Zyion stepped back, freeing himself of the blade, then just managed to lift his blade to defend himself as Knox brought his sword down. Horror tore through my mind as Zyion tried to regain his footing with angry, deafening blows colliding against his blade. The moment Zyion was on his feet, Knox knocked Zyion’s blade aside with a downward sweep of his own.
As if the sky heard and felt the horror unfolding beneath it, it released a deluge of rain. A lightning bolt ripped across the darkened space above us, then forked as it spread out in several directions. A white light filled the scene, even as a sharp crack of thunder followed behind the flashing light. Several more bolts shot like arrows throughout the night skies, one after another. Thunder mirrored the beat of a war drum as the world went still around us.
Knox brought his blade down with lethal accuracy. A cry of frustration tore from my lips as I sent my magic toward both men, sending them soaring backward and away from one another. Both men collided with the murky, wet ground. Only, Zyion didn’t get up as quickly as Knox, who wasn’t the type to ever stay down.
Knox planted his palms against the earthen floor and pushed up with practiced strength, throwing himself back onto his feet with the gracefulness of a cat. Then he glanced at Zyion, who was searching the area for any sign of Knox, and looked back at me with fear. Knox’s head turned, following Zyion’s stare until it landed on me. The moment it did, horror gripped my heart, working to rip it free of my chest. One step toward me, then another. My footsteps mirrored each step he took forward. My lips parted to issue a warning, but no sound escaped past the knot swelled in my throat as a vicious smile twisted over his mouth.
“Aria, run!” Zyion snarled, which jerked me from the shock of what was unfolding.
Knox was going to catch me. Hecate would then force him to end my life, right along with the lives of his unborn children. Adrenaline shot through my veins, forcing a surge of desperation to bite into my mind. Turning on my heel, I shot toward the dense forest.
Chapter Thirty-One
Aria
The entire forest seemed to come alive the moment I entered it in a dead run. As if the storm felt my battling emotions, it hammered down on the entire wooded lands. The air shook with loud rumbling as branches persistently snapped beneath my feet. An earthy scent of pine needles, dampened earth and moist timber battled against my senses. A bolt of lightning shot straight down, crashing into a tree in front of me. The branch it hit clattered to the forest floor, seconds before the entire tree shook against another crackling bolt of violet light. Another explosion sounded behind me, forcing the entire forest to shake.
My legs pumped hard as I flew across the forest, knowing that if I stopped, he’d kill me. Zyion hadn’t been able to back him into the salt circle, which wouldn’t have held anyway. Not with the rain washing it away as it melted the grains. The only light offered within the dense pines, was bolt after bolt of vivid lightning that mirrored camera flashes.
A dead tree blocked the path, forcing me to veer to the right. I caught sight of Knox, alarmingly close behind me. Ember’s warmth spread through me, and my legs pumped faster, harder to put distance between us and him. In the darkness, I struggled to distinguish between the escape path and any barriers that were in my way. I didn’t dare stop to attempt opening a portal, not with Knox so close on my heels.
I rushed over a hill and hit a slick patch of mud that took my feet out from under me, sending me head over feet and pain tearing through my body. I spun incessantly, crashing violently with boulders, tree limbs, and other debris as I rolled down the steep incline at a terrifying speed. My head smashed into a sharp rock jutting up from the muddied ground, which caused a desperate shriek to rip from my lungs. The worst part was that every roll revealed Knox rushing down the sharp incline on sure-footed steps.
The moment I reached the bottom, my back slammed against something sharp, sending searing pain down my spine, burning the entire length down to the tips of my toes. Raw agony wrenched through every fiber of my being, as a metallic taste filled my mouth. Forcing my limbs to work, it felt as if I were being dragged up from a grave instead of the hazardously treacherous ground.
“Ember!”
“On it,” she whispered, then shot energy to each limb, forcing the raw, undiluted adrenaline to fuel my body. “I can’t take control!” she snarled, panic tearing through her voice as black dots filled my vision. “Run, now!” Her terror shot through me, forcing me to burst into a sprint as the sound of branches snapped right behind me. “Something is stopping me from being able to force your control to yield to mine.”
“Come on, Aria. Let’s fucking play,” Knox taunted. His words sent a silent scream bubbling to my lips, but it never broke free. “I want to hear just how pretty you sing choking on my fucking knot, slut!”
Tears pricked my eyes, blurring my vision. Fiery agony burned the muscles of my thighs. Every breath was a struggle to draw, and pain pulsed through my side, letting me know at least one of my ribs had snapped. Anguish sparked in my skull, the center of pressure expanding like a spider web as it stretched across my skull, firing down my neck and spine.
“Faster. You’ve got to fucking move faster, Aria!” Ember’s scream forced me to pick up speed, even as she forced an inhuman burst of speed to tear through me.
Calming my mind, I whispered the incantation for the dead army to rise. The sound of fists pushing up through the ground began resonating thru the area behind me. Sending a signal, I imposed the necessity for them to slow the predator who was relentlessly hunting me. Hindering his ability to reach me. The sound of something being sent sailing through the air forced confusion to flutter through my mind, until the lifeless body of a man slammed into the tree in front of me.
Holy fuck!
Knox was throwing bodies of the dead at me! Another crashed into a tree a few steps ahead of me, and I leaped over it, darting between the trees as the sound of another flowed into my ears. The odor of coppery tang coming from my wounds sent worry of how badly I’d hurt myself, humming to my brain. Spinning at the sound of something coming toward me fast, I ducked right as a decapitated head whizzed past.
Knox’s eyes held mine as he gripped the edge of his shirt, peeling it up from his chest and then over his head. Prowling toward me, I watched the corpses rushing toward him, but where they’d been intended to hinder, they’d become his weapons as he plucked another head off as if he was picking a fucking flower. Nonchalantly, he stepped out of their reach. Tossing one skull in his hand, he pulled his arm back and sent it forcefully toward me. I evaded it, finding it narrowly missed its target, my breath, jagged puffs of air that stung my lungs.
Rain persistently pelted my heated flesh, shocking with its icy-cold chill that weighed me down. Searching the surrounding area in the darkened woods, I didn’t see any of the others within sight. Panic surged through my psyche, realizing I’d ended up rushing in the opposite direction from the abandoned town. In my urgency to escape capture, I’d ended up tumbling down the hill, losing the ability to discern which way to run. A frightening awareness of being lost in the woods with Knox, who wanted to murder me, sent paralyzing fear to my mind.
“Did you make him the same promises you made me?” he asked, as his head angled to the side, studying my face. He tossed the skull in his hand, as if it were a ball and not a bodiless head. “See, I thought you were falling in love with me. You made me think it so effortlessly. Didn’t you? Those lethal, enchanting lips of yours spew nothing but vitriol and empty promises when they flap. Hell, maybe after I’ve finished using the others, I’ll rip those pretty pink lips off and shove them into that ravenous cunt of yours. Would you like that?”