around him, shadow wings wide and flared. There were at least two dozen seraphs in the sky, which explained why Theon hadn’t hauled her up there. Where else was there to go?
“Why isn’t Tessa using her power?” Luka asked, that familiar adrenaline coursing through his body, preparing to fight and protect what was his.
“She’s drained. I don’t have time to explain,” Brecken said. “She needs to take, but her power is too drained to do anything.”
“So it’s just Theon?”
“Itwas,” the male drawled.
Everything around them seemed to still, as if even the world was holding its breath, and then it was chaos. Seraphs attacked from all sides, diving for Theon and Tessa as power and magic flared.
“Fuck,” Luka muttered, already running. Eliza was at his side, while Razik launched into the sky with Brecken, the male’s cream wings a stark contrast to Razik’s black ones.
“Keep them out of the sky as much as possible,” Eliza was yelling as they ran. “Only fire truly kills them. Mine. Yours. Doesn’t much matter. If you get ambushed, incapacitate them to keep them down. Snap wings. Slit throats. Cut off limbs. Knock them out. We can come back around and finish them off later. And for the love of Anala, don’t waste all your power right away. ”
Then she was jumping into the fray, that beautiful blade swinging. By the gods, she was every bit the war general they said she was. Not only that, her power was vast.
Wings went up in flames while her blade swiped through torsos. She ducked and flipped, trails of fire and blood left in her wake. Daggers of pure flame went before her, distracting her victims so she could come in from behind, and above them, her bonded was doing the same. Razik had shifted to his full dragon form, and seraphs became encased with dragon fire before becoming nothing at all.
He should be up there, doing the same, but not until he got to Theon and Tessa.
“Nylah! Roan! Now!”
Tessa’s cry carried to him above the din of battle, and something twisted in his gut at her crying out for her wolvesfor help instead of him. It only spurred him on faster, shoving seraphs aside, dodging attacks, and when all else failed, using a short sword he summoned to incapacitate them just as Eliza had said. It was stupid and went against all his training to be singularly focused on the two of them, but Theon was his Ward. Of course he was the priority. And Tessa was?—
Howls rent through the air, and seconds later the wolves appeared. One light and one dark. Growls sounded and jaws snapped, teeth sinking into wings and flesh as they moved towards Tessa.
And then there was Theon, his twin short swords in hand as his darkness devoured. He looked every bit of the dark god he descended from, all lethal grace and not letting a single seraph near Tessa. She had two of her daggers, but why the fuck wasn’t she using her bow?
Tessa spun suddenly, as if knowing he was there despite their fractured bond. Her eyes went wide, mouth parting slightly, and Luka was about to yell at her to look out.
But he didn’t need to.
She spun as the seraph with water magic appeared behind her, walking atop the water of the lake. Her golden hair was a wave behind her as one dagger went into the left side of his chest and the other went into the right side of his gut. She slid the blades, slicing wide, more than blood spilling from the body cavity, and then she lifted her leg, planting a bare foot in the center of his torso and shoving him back. Just like with her arrows, the seraph seemed suspended in time for a few seconds before he dissolved into the embers and ashes that were her power, slowly drifting and floating away in the water.
She was godsdamn magnificent, and he understood his brother’s fascination with his bonded on an entirely different level.
Roan appeared at her side, her fingers drifting into his fur and her eyes fluttering closed. Where had the wolves been before she called them? Why hadn’t they been with her this entire time?
He closed the last of the distance, saying fuck it and letting his power obliterate three seraphs with one mighty burst of black flames.
