Page 47 of Hex
A cerulean djinn with a dark-blue pixie cut steps forward, a little closer than the rest, and raises her hand. “It is I.”
“Speak freely,” I tell her, my vines ready to strike if need be.
“The prophecy calls upon you to destroy, and with the fenrir at your side, it is bound to come to fruition.”
Sage blinks, then turns to me, eyes wide and afraid. “What prophecy? Did you know about this?”
I don’t need to speak because she can see that I have no fucking clue what’s going on from the mere look on my face, no doubt.
Chapter Sixteen
Sage
“Time to die!”
A purple djinn wielding a really fucking shiny sword charges me, barely giving me a second to process the whole prophecy thing, and once again, all Hell breaks loose. Well, knowing what I do now…it should be more like all Kohrye breaks loose.
Harpies and djinn appear as if from nowhere, making the huge crowd larger still, and they’re all aiming for Hack and Pierce. They can’t get to me, I have somehow managed to form a protective barrier of sorts around myself, but they are circling me like I’m prey.
Vines are thrashing at the same time as bodies that now look like husks are falling. Both Pierce and Hack are using their abilities to help me and all it seems to be doing is causing more bodies to maneuver around. I swear, the living ones are multiplying.
“Sage, run!” Hack’s voice is loud and clear. “Get back to The Shade! Find the others.” The last few words are slightly muffled, but I hear him. I’m not going to do it, but I hear him.
These assholes…I told them that all I want is peace, like some fucking Miss World wannabe, and they’re insistent upon fighting. For what?
“There you are.”
I recognize that voice…and I thought I’d never hear it again.HopedI never would.
“Professor Dickwad.” I turn, coming face to face with the man I’m deeming responsible for taking my best friend. He’s just inside the circle of djinn, but he isn’t able to breach the supernatural white glow shaped like a dome surrounding me.
“Your protector looks busy. So it’s just you and me.” His sneer makes the fire in my veins burn brighter, every word grating against my skull.
“Where is Danika.” It’s not exactly a question, more like an order. A demand that he tells me right now. Because this all began with him taking her.
Or, at least it feels that way.
The sharp dagger in his hand catches the light of the pink sky and it glitters with his movements as he approaches my dome. He holds the weapon up high and rests the point against my protective barrier.
It’s keeping the kyn away from me, but I have no idea how to control it. So when a split appears as he slices the dagger downward, I panic a little.
“You’ll be with her soon.” With those words, he lunges for me, the djinn and harpies with him following suit, and I scream.
“Sage!” Hack’s roar of anger sounds desperate and I see his vines decapitating the kyn all around him as he tries to reach me.
The Fae’s Lanterns all around us lose their color and crumble to the now-blackened ground, more kyn dropping into ashes around them. Pierce is clutching at his stomach as he fights, his head devoid of all flesh and now just a skull with black depths of nothingness in place of his eyes.
Sharp claws tear at my arms as I flail, the kyn inside my dome now, and pain shoots through me, making my skin burn hotter than ever before. My vision blurs and I have no time to think, no time to wrack my brain for a calm solution, then I smell blood that makes my own boil with rage.
Hack has been cut, I don’t know where or how…I just know.
I can feel every hit against his flesh, every retaliatory blow he lands, the satisfaction that rolls through him with each head rolling to the ground.
Another slice of pain up my back is the last thing I remember…
“Sage…wake up. Come on.”
My eyelids are heavy, a little painful as I open them, but once I do, I blink a few times before focusing on the face above me.
