Or mercy.
His choice.
Finally, completely, his choice.
I open my eyes.
The world returns with the particular violence of senses that have been temporarily abandoned—light and heat and sound all crashing back into awareness simultaneously. The hellhoundfills my vision, all three heads still oriented toward me, the fireball still building toward the release that will either destroy me or...
Or something else.
Something he chooses.
I watch.
His screech echoes across the volcanic landscape—sound that carries rage and pain and something else, something that might be recognition, might be response to the message I sent through bonds that connect us regardless of what form either of us wears.
And he shoots.
The blaze launches straight toward me.
Hellfire condensed into projectile form, destruction given trajectory, power that could obliterate the gates and me and probably everything within a significant radius if I'm being honest about the forces involved.
It comes for me.
And I don't move.
Don't flinch.
Don't try to dodge.
Don't break the connection that I've established through trust and vulnerability and the particular gamble of believing that somewhere beneath the monster, my bond mate still exists.
The fire fills my vision.
Heat that should be unbearable, light that should be blinding, power that should be destroying me with every passing microsecond.
But I stand still.
Because this isn't about surviving the attack.
It's about whether he chooses to let the attack destroy me.
Whether the trust I extended finds purchase in whatever remains of Damien's consciousness beneath the hellhound's fury.
Whether redemption is possible for someone who has been cursed and used and turned into a weapon against his will.
Redemption and judgment will determine our fate.
CHAPTER 21
Silent Sacrifice
~DAMIEN~
Destroy.
The urge plummets through me with force that transcends conscious thought—instinct so primal that resistance feels like trying to hold back an avalanche with bare hands. Every fiber of this monstrous form screams for release, for the satisfaction of watching that gleaming gate dissolve into slag and ruin, for the particular pleasure that destruction provides when you've been built for nothing else.
