Thessia used the distraction to run toward one of the other exits, but Dimri didn’t have to say anything for his team to act.Vex and Senna moved to block her, with Vex grinning like a loon, which was a little scary when one didn’t know him, considering the length of his fangs.Thessia was trapped, and she knew it.
The other two demons were looking around the room, probably weighing their options.Dimri would only give them two.“You can either die or surrender,” he said as he leaned down to take his knife out of the first demon’s throat.He cleaned it on the demon’s shirt, but he didn’t put it back in its sheath yet.
“You’ll kill me either way,” Thessia said.She raised her weapon higher, but her arm was trembling.
She launched herself toward Dimri without warning.He should have expected it or at least planned for it, but he hadn’t, and she took him by surprise.Her knife sank into the gap between two of his ribs, even though he twisted aside.He wasn’t fast enough.Pain flared, hot and instant.
Thessia was better than he’d expected.When Dimri’s team moved to stop her, she managed to twist out of their grasp and ran toward one of the tunnels.He grabbed her arm, but she cut him on the forearm, then on the thigh, before he let go.She didn’t matter so much that he’d risk his life to stop her.
Vex, cut off Thessia’s escape route.She turned, but Thale was standing on her right, so she could only go left, which was where she’d come from.Dimri was waiting for her this time.When she attempted to stab him in the heart, he grabbed her wrist with the hand he hadn’t pressed against the wound in his torso, squeezing and twisting so that her knife sank into his shoulder instead of killing him.The pain was excruciating, but he pushed all of it away as he focused on Thessia.She was close enough for him to kill.
So he did.
The knife he’d used earlier sank into her chest as if it was butter.Her eyes widened in shock, then went blank.Dimri had hit her in the heart, like she’d tried to do to him.She collapsed, and Dimri let go.He reached for the knife she’d left in his shoulder, but he was interrupted before he could take it out.
“How bad is it?”Keth asked.
“I’ll be fine.”Dimri gritted his teeth against the pain and looked around the room.The remaining two demons had been blocked and were being tied up.They wouldn’t be a problem anymore.“Find the explosives they were talking about.”
It didn’t take them long since someone had left all of them next to one of the support pillars.Senna stepped forward, a determined expression on her face.“Go.I’ll take care of these.”
Dimri wanted to argue, but he wanted to check in on Roque and take the knife out of his shoulder even more.“Vex, stay with her.Everyone else, with me, including our prisoners.”Berith would have questions for them once this mess was over.
They made their way back through the tunnels, Dimri leaning against Keth.He was losing quite a bit of blood.Roque wasn’t going to be happy when he saw him.
They didn’t make it.
An explosion rocked the ground under their feet and the walls.More dust rained over their heads, and Dimri glanced ahead at the exit of the tunnel.They’d been so close that he could feel the fresh air on his skin, dammit.
He was propelled forward.He yelped, not having expected it, but as he turned toward Keth, the ceiling came down between them.Dimri stumbled onto something and fell out of the exit, barely catching himself on the wall.He screamed when the movement caused the knife in his shoulder to be torn out of his flesh.
Thatreallyhurt.
Dimri’s shoulder felt like it was on fire, and his leg folded under him.He managed to press his back against the wall and slide down, breathing out only once his ass was firmly on the stone floor.
He looked back at the entrance of the tunnels, but it was gone, and with it, Dimri’s team.
* * * *
BERITH’S NEXT ATTACKwas fast and desperate.Despite the blood dripping from the wound in his chest and the pain of his broken rib, he moved faster than Roque had expected him to.His sword moved up, caught Ramiel off-guard, sliced him in the chest, and made him stumble back.
Roque held his breath.Berith might be hurt, but he hadn’t been defeated yet.
“Impossible,” Ramiel snarled, but Roque could hear the doubt creeping into his voice.
They circled each other again, but something had changed.Ramiel was not as confident as he had been before, almost as if he’d expected Berith to surrender as soon as he’d gotten hurt, maybe beg for his life.He didn’t understand that Berith would die rather than let Ramiel anywhere near his family.
That didn’t stop him, though.He raised his sword, then swung it down, aiming for Berith’s head.Berith stepped aside with a grimace of pain.He seemed to stumble and fell on his knee, but before Roque could even think of stepping forward to help him, he thrust his sword forward and up, finding a gap in Ramiel’s guard.It was the same kind of wound Ramiel had inflicted on him, but this one was much deeper, and with Berith’s angle and the force he put in the movement, his blade had to reach Ramiel’s heart.
Ramiel’s eyes went wide.He looked down at the blade in his chest, then back up at Berith’s face.
“How?”he whispered.
“You’re strong, Ramiel.But I’ve been doing this longer, and I had more to lose.”He’d had everything to lose because to him, what mattered the most were the people he loved.
Ramiel swayed on his feet.His sword fell to the floor, the sound echoing in the silent throne room.Dark blood dripped from his lips as his legs gave out and he collapsed to his knees before tilting forward.
The only sound was Berith’s panting, but not for long.
