Page 18 of Ravaged By the Reaper
Not when theuniverse itselfis trying to hold her from me.
Rip.Tear.Roar.
“DO YOU HEAR ME?” I howl at the sealed chamber. “I’M NOT LEAVING WITHOUT YOU! I’LL RAZE THIS PLACE TO ASH!”
The metalbends.
I lean into it, teeth clenched, mouth flecked with blood from biting my own tongue. I taste iron and ozone. My eyes blur with fury, with need.
Through the crack… her scream. Faint. Muffled. Buthers.
It hits me like a slug round to the heart.
My legs buckle. I drop to one knee, fist pounding the ground.
“I hear you,” I whisper, throat raw. “Ihearyou…”
Everything else—soldiers, alarms, consequences—disappears.
I rise, dripping sweat and blood, claws out, eyes blazing.
This isn’t about fate anymore.
This is war.
And nothing—not orders, not gods, not even the stars—will keep me from what’s mine.
CHAPTER 5
AMARA
Something inside the stationrips open—not a tremor, not a blast, but a full-bodyrupture.The kind that grabs your spine and tries to pull it out through your teeth.
Metal shrieks. The walls tremble like they’re about to give birth to a black hole. My back arches in reflex. Pain howls through every raw nerve ending. But Idon’t scream.I grit my teeth and slice—blade in one trembling hand, the stolen knife still slick with Malem’s blood.
The restraintssnap. My wrist jerks free, then the next, and then I’m rolling off the table like a drunk at last call—except there’s no floor beneath me. Just light and pain and ringing ears and thatthinglying beside me.
Its twitching slows.
I glance over. The octo-bastard that’s been feeding on my brain—its limbs shudder and curl inward, its pale underbelly blooming with cracks. A hiss escapes its translucent sack of a body, and thick, black fluid burbles out from somewhere beneath the skin.
My stomach flips. My hand slaps over my mouth before I can vomit, but the burn of bile claws up anyway.
That goo—whatever’s in it—smells like battery acid and corpse flowers. It splatters over my calves, leaving a slick warmth behind. My legs are trembling, bruised from the straps. My hair’s stuck to my face with blood, sweat, and gods know what else. But I’mfree.
Barely.
I push myself up on one knee, gasping. Vision’s swimming. My head’s ringing like a cracked bell. My whole body feels like someone’s been playing my organs like a percussion instrument for hours.
Still.
I stand.
Not because it’s easy—but because it’sme. Amara fucking Destrier. I didn’t spend my life dancing for princes and dictators just to die here in a concrete coffin.
The lights flicker. Red pulses roll down the corridor. Some automated alarm squawks overhead in a language I don’t understand, filtered through grainy speakers like a voice coming through a storm. But the meaning is obvious: Evacuate. Breach. Breach.
Something’s happening.Something big.
