Page 101 of Nyx
Caged.
We’re outnumbered and overpowered, and they advance on their prize. Reyes lunges at the first to get too close, slicing their wrist open as they hiss and jerk backwards.
They aren’t laughing now.
They touch him, knocking his blade to the ground and grabbing his wrists as they force his body against theirs. My flower. Mymate, mylove, mine. He’smine,and they can’t have him.
They can’thave him.
I won’t allow it.
My vocal cords ache, and I realize I’m screaming. Magic rampages uncontrolled through my veins, violent and vicious anddemanding. Its thorns scrape against myheart and coil around my bones, but I’m not the victim of its wrath. It consumes me until I think I might burst with it, tearing my insides to pieces and feasting on their fears. I don’t fight it.
And in this moment, I understand.
The reason I could never fully heal.
I invite the magic inside,surrender,and let my broken fragments shatter to make room for its fury. Muscles shred and bones splinter as it fills the crevices this life has left behind. It permeates every fractured chasm within this beaten body, and for that fleeting moment, I am whole.
I am complete.
They’re laughing again as I fall to my knees and push my fingers into the earth, calling on her strength as the magic rips me apart. Louder and louder I scream, and my body rattles all the way to my bones as I watch Reyes fight their hold, his eyes wide and terrified as they land on mine. Sounds disappear as my ears fill with the insistent song, and I release my tether to reality.
The world is silent.
And I am weightless.
Reyes
Neverhasaheartbroken so completely as mine does in this moment. Nyx falls to his knees, and my fear holds time captive. The world slows to a crawl as I fight the insistent grip of the monster who holds me. Nyx’s screams are deafening, and the sound is as terrifying as it is haunting. He’s so small there on the ground… too small to be the vessel for such fury.
“What the fuck is he doing?” someone asks, and they laugh as Nyx’s gaze whips up to mine.
His hands are on the soil, fingers piercing the earth as the grass blades climb to weave shackles around his wrists. A blinding golden light explodes from inside him, as bright as staring straight into the sun. Rays of magic scald my eyes, so intense it feels as though they might rip him into pieces, but I won’t look away. Never from him.
“I love you,” I sob as he screams louder, impossibly louder, before everything happens at once.
Branches reach from their perch above us, and ivy whips from the grass, slithering leafy serpents that chase the soldiers as they shout in alarm. The one holding me cries out and shoves me away from him. They scatter as they try to run, but they don’t get far.
They aren’t allowed.
Roots lift from the earth, tripping them as they flee, and paths that were once clear are suddenly covered in thorny barricades. Those limbs and vines bind their wrists and ankles, securing them in place as they yell for help that will never come.
Time still moves in slow motion, and my heart roars in my ears, but I don’t waste a single second. Dirt kicks under my feet as I scramble to the soldiers closest to Ronan, and I dig in their pockets until I find the key to his chains. The moment his bindings are undone, he releases a roar that shakes the leaves and dashes to the nearest monster. I turn my head as he rips into their neck, but their blood sprays across the grass at my feet.
Nyx pours himself into the ground, his eyes closed and face to the sky as he screams in a never-ending breath. I need to go to him, need tohelphim, but I force myself to handle the immediate danger. Throats are slashed unceremoniously, and like the earth knows they’re no longer a threat to her servant, they’re released to collapse into piles as they die.
Mercy doesn’t live in these woods. It has no home here.
This once-peaceful forest becomes their tomb. By the time Ronan and I have finished our work, eight of them lie on the crimson-stained ground, and the metallic punchof their blood is thick and cloying in the air. Necks are torn open or sliced wide, and they’re either dead or dying. Death throes and gargling, begging moans are the only signs of life left among them, but even those are overpowered by the scream that echoes through the trees.
And then, the world falls silent and that light is extinguished.
“Nyx!” The word rips from my throat as he crumples, and I rush to where he lies unmoving on the forest floor. Flowers and tall grass surround him, too much like a gravesite as it shrouds his ashen skin. “Nyx, sweetheart, please,” I beg as I collapse beside him and scoop him into my arms. His body is limp, and he feels so small as I hold him against me. “Get up. Wake up… you have to wake up. You said you’d never leave. We promised, remember? We promised we’d stay together, always.” I press my ear to his chest, and another punch of breath leaves me when I find the heartbeat that drums behind it.
It’s faint, but it’s there.
He’s there.
