He doesn’t get the chance, and neither do I.
His body is ripped away from mine by a huge pair of jaws, the shadows of Azrael twisting and shifting until he has Davies pinned to the ground. Davies thrashes against him, but there’s no fighting the Dravens’ shadows, hundreds have tried and failed already.
Then Nox appears through the darkness, clear as day to my shifted eyes. He looks like Death himself standing there. His eyes touch over the bruise forming on my cheek, and it’s game over for Davies.
I want to weep with relief.
“If you think killing me is going to end this, you’re fucking stupid, Draven!”
“I don’t want you to die. I want you screaming,” Nox says, his voice wavering as his bond fights to the surface. “She gave the power away, but that’s okay. I have it. I’ll take care of this with fucking pleasure. Who would’ve thought these demons of mine would come in handy?”
Davies’ mouth opens wide, flapping like a fish out of water, but Nox’s eyes are soulless voids as he unleashes the Madness onto him. The last gift his mother ever gave him is the one he wields now to protect his Bonded, the real one, that was made for him.
The one who followed him to the edge of the afterlife and called him back onto this plane of existence, who loves him as sure as the sun itself.
He breaks Davies open again and again, and none of my other Bonded moves to stop him. No, even North stands there and watches my torturer die a slow, painful, and terrifying death, locked in his own mind as his body shuts down out of pure terror.
At the last moment, Nox’s bond offers Davies’ soul to mine.
A gift of power, if I choose to consume it.
I seriously consider it and the poetic justice of taking his power away and into myself. In the end, I don’t want the stain of that man touching me ever again, not even his soul being filtered through to me. I let it go instead, watching with my void eyes as it disappears into nothingness. The man who haunted my every waking minute, the monster in all of my worst nightmares, is dead.
Nox Draven killed him for me.
I deflate like a goddamned balloon, all but collapsing onto the ground. I don’t cry, not even tears of joy, but there’s an ache in my chest that might be relief, or maybe it’s just a physical pain, because we fought for our lives today.
It’s anyone’s guess, really.
Nox steps over Davies’ body. I’m expecting him to stand by me, maybe offer me a hand up. Instead, he drops down to wrap his arms around my shoulders and draws me into his chest. The breath he lets out is shaky, but the beat of his heart is steady and sure.
There was never a question in my mind about him, not about what he’d be willing to do for me today and definitely not what he’d do for his family. To finish the fight and have him here, alive and unharmed, is all I could ever hope for.
We’re all alive.
North comes over to stand by us both, and Nox eventually stands, pulling me with him, and then he pushes me into his brother’s arms. North cups my face in his big palms and presses our foreheads together as he checks in with me.
I pull away to survey the area around us. The smoke is still thick in the air around us, choking me until I’m a coughing mess. It wasn’t so bad while we were fighting, but now that my mind isn’t focused on our survival, I feel as though I’m being suffocated by it.
As I look out towards the burning tents, I squint a little, blinking rapidly in an attempt to clear my eyes, but nothing I do changes what I’m seeing.
Senator Oldham.
The non-Gifted, pain-in-North’s-ass senator is just… standing in the middle of the war-torn camp as though it’s a regular Tuesday morning for her.
Gryphon frowns at the look on my face, turning to see what has me so messed up. When he gets an eyeful of the woman there, he shifts on his feet, his hand coming down to rest over his gun. North glances over his shoulder as well, shock sliding across his features unchecked, and Nox steps up to my side with a scowl. Atlas and Gabe both glance around, unsure of what’s so concerning about this small, unassuming woman, but they trust us all enough to switch on to high alert.
She shakes her head at us gently, her voice quiet but firm and easily heard. “Well, well. I wasn’t expecting you all to survive Davies’ psychosis. I was sure he’d get the god-bond out of the little girl. Such a shame that I’ll have to finish what he failed to do.”
Then her eyes shift to the black god-voids.
I know nothing but pain as the darkness takes me.