Page 77 of Cursed Dawn

"Get your spirits to surround this bastard," I yelled down to him, my heart skipping when a silver swarm of the dead appeared as if they heard my command. Lucifer must have held them back until now, but cold spread through me, sapping my energy as they swarmed.

Hopefully draining Cronus too.

I shook with the instinctive need to go to Wane, but I clenched my teeth and flew higher. He'd be fine with Lucifer. And he'd be a hell of a lot better when his abuser was dead at our feet.

Cronus laughed, the sound carving through my skull, down my throat, and into my chest.

Laugh all you want, asshole, you're dead.

"Shit." I flung myself out of the way when the titan's hand sliced down through the air, scattering the spirits. Oh, that wasn't a good sign.

I flew out of the path of his hand—and realised too fucking late that he wasn't making a grab for me.

Lucifer.

"No!" I flew hard, plummeting towards the devil, terror cutting off my air and making my wings tremble as I cut through the air, my arm outstretched in front of me. "Take my hand!"

Shadow magic shot the King of Hell into the sky away from Cronus's hand, and I exhaled a selfish breath of relief when the titan's attention followed him, drifting away from my unmoving mate.He's fine, Wane's fine. He's just—conserving energy. Yeah. That's it.

A feminine scream shattered the sky as I hovered in the air, power knocking the breath from my lungs and making my head pound harder.

Fuck, what wasthat?

I twisted, keeping Wane in my field of vision and marking Cronus's whereabouts at the same time I searched for this new—oh. Shit. Queen Lili.

Sympathy and pain arrowed through my chest. I knew that panic, knew that rage.

Wane was safely out of Cronus's sights for now—but Lucifer wasn't. And Lili loved him every bit as much as I loved my mates.

I better go to a nice place when I die for this,I thought, and shot up through the sky, slashing my daggers at every part of Cronus I passed, opening weeping slices that closed like paper cuts.

I better be made a damn saint.

Cronus's hand snapped out again, and Lucifer dropped in a plume of darkness, evading his grasp. But my heart skipped when I realised what was going to happen, what Lucifer couldn't see because he was too close to Cronus. The first swipe had been a distraction. Bait.

As fast as lightning, Cronus snatched the devil out of the sky with his other hand, and crushed him in his fist until the darkness faded to wisps around him. Panic made me unsteady at that obvious sign of Lucifer’s weakness.

Lili howled in rage—and blind terror. Bright magic filled the city. Pure power hung around the city, nearly dropping me from the sky. My heart pounding, I slashed at Cronus over and over.

If the king of gods didn’t stand a chance against Cronus, what made me think I did? Stupid—so fucking stupid.

But that didn't stop me lunging through the air, pumping my wings fast to reach Lucifer. The wind drove me back, and I screamed through gritted teeth. Cronus was doing this on purpose and—

He brought his hand to his mouth, unclenched his fist, and swallowed the devil whole.

Lili's cry made the whole mountain tremble, the force of her magic and grief ripping the ground apart.

I shook, reeling, unable to process the fact Lucifer wasdead.

Wane. I needed to get my mate out of here, needed to—

A giant foot swung into my side, fracturing my ribs, and I screamed as Cronus kicked me out of the sky.

I flung my wings and arms out on instinct, and some higher power must have been rooting for me because one of my daggers embedded in Cronus's shin, stopping my fall. I shrieked so loudly I heard the sound even over the furious storm of power, dangling there for a precarious moment before my wings remembered how to work.

Panting, my head spinning, I ripped the blade out and drove both of them into an unblemished patch of skin on his back, venting my anger and terror on him until blood covered my hands and my blades glowed. Light blasted from both my curse marks, and I grunted as I stabbed him over and over, flying higher in a panicked zigzag so he couldn't grab me.

I was supposed to be able to kill him, buthow?Why didn't this prophecy come with instructions, dammit? I jammed one blade into his throat, ripped it out, and sank the next into his cheek, ripping a gruesome hole.

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