She faced forward again, preparing herself for what she had to do.
“Take her. Now.”
“No! Mommy I’m not leaving you!” Iaoth screamed, clutching her skirts tighter.
Vaeron studied the strength in his mother’s posture. Seared her last words into his memory. Then, he gritted his teeth and scooped up his sister. She thrashed in his hold, knocking into the open wound on his head once again.
“I love you, mother. I will never forget you,” he said, voice thick with emotion. He handed her the blade he’d stolen from the Demon. “Take as many with you as you can. I’ll send reinforcements.”
“Go,” she insisted again.
This time, her son obeyed. Legs pounding, he fled, catching the raider he’d nearly killed limping through the trees out of the corner of his eye.
A bolt of rage forked through him while thunder clouded his judgement.
He raced his sister to a hidden tangle of bramble and placed her there. “Do not move until I return.”
“Don’t leave me, Vaeron,” she whimpered, curling in on herself. “I’m so scared.”
“Be brave, Iaoth. You are a Räviel. We do not yield. We break.” He said the words for himself as much as for her. He should have continued on, sought help, warned the others that more raiders might be coming. Done what his mother had asked and taken his sister home.
But his duty to protect his family won his internal battle.
So Vaeron tore through the trees again, finding the male nearing the ambush on his mother.
He leaped onto the intruder’s back, arms wrapping around his throat. He fell to his knees, arching his back and attempting to dislodge Vaeron.
“Do you feel me inside you, little one?” the Demon taunted, and something hot burned in the heir’s veins.
The youngling slammed his heels into the male’s hips, gripping with his legs while adjusting his hands. With a powerful wrench, he cracked the Demon’s spine.
The male went limp beneath him.
He cleared the falling body with ease, the tempo of bloodlust crescendoing. He’d tasted his first kill, and he was not satisfied. The thought struck him like a well timed blow. Shock at his actions fractured through him. He was no better than his father.
The thought didn’t have time to take root. Not when a vicious shout from his mother ripped him back to reality.
His focus sharpened on the three raiders surrounding her, trading blows of swords, shadows, and light.
Until one slipped past her defenses.
No!he thought, watching the scene unfold as if it were underwater.
Bronze buried itself to the hilt in her stomach. A wicked laugh echoed from the male who had delivered the strike. A second stepped forward and stabbed into her heart.
She locked gazes with her son for the last time, ruby spilling from the corners of her mouth.
White winked out.
As did the life from her eyes.
Time thickened. His body slowed, mind refusing to accept what he saw.
His mother went limp and collapsed forward, never to rise again.
Vaeron halted his advance, horror-struck. He hadn’t been able to save her. He hadn’t been strong enough.
The three living Demons lifted their gazes, finding him.
