Zayn rushed to him, whispered something I couldn’t hear, then Vax’s gaze went to me and Ruxnoth. I noticed that it barely stayed on me—he didn’t want to let emotion take him. Given how much shutting down and compartmentalization I’d had to do down here, I could recognize that really well now.
And then, before I could even utter a word, Vax thrust both his palms at Ruxnoth.
Sonic pulses burst from him and tore into Ruxnoth, blowing him from my grip completely, the shock of the brutal reverberation and pressure even knocking out my magical hold.
The pulses grew, stronger and stronger, until they were destroying everything in their path, taking out the floor, the walls they brushed in the process—and driving into Ruxnoth.
He screamed as he was blown through one of the stone walls, then wrenched down, deep into the bedrock of the realm, a body-sized crater forming.
I ran over there and looked to see it extending further and further with the vibrational resonance tearing into the material core of the realm, the last aspect left, because from what else I could see, most of everything else was already destroyed. Vax must’ve just left this area, knowing Zayn and I were here.
He didn’t stop there. Zayn grabbed my arm, then I was yanked into the corridor, and I watched, looking back into the room as Vax decimated the whole thing, the ceiling fully coming down, the walls, the floor, every level above too. Fucking everything.
As it all fell down, he stood there unaffected by it, the debris just bouncing off him.
With a burst of Basilisk speed, he suddenly stood before us.
“Vax,” I breathed, staring up at him in all his black leather armor.
“Little death,” he returned on a sexy rumble.
But it was too short-lived as he returned to business, and asked me, “Did you complete the death infection?”
I turned my head away.
He grasped my jaw and gently guided my gaze back to him.
And his touch, especially after all this time… had my full attention.
“Did you, beautiful?”
“No,” I told him honestly. “But I need to.” I went to bolt forward, but he pressed his hand to my chest.
“We need to get out now, Win!” Zayn urged me. “Look at this place.”
I did, looking around at the little that was left of this building itself—the stupid fancy palace. It was now just an island on… nothing. Vax had decimated everything. And Ambrose had taken out the magical element too. There was just this tiny, maybe two hundred square feet island left that we were standing on, the thing driving down into what had been the core of the place.
“He’ll survive this! You heard him! He’ll come for you. He’ll hurt you all!”
Vax stroked my jaw. “And you know well that we are all very far from helpless.”
“I…”
“We need you back with us. Please, Win,” Zayn beseeched me.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Vax wrapped his arm around me. “You are in the eye of the trauma currently. Your response makes sense, we understand. But it’s also causing tunnel vision—and endangering you. This is not the way to win.”
“Okay,” I murmured, sinking into him. “Okay.”
“Zayn, I need you to levitate us out,” he said. “I have to send one more blast to finish this as we ascend.”
“Got it.”
I felt Zayn’s magic wrap around us, then the reverberation of Vax’s power.
But I didn’t see any of it.
