Page 112 of The Legacy of Ophelia
Not even a fucking mark.
I wrapped one arm back around Ophelia’s waist as I thought. Ihadhurt the Angel weeks ago. That scar stretching from his shoulder and across his torso like a jagged lightning bolt wasblatant on his bare chest, the fur cloak floating around him not obscuring it. Thorn hadbledwhen I attacked him with Cypherion’s scythe in the theater.
The Angel looped through the sky, his wings pounding and clouds rumbling around him. Dense dark-gray masses crackled, lighting streaking across the desert. Manic onyx eyes met mine, and that slicing stare confirmed he remembered exactly what I did to him.
“Hello again.” His cooing words purred along my bones in an unnatural, disgraceful way. Ghostly fingers clawed at my brain, tearing into the matter and trying to pry up my memories. Emotions. Thoughts.
I gripped those hands at the wrists and twisted. Fought. Tried to shove them off despite the panic gripping my chest at the familiarity of this fucking sensation.
My vision flashed between the skies above the deserts and a dimly lit tent.
Between Thorn and Aird.
My heart pounded, and my skin was clammy. Ophelia. She was so fucking warm and alive in front of me. She’d come for me then, despite my failure; she’d returned to me when I wasn’t able to save her, and she was here now.
Fighting off the Angel.
Fuck me to the Spirit Realm if I wasn’t going to fight by her side. To seal that vengeance together. Pulling my sword from my back, I gripped the cool hilt tightly, a surge of power rumbling from the steel into my arm.
And I prepared to take down an Angel.
Ophelia’s seraph power burned so brightly, I swore it tunneled into me, fueling my own movements and pushing back Thorn’s clawing Mindshaper magic enough that I could focus. Lightning sparked along my blade, the steel glinting and illuminating the gray skies.
Ophelia shot ropes of Angellight toward Thorn. The Angel twirled his hand through the air, lashing back with a roaring wind. A wall of scorching light flickered to life between us and Thorn to block the gale. Ophelia groaned as her magic strained, her wings tensing.
“Alabath!” I called over the wind. “We need to surprise him. Get on the offensive. He’s too wild to strategize and will just keep blasting us with power.” I tightened my grip on my sword as another pulse of power radiated up my arm.
“Any ideas how?” she panted.
As I considered, my gaze dropped to the sand thirty feet below.
“Oh, Damien’s fucking cock,” I forced out.
Echnid’s gorgons had arrived. Six of them, with bows pointed up at us, lethal black metal tips as dark as the tar pits in Banix’s valleys. Ophelia spotted them just as the first fired. Maintaining her shield against Thorn’s raging wind, she sent a single whip of light toward the sand, knocking the arrow off its path.
Dammit, I wished I had my own fucking bow and arrow. My sword would do nothing from here, and my dagger was in the sand below.
Thorn’s magic kept clawing at my mind, more as Ophelia’s light was stretched thin, less of a barrier around us.
When we were in the pleasure house and her power had reacted with her frustration, the light pulsed into me when I gripped her hand. Like I could relieve her of the pressure of it and channel it?—
Channel it.
I flipped my sword in my hand, relishing the hum of power shooting through the steel—the same as in the tar pits.
Thorn cackled again, thunder rumbling down my spine as those hands pried me apart. It took everything in me to fight himoff as I formed a plan. To cling to Ophelia’s light and body before me.
“I have an idea!” I called. Black-tipped arrows rained around us, the gorgons wild in their shots and Sapphire dodging them skillfully.
“Tell me what to do,” Ophelia gritted out as she sent another whip of seraph power at the gorgons. One hissed, jumping back as it struck her foot. Her hair was beginning to shift into venomous serpents.
“Keep Thorn distracted, and when I jump, drop the shield and shoot a bolt of his own light directly at my blade, okay,apeagna?”
“When youwhat?” she screamed, but I didn’t answer.
I lunged off Sapphire’s back, hurtling toward the Angel.
Ophelia shrieked and light exploded from her in every direction. The power of the Blackfyre ebbed through my blade, and a sharp bolt of lightning—of Ophelia’s Mindshaper ability—struck the steel perfectly as I swung down.
