Well, I’ll never know the answer. I have accepted that I will not be leaving this chamber alive. To protect Lenora and our child, I will have to use what strength I have left to kill my brothers, even if it destroys me.
“Return to your box,” I offer one last time. “I will forget this and let you live.”
Dain laughs.
Rase is incapable but he makes a chuckling sound that ripples across his chains.
“You have no power over us.”
“We are free, dear brother. We will not submit to you any longer.”
They move as one.
A joined unit of strength that I have to brace my feet against the stone to keep from getting tossed. The collision kicks up dirt and shakes dust from the ceilings. A coiled fist laced with iron chains slams into my ribs. The attack burns my eyes and knocks the air from my lungs. I grab his wrist at the second swing, but Dain catches me in the jaw, dislodging my grip.
The attack sends my head back and cracks my teeth together. Copper fills my mouth, choking me.
“Tell us where you sent the Usher man and we won’t kill you,” Rase offers, meaty fists tight around my throat.
“We’ll let you live in your box,” Dain sneers.
“You’ll have to kill me,” I growl and slam my brow into Dain’s noise.
Or where his nose should have been.
Blood vessels explode and a fountain of blood gushes down his front.
He howls and releases me. Bony fingers slap over his face. At his ankle, I wrap a tendril and yank him off his feet. With a flick, I toss him against the wall. His body strikes the jagged column and plummets to the ground.
I don’t see him hit the ground. Rase grabs my front and I’m slammed into the dais still wet with Lenora’s blood.
“We have eternity,” my brother says as he follows after me. “We will find them.”
I send out wisps much too thin to do anything, but lash with my blades. Cutting flesh and tendons and making no progress.
Rase clamps a single hand around my throat, and I’m hoisted up before being brought down on the table.
“You never should have locked us up,” he hisses, face inches from mine. “We were part of you.”
The confines of his fingers squeezing my air makes it hard to speak, but I manage weakly, “You were hurting people.”
“We are gods! We rule over them.”
I sputter and claw at his hands uselessly. “You … are … not … gods!”
Even with no muscles to create expressions, I feel his hate. His resentment. Being given life means nothing without power to rule over those weaker than them. A flaw I hadn’t anticipated until it was too late. I did my best to contain them, but I shouldhave listened to my gut and killed them when they betrayed me the first time.
“We are now,” he snarls, free hand lifting to join the first crushing my esophagus.
It won’t kill me, but who knows what they will do to my body if I black out.
Dain joins our brother with a glint of pure pleasure. And I think how ironic it is. All I wanted was a family. Brothers who would stay with me through the darkness. Someone I could rely on.
Instead, I created monsters thirsty for blood and destruction, and I was too soft to kill them because I kept hoping they would change. That they would … care for me. But I suppose a demon doesn’t get that luxury. We were born alone in the dark and we will die alone in the dark.
As the world flickers, I think of Lenora. I think of her smile and the sweetness in her heart. I think of her bravery and loyalty, and the way she’s so soft curled up in my arms. What I wouldn’t give to taste her mouth one final time…
The darkness lifts.
