"Adrian!" His name tears from my oxygen-starved lungs. "Stop! This isn't you—fight it!"
He advances with mechanical precision, each footstep crushing snow beneath expensive leather shoes. His hands—once gentle with ancient scrolls—now crackle with death magic. His eyes reflect nothing, twin voids where kindness once lived. Whatever command Lilith embedded runs deep—kill me or drag me back for her entertainment.
"Adrian..." My voice crackswith warning as I struggle upright. "Don't make me do this."
One blast will kill him.
Then realization hits like a thunderbolt—daylight, and Adrian's not burning. Seraphina's blood still flows in his veins.
I don't hesitate—I reach deep for that golden power, my birthright from Elysium, but where there should be warmth and radiance, I find only a void. Nothing. Not even a spark. Panic claws at my throat as I try again, desperately searching for that familiar glow, but there's…nothing. My power is gone.
Adrian advances closer, dark magic crackling around his fingers, and I can't access the one thing that could stop him.
A flash of gold streaks to my side. Seraphina's wings flare out protectively as pure celestial light erupts from her hands, slamming into Adrian's chest. The impact lifts him off his feet, his body arcing through the frigid air like a broken doll before crashing into the snow thirty yards away. He lies motionless, smoke rising from his chest where her divine light burned through his expensive fabric to the flesh beneath.
Holy shit. "Sera—"
Brax explodes through the doorway as Chris Hemsworth Thor, complete with flowing locks and Mjölnir.
"AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!" he bellows.
Lucian staggers out behind him, blood soaking his shirt. "You absolute thunder-stealing asshole!" he seethes. "We specifically discussed this—that was MY line!"
Erik and Bryn spill onto the battlefield next, moving in perfect sync despite their injuries. Erik's silver hair is matted with blood, Bryn's wings drag slightly in the snow, but her eyes burn with determination.
They launch into battle with lethal efficiency. Erik's sword, Grave Warden, slices through rotting limbs, leaving silver light in its wake. Beside him, Bryn's Valkyrie blade dances in lethal arcs, decapitating three corpses with a single sweep. Where Erik is precision, Bryn is fluid grace—together forming a whirlwind of destruction.
Seraphina takes to the air, wings fully unfurled. Divine radiance pulses from her palms in concentrated beams. Where her celestial light touches the undead, they disintegrate, the snow beneath them glittering with ash.
Relief floods through me atseeing them alive—though I swear I'm going to shove that Iron Man helmet down Lucian's throat when this is over. Only these idiots could turn an apocalyptic battle into a Marvel moment.
Across the battlefield, Brax abandons his Thor cosplay. The handsome facade melts away, revealing the nightmare beneath—obsidian skin cracked with pulsing ember lines, massive horns curving like a crown of darkness. Against the pristine snow, he stands as a monument to primal terror.
His chest expands impossibly before he unleashes apocalyptic fury. Blood-red flame erupts from his blackened lips, cutting through the morning frost like a laser. The temperature spikes as his hellfire carves a smoldering trench through the advancing horde.
My jaw drops as Brax sweeps dragon-like breath in devastating arcs, each blast melting perfect semicircles in the snow. The heat blisters my face from twenty feet away as another wave reduces Morgan's puppets to cinders.
I've never imagined this sarcastic, Marvel-obsessed demon possessed such devastating force. This creature commands elemental destruction, moving with terrifying purpose as blackened bones crumble to the earth.
I sprint toward Rhyland, heart pounding. My fingers almost brush his arm—
Then the world tilts violently. His hand shoots out, familiar strength now turned against me. My body hurdles backward, snow and sky spinning until impact, shooting pain straight to my ribs.
What the fuck? The man who'd held me so tenderly this morning just threw me like garbage.
Morgan's laughter carries across the lawn, a reminder that the man I love is trapped behind those vacant eyes.
"He's not going anywhere," Morgan's says with satisfaction, each word a poisoned dagger.
Before anyone can react, darkness coalesces beside Rhyland—a writhing mass of shadow and smoke solidifying into Lilith's elegant form. Her red lips curve triumphantly as she wraps possessive fingers around his arm. Morgan materializes next to her, stepping into Lilith's expanding shadow.
Lilith's gaze finds mine across the devastation, eyes glittering with malice.
"Merry Christmas, darling," she purrs. "I do hope you like my gift of loneliness. It suits you."
Then they dissolve together—Lilith, Morgan, and the love of my life—swallowed by a void of swirling darkness that dissipates like ink in water, leaving nothing but empty space where my world stood seconds before.
No.
