The flameslicking through my flesh extinguish. The fissures seal. My peeling skin heals, and my head rises, my thoughts once again clear and sharp.
I am alive, after all.
Maxim crouches opposite me, his right arm extended, feet planted, his tall frame backlit with fire.
“Fuck,” he says.
He doesn’t waste another second.
Leaping toward me, he uses his fire like punches, flames bursting from both of his hands, knocking me toward the other side of the mountain ridge.
He’s trying to keep me at a distance because if I get close, I’ll tear his fucking throat out.
He succeeds.
Every hit tears me apart, over and over again.
I may heal, but that doesn’t stop my body from ripping to pieces first.
A mess of pain fills my mind, fire cutting through me, my world turning to flames, but no matter how hard he hits me, this body…my body…
Thyra’s blood thumping through my heart…
It’s like she won’t give up on me.
Through the intense pain, I’m aware that Maxim is beating me back along the ridge, closer to the end of the ravine and the tunnel where Azul retreated.
I’m certain the eagle will have sought refuge beside the thick ice wall Stellen created to seal the far end of the tunnel. Even if the frozen wall is half-melted, it will cool Azul’s feathers and offset the heat waves rippling through the air. Such intense heat that the rocks around me are dripping with lava, and the distant vampyrs are on the move again.
I can’t let Maxim force me closer to the tunnel. Eventhough the opening is in the middle of the cliff face now off to my right, the heat could travel through it.
Stifling, suffocating heat.
A wayward stream of fire could be cast directly into the tunnel, burning everything inside.
I nearly killed Azul, and I won’t forgive myself for it. Sickening is the memory of Thyra’s tear-streaked face as she stumbled away from me, covered in blood, daring to look back only to see the eagle with whom she’d bonded lying, near-dead, on the tunnel floor.
If I do nothing else, I’ll protect Azul from the fire.
Taking the next punch of fire, I launch myself upward, knowing full well Maxim will anticipate it and punch me down from the air. He won’t want me airborne where I can attack him from above.
The second his fire knocks into me, I let the fire push me backward, using the momentum to tumble to my left. As far as I can get from the tunnel. All the way to the edge of the ridge.
I expect another fireball to hit me from behind, no matter what Maxim claims about abhorring a strike in the back, but there’s a pause.
I can only assume it’s because he can’t see as well in the dark. It didn’t matter when he was hitting me with fire because he was creating his own light right in front of himself, but I’ve exited his circle of flames, and his eyes may not have adjusted fast enough to follow me.
Particularly because I’m now fucking fast.
Preparing to roll back to my feet, I twist, only to discover Maxim leaping toward me, his arc carrying him high, and now he’s crashing down on me, a silent assailant, his right fist flaming.
He’s right on top of me. As fast as I am, I don’t have time to evade him.
His knee smashes down on my chest, snapping my ribs all over again. Before I can get my arms up, his right hand wraps around my throat.
Fire sears through my neck.
He’s a heartbeat away from tearing off my head.
