Page 57 of Fate & Monsters
A primal roar sundered the air.
A flash of pain twisted across Mavros’s expression. He snarled, staggering back and clutching his side. The mage jerked his arms back, revealing the sticky, dark blood coating his blade. And a rose of red bloomed under Mavros’s fingers.
Relentless, driven, the mage advanced. He pressed forward with the tenacity of a man reaching the cusp of victory. Steel sang as his blade arched.
Mavros twisted away, his hulking form hunched and his breathing ragged.
“You bleed like all the rest,” the mage said, voice sibilant and sure. The calm assurance of his triumph chilled me. “Beast or man, it doesn’t matter. You will die like all the others who stood in my way.”
Mavros readjusted his sword even as he staggered. His face scrunched into an unheard growl, and his eyes blazed with fierce determination despite his hand staunching the blood flowing through his fingers.
The red-stained hunter, the same terrifying phantom I’d seen lurking in my dreams, stalked toward the beast prince like a patron saint of savagery. “You cannot keep the air spirit from me. She must die like all the rest.” He raised his sword, and lightning flashed across the black sky. “And you belongin a grave, as well.”
Mavros flashed a vicious grin at the mage. Even exhausted and bleeding, he rose to meet the wizard’s challenge. Agony and fury radiated off him in palpable waves that sprung tears to my eyes. My heart skipped when he growled. “If it keeps you away from her, I’ll take you with me.”
With a half-roar, half-howl, the beast prince launched himself forward. He slammed into the Crimson Mage with a bone-rattling force. The power of it drove them backward, allowing Mavros to pin the wizard into a pillar. With the wind knocked from the mage’s lungs, Mavros stole the moment to slash his claws down the man’s face. When he screamed, the beast wrenched the sword from the wizard’s hand.
“You filthy fucking creature!” the hunter spat, pushing to grapple Mavros with a pulse of magic sparkling like cursed rubies. “I’ll skin you alive and wear your coat as a trophy! I’ll make you watch as I gut the sylph before killing you!”
They fell together in a flurry of blood and sizzling red. Magic fizzled and hissed while Mavros growled and launched himself at the faltering mage. The wizard’s obscene obsession with mythical creatures, with me, was met head on with something pure and bright.
“You think you can take her? Take what’s mine?” Mavros bellowed as he dug his claws into the man. “You don’t deserve to breathe the same air as her, to look at her, to exist in thesame realm as her.”
The human soldiers were all dead, dying, or fleeing. The Inferni were feasting on them. Gorging on warm flesh, guzzling on blood like the finest of wines, supping on the viscera and sinew of mortals. Gore coated their snouts and slavering maws, scraps of flesh clung to the sharp teeth in their mouths, their eyes gleamed with bloodlust and slaughter. They cracked bones and sucked down marrow, wrenched open ribcages to feast on fleshy intestines. The sounds escaped me, all of it fading as my focus zeroed in on Mavros and the Crimson Mage locked in a culminating moment of kill or be killed.
“You’re just a beast!” the mage spat, gagging around the claws choking him. “You’ll never deserve her!”
Mavros hesitated. Time slowed. He inhaled and all the tension in his body seemed to gather and flow outward on his exhale. “No, but I’ll live to worship her. And that’s more than you can say.”
He thrust his claws into the man’s face. I sucked in a startled gasp, clapping my hands over my mouth. My knees wobbled, yet I remained as unmoving as stone, watching as Mavros sunk his claws into the mage’s skin. And he screamed.
Oh, how he screamed.
How he thrashed.
A dying thing caught in a trap.
I felt no remorse, only unease at the nauseating display.But I watched.
I had to.
Claws peeled back skin, ripped through flesh. His large palm covered the man’s mouth and nose, muffling his cries. Then he pushed and crushed. Bone shattered and eyes bulged. The beast prince shoved through his skull with a sickening, squelching crunch.
The scent of blood hung heavy in the air, mingling with the acrid tang of smoke from the battlefield. The wind stilled, and the clouds sighed. An ominous hush blanketed the courtyard. The Inferni paused their feast, heads raising, chins dripping red, and their glowing eyes found their lord and master standing victorious. Then leaning, falling, collapsing.
He crumpled like a puppet whose strings were cut.
I rushed to him, stumbling as I pushed through the chaos. I reached him and fell to my knees at his side. His breathing was shallow, the rise and fall of his chest so faint I barely felt it beneath my trembling fingers. His blood coated my hands as I pressed them to his wounds, trying to stop the flow. But it was no use. This was worse than last time.
So much worse.
His eyes fluttered open, still glowing like fire, still burning for me.
“It’s over, sweet creature,” he whispered. “You’re safe now.”
“Mavros,” I whispered, my voice trembling. I ran my hands all over him. He flinched butdidn’t pull away. His golden eyes met mine, still harboring a fierceness that made my heart ache.
“I told you I’d be his death. And I told you I’d protect you,” he murmured, his voice hoarse, barely audible. “I was right.”
