Red dotted his vision and splashed against his jacket as he realized it was not rain that fell from the sky. No, she’d called forth the storm that raged in her veins and drenched the sands in the blood of every patron from Club Hel. The red droplets mixed with the spray of sea water and soaked her moonlit locks, staining them pink against the blazing storm on the horizon. It ran in rivulets down her face, dripping from her chin and streaming down the curve of her breasts.
Their ragged breaths mingled, each afraid to touch the other. Her skin pimpled as she stared into his eyes and that piercing neon glow dulled to a turbulent sea green, lashes fluttering against the bloody beads still dripping from her hair. “Brooks?” she whispered, her voice hoarse and broken.
His name upon her lips brought him to his knees.The Deathless God of Chaos knelt before his queen and, as the sky bled and the world burned around them, he knew he was where he belonged.
Xia reached a hand toward him just as her eyelids fluttered closed and her knees buckled. Brooks jumped forward to cushion her fall and cradled her limp body in his arms. When the winds died down and the sea calmed, her panicked words reached his ears. Her lips moved as she whispered unintelligibly, the storm around them fading with her consciousness.
“I can’t make it stop, Brooks. The demon inside… I can’t make her let go…”
He placed his cheek against hers and ran a soothing thumb across her jawline as Chaos bled from the shadows and held herfrom behind. His darkness whispered to hers and the storms calmed on the horizon. Brooks brought his lips to her ear and said, “It’s okay, Xia. Let go. You can fall… I will catch you.”
Nyx stood at the open cave mouth and watched the scene play out before her. Chaos bolted toward the monstrous female wreaking havoc on the island. Puddles of blood soaked through the black sand and illuminated in the bolts of electricity ripping through the sky.
But all she could see washim.
She wasn’t sure how she knew, and she would figure it out later, but the figure slumped on the ground by the electric couple was the Devil.
The cut on her hand burned. Nyx didn’t know the rules of being bound to someone by blood, but the weightless, nauseating feeling roiling in her gut bet he was dying. She could feel it down to her marrow as her vision dotted, instinct urging her to save him. The pieces of his soul entwined with hers were losing the battle and they weren’t going without shredding hersalong the way.
“Shit,” she whispered, sweat dotting her brow as her hands shook. She had to make a decision.
Save the Devil. Befriend the Soul Eater. Don’t die trying.
“Simple,” she breathed as her head spun. Talking to herself made it better. Sometimes.
Bolts of lightning illuminated the beach in an ominous haze. Nyx was counting on the white-haired beauty to keep the God of Chaos occupied while she dealt with the Devil. She didn’t have time to be too calculated. He’d managed to crawl away, but Nyx was afraid the distance wouldn’t be enough to hide them.
Nyx’s feet stumbled as she ran, her life draining out on that sand right alongside his. As she reached the Devil’s side her heart pounded louder than the thunder reverberating through the firelit sky. Nyx dropped to the sand and shook the man vigorously. He was lying on his stomach, head turned just enough to not suffocate. Bloody droplets stood stark against the pallor of his skin. Death had its boney fingers wrapped around his throat.
“Wake up asshole!” Her voice came out as a shaky whisper-scream as anxiety dug its claws in.
She tucked the pink wig back and leaned forward to place her ear by his mouth. He wasn’t breathing. “Shit!” she cried as her vision swam. Air squeezed from her lungs as the pressure of their bond clamped around her heart. He was slipping away and she didn’t know how to hold on.
Nyx looked over her shoulder to make sure she hadn’t been spotted with the monster dying beside her. She didn’t know their story, but it was clear that she wouldn’t make it out with her life if she was caught with the Devil. He was dying for a reason.
“Okay, get a hold of yourself, Nyx.” She wiped her eyes and sniffed, pulling composure back into her spine.
She tucked her hands under his arm and settled a hand under his left pectoral. Her hand met meaty flesh, and not the muscled kind covered in soft skin. Jagged tears and stringy muscle corded between her fingers and it took all of her resolve to keep her hand where it was as she gagged.
“One, two, three–” She heaved, toes slipping in the sand as she grunted and shoved. Nyx placed a hand on his black denim clad hip and pulled, her strength waning with his life. Just as his back met the shifty ground, a flash of light put the severity of his injury into focus. Horror froze her rigid body. His chest had been torn wide, white bone protruding through shredded muscle as splatters of clotted blood and ropey vessels dotted his clothes.
“Zeus almighty,” she breathed. Her body was begging to flee, but her mind urged her to stay. If he died, she died, but if her heart was still beating, she still had a chance.
Nyx patted the rest of his body searching for other injuries.
“What will you do if you find one? Who knows. Surely it can’t be worse than the godsdamned hole in his chest,” she muttered under her breath.
Her hands pressed against his ribs and she shuddered as the left one gave way. Down she went, roving over his lean, athletic frame. She lifted his bloody shirt to examine the skin. Black tattoos wrapped around his sides and disappeared under the low waistband of his pants, but the skin seemed untouched.Her fingers traced the fine lines and she caught her mind wondering how low they went. Luckily, reality bitch-slapped her before she had the chance to do it to herself.
Dying man at her front, angry god at her back.
“Get a hold of yourself, Nyx. Now is not the time to act like some drooling virgin idiot. They always die first,” she scolded. Nyx was careful to stick to the outside of his thigh. If his dick was mangled or missing, it was his problem.
As she patted his left thigh, her knuckle met something lying in his lax palm. Nyx closed her eyes and swallowed against the shiver. “Fuck.” Slowly, Nyx turned her head back to the Devil and peered at the mutilated mess nestled into his hand.
Laying there was the Devil’s heart torn from his chest. What was more disturbing was the way it beat erratically, clinging to the living plane as stubborn as the man it belonged to. That son of a bitch probably should have died a hundred times over, but people like him always made it in the end. It was almost as if the taint on their soul was so heavy that even the underworld couldn’t contain its darkness.
A true villain.
