Page 70 of Hex
From the corner of my eye, I see the asshole we originally came here to kill trying to grab my chosen. By the time I swing around, he’s got a knife pushed into her kidney and all reason flies out of my head.
Grabbing him by the hair, I slam him against the nearest wall, making a hole big enough for my pumpkin head to fit through.
“You, motherfucker, are going to die.” My mouth doesn’t move, but my words are clear.
“If you kill me, you won’t get your answers.” At this point, I’ll take my chances with other sources. He can’t be the only one involved. After all, there were other species attacking us.
Reaching back into my quiver, I pull out an arrow, and instead of using my bow, I bend his neck at an awkward angle and bring down the tip against his skin. My goal is to pierce him, over and over again, just for thinking he could harm my Sage, a-fucking-gain. The fact he actually succeeded in touching her, in making her bleed, makes me mental.
“No!” Sage’s hand slaps against my wrist just as the arrow punctures the professor’s throat, causing not nearly enough pain or damage.
“What the fuck, Sage?”
“He’s mine! You promised!”
Using every ounce of control I possess, I fight the overwhelming urge to dig the arrow so deep into his flesh that it’ll burn him from the inside. Nephilim are deathly allergic tolamb’s blood but I don’t have that shit on me. Thankfully, they can die just like any other anthros, so that’s a plus.
“He stabbed you.” My words are spoken slowly with ravenous hatred.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fucking fine.I’mnot fucking fine, Sage.”
“Please, Zelos.” Not relenting a single inch, I close my eyes at the sound of my given name on her lips and curse my love for her because it’s going to make what I’m about to do so much worse.
“I’m sorry.” Just as I plunge my arrow into his throat, pushing it all the way down until it punctures right through the middle of his heart, I hear the commotion behind me. I don’t have to look, I know it’s my brothers.
“Hack! Nooooo!”
When life escapes him and his breath is no more, my body gives up and turns from demon to anthros, collapsing to the floor and lying beside the piece of shit that made our lives miserable. The gaping hole in my abdomen is difficult to ignore, but the pain isn’t from that. It’s from my betrayal and my lack of control.
“I’m sorry,” I repeat, my eyes focused only on Sage’s beautiful face, and the last thing I see when my eyes can no longer stay open are the twin rivers of tears falling over her cheeks and mouth. “I’m sorry.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sage
Pain. It overrides everything else happening around me—and that isn’t because of the knife wound in my kidney. The sharp stabbing feeling of my body healing itself, stitching itself back together, was nothing compared to the sight of Hack’s pale skin, to the blood coating the floor around his crumpled form.
That image will stay with me forever.
Slash found me in the apartment building—full of charred bodies—draped over Hack and screaming. I don’t really know what happened after that. I either blacked out or he knocked me out. So I’m now lying beside my chosen in a bedroom that belongs to the king of demons, my palm pressed against his chest so I can feel his heartbeat. It’s slower than usual, but it’s there.
It’s been a whole two days and he still hasn’t woken, the wound still needing to be regularly cleaned with some kind of elixir that apparently only Samhain has access to. Although, his ownership of said elixir is to be kept strictly under wraps because he stole it from a stupid fucking angel five-hundred years ago—his words.
The blade that sliced Hack was laced with itherium, which is healable with Drakethorne Volcano Dust, but the fact that it was on angel steel makes it doubly lethal to demons. My demon, in particular.
If I hadn’t already killed every fucker in that building, I’d do it again. And again, and again. I’m well aware that it’s wrong to kill people, but these aren’t people. They’re kyn. Death and destruction is the way they deal with conflict, so after just over a week into being one of them, I’m embracing my nature.
I’m beneath the covers with Hack, my heart breaking every time I dare to open my eyes and he isn’t there, staring right back at me. Slash brought over a stash of Hack’s clothes at my request. Not for my chosen, but for me. Leaving his side to use the bathroom almost had me pissing my own pants yesterday. I couldn’t bear to be separated from him. Wearing his clothes isn’t a replacement, but it’s better than nothing.
The scent of him still lingers in each molecule of the fabrics, the weight of them comforting in the strangest of ways.
I don’t even flinch when the bedroom door slams open, Slash barging inside with a tray full of food and coffee—at least, that’s been his M.O. every time he’s come in over the last two days. He has forced me to consume his offerings, and while I could have refused, I don’t want Hack to wake up and find me in a withered away heap.
“Sage, you good with our boy for the next day or two?”
Thereisa tray, and I hear him put it on the dresser at the foot of the bed. I also note the lack of a nickname. He rarely uses my given name.
