I tumbled across the pitted pavement behind the grocery store, groaning when I landed on my back. My eyes pinched shut from the jolt of pain that rocked through my body.
The atmosphere simmered with evil, and my eyes peeled open to Ambrose standing over me. He turned the knife over, the blade pointed downward as he held it between both hands.
My heart was his target.
I knew it. The finality that gleamed in his eyes.
But the energy shifted, stirring through the air in a clamor of desperation. A thunder of footsteps raced up behind Ambrose, and Pax drove his shoulder into his ribs. The velocity knocked Ambrose to the side.
Pax’s eyes were wild when he saw me on the ground. “Aria.”
“Pax!” I shouted it when the other man lumbered up behind him. “Behind you!”
Pax whirled, ducking just in time to miss the fist that the man threw before he delivered a punch that knocked the monster onto his back.
I scrambled to my feet and ran toward Ambrose who’d spun back around and was coming for me.
We met in the middle, and I grabbed the wrist of his hand that still held the knife while a tussle of shouts and kicks and punches thudded behind us.
I begged my spirit to comply. For the light to gather in a way that it never had before. To become something great. The power Valeen had promised that I possessed.
It glowed and shined within me, and I gritted my teeth as I fought with everything I had to use it against Ambrose.
But on his face was a sneer. The amusement that I thought I could prevail.
Still, I tried to harness it and send it sailing into his being.
If it wasn’t enough, then how could I end him? Here? Was this all futile? Worthless?
I gasped and choked as I tried to push against him. To break the knife from his hold. Turn it against him. Hopelessness rolled through me. Even if I managed it, it likely wouldn’t do any good.
He was immortal.
A wave of strength rolled through me, and I managed to twist his wrist. Just a fraction. Away from me, and I turned it toward him.
His sneer turned to a snarl, and he pushed against the light.
Darkness enclosed, wrapping around me like the fiery tendrils of Kruen.
Pax was suddenly behind me, both hands planted on my back as if he was going to rip me away so he could stand in front of Ambrose.
Only the second he touched me, the light surged.
A shockwave that blistered through my hands in a burst of power.
The knife drove forward, and the blade plunged deep into Ambrose’s stomach.
It blew him off his feet and into the air, and the monster slammed into the wall of the grocery store. The cement blocks cracked and crumbled where he smashed against it.
He stumbled forward, dazed as he jerked the knife from his stomach.
Blood gushed from the wound, though it was a thick, sticky red. Like the wounds Pax and I woke up with after being burned in Faydor. Shocked, he stared down at it before he lifted his malicious gaze to me.
I was frozen in it.
This thing that felt like a crossroads.
We stayed that way for a prolonged beat before he suddenly turned and ran down the far side of the building, far faster than either Pax or I could run.
Our own shock held us there, our breaths panted and harsh as we tried to make sense of what had happened.
Then Pax was in front of me, begging, “Are you hurt?”
I could barely shake my head. “No. Are you?”
“No, I’m fine.” His palms flew to my cheeks, cupping them as he stared at me. “Fuck, Aria, I was so fuckin’ scared. When I turned around after grabbing that kid from the street and you weren’t there. Knew immediately what had happened.”
“I’m okay. I’m okay. I…”
I looked back to where Ambrose had disappeared before I turned back to him.
And that was the second we knew. When we understood what our connection meant.
How together we were stronger.
And in a flash, Pax’s mouth descended on mine, his kiss frantic as he twisted one hand up in my hair and clutched me against him with the other.
His mouth pressed and begged, his tongue stroking against mine in a bid of desperation.
Passion spiraled.
Speeding through our veins and whispering down into our souls.
Love and lust and every chain that had tried to hold us back.
He hoisted me up, and I wrapped my legs round his waist at the same time as I wound my arms around his neck.
I kissed him with the same fervency that he was kissing me.
The need that boiled between us urgent and acute.
He didn’t break the kiss as he stepped over the man who was knocked out, face down on the ground, and carried me around the side of the building.
His tongue sought and his spirit thrummed, while I breathed this new belief into his being. ...
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