“Aria, do it,” Killian demanded, his voice strained. “Knox wouldn’t want you to be a fucking martyr. Fight. Do what you do best and kill him!”
I couldn’t fight against him even if I wanted to do so. He’d taken all of my reserved magic, draining me until only a tiny whisper of it remained tethered in my center.
“Aria,” Siobhan whispered, kneeling down at eye level with me. “Bring it down. Remove the shield so we can do what you cannot bring yourself to do. Without you, everything is lost. We lose you. There’s no reason to keep fighting. Don’t let her take that from us. We need you as much as he does.”
Crawling over the wet, rain-soaked floor of the forest, I moaned as his booted foot slid beneath my belly, rolling me onto my back. Staring into the sightless, murky eyes, I exhaled, knowing it was coming. My chest rose and fell with the strenuous, quick gasps fighting to bring enough air into my lungs to form words.
“Knox, it’s Aria!” Killian cried, his hands singing against the barrier preventing him from intervening.
“Get up, Aria,” Zyion demanded. “Get the fuck up. You’re stronger than this. I know you are. Now fight back, damn it.”
It was better that way. Even better if he’d block them all from witnessing what he intended to do to me. Not that I’d get so lucky. He wasn’t fighting against Hecate’s control, not that I could tell through the blurriness of my vision. A shuddered breath left my lips, sending bubbled blood speckling against the pale flesh of my skin.
“I know who the fuck she is. Don’t worry, Killian. Once I’m done removing her heart, I’m coming for yours next. And you?” Knox pointed his finger toward Zyion. “You, I’m going to rip apart piece by fucking piece for touching her. She is mine.”
“I didn’t touch her!” he snarled, his eyes wide with helplessness as he watched Knox tipping his head back, smiling.
“Even so, you’ll both die screaming for me,” he purred in a raspy tenor.
“Get up! Aria, fucking move! Let Ember help you!”
“She can’t help her. Ember, like Lennox, is blocked until it pleases Hecate to release them from her hold. After all, she’s the queen now.”
What he’d said issued fear into my soul, carving through the sharp, unkind fingers of unconsciousness, reaching for my coherent mind, seeking to consume it with nothingness. Compelling my mind to clear, I forced my scent out, reaching for Lennox.
“Snuff” by Slipknot burst into the surrounding air, even as he stared down at me through eyes, bleeding blackness. The smile spreading over his mouth forced words to issue from mine.
“I love you, Knox. I’ll always love you. For this, I forgive you. Don’t carry the weight of my death with you. Let me go when you escape her hold. You will. I know deep inside of me that you’re going to beat her. Because you’re Knox. I know it’s hard right now, but eventually, you’ll win this fight. You’re my darkness, which allowed me to shine brighter because of it. As your queen, my job is to save you. Even if the cost is my life for yours. If you cannot sit in the light with me, then I’ll come into the darkness with you.”
“You’re not invited.” He laughed, but it was cold, merciless. Knox straddled my body, then sunk to his knees, trapping me between his powerful thighs. “It turns out that I don’t actually need your corpse. Hecate didn’t want you in our bed sharing it with us, Little Monster. Instead, she wants your heart as a symbol of my undying, endless devotion to the woman I love.” Holding up his fingers, lethal, back-tipped nails pushed thru his fingertips one by one. “Are you ready to sing for me?”
“You’ll only remove the storm, but you’ll never touch my chaos. In the end, Knox, we’re nothing more than stories. Some tragic, others formed from the sweetest lies, then the ones written about strength and courage against insurmountable odds. Ours, it’s going to be a tragic love story that will never die. Do you hear me? I will find you in this life, or the next. I’ll always come back to you. You are my sweetest ever-ending of cruelly savage, brutally endless eternal love. You are my evermore.” My breathing had become harsh, painful whispers of air as it fought to escape my lungs through the damage of my esophagus. “You fucking kill her. When you’re free and you’ve set the world ablaze with your fire, I want you to rip her fucking head off before you force her back inside that tomb.”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t come looking for me in any lifetime. It won’t end the way you want it to,” he hissed, then shoved his nails through the wall of my chest, burying them deeply into my flesh.
The world spun around us, even as a new, punishing ache flooded my chest with acid and fire, scolding my flesh. Every muscle seized at once, muscles, my lungs, soul-destroying pain as fingers clenched around my heart.
“Any last words?” Knox asked as Esme’s broken, heartrending sobs flitted through my ears.
“I forgive you for your broken, sharply-cutting edges. I love you, and that’ll never change. Not even in death,” I whispered around the blood flowing from the corner of my lips. “I’m coming for you, bitch. And then I’m coming to burn everything down until you’re nothing but a fucking rat seeking shelter in a trench—” A blinding light erupted, driving a shocked cry from my lips.
Everything around me faded, as the blinding glare compelled my eyes to close against its illuminating light. The world spun around me, as if they had forced it from its axis, and it was now careening toward a downward spiral. My lungs screeched from the dizzying agony. It caused black dots to flood my eyes, striking against the light burning around me. Numbness came upon me ever so slowly, pulling me deep into the freezing embrace of nothingness, far away from where the tormentingly hot, piercing blade of anguish could reach me.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Aria
Weightlessness filled my mind, body and soul. Consciousness refused to come, even as a scream of distress rang from my lips. I felt his claws in my chest, still. Had we died? Had he ended my life, then gone back to Hecate? My eyes refused to open, even as I cried, sobbing violently within my head.
Images of what had happened flashed through my mind, trickling through it on an endless, spiraling carousel played on a loop. Blood covered my face, my chest, Knox’s hands. The flash of blue before he’d pulled it out, stuck out among the other images. Had he fought her for me? Or had she merely allowed him to see my demise unfolding?
Voices whispered all around me, forcing me to fight the hold of the land. I needed to know what had happened to Knox. Why didn’t I hear him talking to the others? Where had he ended up? Fearful flames licked over my mind, consuming it as I fought to regain consciousness.
The sound of voices had my brain ticking, as if it were a clock. My vision was obscured by blurriness, as if I’d lost the ability to see. My brain struggled, as if it were misfiring. I felt free of the worry of dying, but did that mean I’d died?
An image slowly began forming in front of me. Something large, something with a halo around it. Fucking hell. I had died! My breathing was erratic, as if my chest hadn’t healed correctly, or maybe it hadn’t healed at all? Blinking frantically past the film covering over my eyes that blocked me from seeing or discerning what was in front of me, I gasped as the picture cleared.