Lucie’s legs went weak.
This was a deity’s strength. This was power that existed on a scale she couldn’t comprehend, let alone fight. She was nothing down here. Helpless. A spectator watching gods try to destroy each other while the world trembled beneath them.
Ken recovered instantly, gathering a blinding sphere of energy between his palms. He hurled a column of pure, searing light that screamed toward Erebus like a falling star. Erebus didn’t dodge. He planted himself in the air, thrust both hands forward, and fired his own darkness directly into the blast. Thetwo forces collided with a sound that split the sky. The white energy fractured, cleaving into two arcs that spiraled away from Erebus and detonated somewhere in the upper atmosphere, leaving scorched trails of light across the clouds.
But Erebus was already moving. He’d used his own darkness as a smokescreen, charging behind the wall of black energy while Ken’s vision was still washed out from the collision. He burst through the dissipating shadows at full speed, his fist loaded with every ounce of power he had, and drove it into Ken’s chest.
The impact shattered the air.
Lucie flinched at the sound, her stomach lurching. Her eyes shot to Ken, dread flooding her veins, but the expression on his face stopped her cold.
He was smirking.
The blow that should have caved in his chest hadn’t even shifted his posture. He hung in the air, utterly unmoved, looking at Erebus with the calm, detached amusement of someone who had been playing a game this entire time. There was pleasure in his eyes now. Dark, predatory satisfaction. He’d been testing him. Measuring him. Letting Erebus believe this was a real fight.
It wasn’t.
Ken reached up with one hand, slow, deliberate, and touched the small droplet of blood that had emerged at the corner of his mouth. He examined it on his fingertip. Then his gaze slid back to Erebus, and the smirk widened into something lethal.
“Not bad.” His voice was terrifyingly calm. “Someone has gotten stronger.” He tilted his head, his eyes hardening. “Yet not strong enough.”
He moved.
Lucie didn’t even see it happen. One moment, Ken was hovering in place. The next, he had Erebus locked in his grip, both hands clamped onto the man like iron shackles, pinning his arms, eliminating any chance of escape. Then the beating began.
Ken drove his fist into Erebus’ face. His ribs. His stomach. Each strike detonated with a pulse of white energy that lit up the sky like lightning. There was no pause between them. No recovery time. No mercy. The blows came in a relentless, savage barrage that made the earlier exchange look like a warm-up. Erebus’ head snapped back. Blood sprayed from his mouth. His body jerked with each impact like a puppet being torn apart at the strings.
“You like hitting women?” Ken’s voice was ice wrapped in fury. He buried another fist into Erebus’ gut, folding him in half. “How does it feel to be hit—” Ken said, landing another devastating blow, this one to the jaw “—you sick bastard!”
The final punch connected with everything Ken had. A full-force, energy-laced strike that hit Erebus square in the chest and launched him across the sky like a comet. His body rocketed downward at a terrifying speed, skimming so close to the ocean surface that the water split beneath the force of his trajectory before he caught himself, barely, hovering inches above the churning waves.
Ken dove after him without hesitation, closing the gap in a heartbeat. But Erebus looked up and vanished.
Ken pulled up short, hovering above the water, his chest heaving. His fists were still clenched, still crackling with energy. He scanned the sky. The horizon. The empty, mocking air where his target had been half a second ago.
His jaw clenched so hard the muscle ticked beneath his skin. He shook his head slowly, the fury rolling off him in waves that made the ocean beneath him shudder.
Damn. He’d hoped to kill the bastard right there.
Ken returned to Lucie and quietly looked at her for a moment, his eyes traveling over her battered body. There was blood dripping from the cut on her lip. Her right cheek was red and swollen from where she’d been hit. And before he put theshirt over her earlier, he’d noticed the angry purple and crimson skin around her ribs.
He reached out and very carefully helped her to her feet. He could feel her shaking from the pain. As carefully as he could, he lifted her into his arms. In an instant, they were surrounded by woods.
“I don’t understand. Why?” Lucie leaned against the heat of the man’s bare chest.
“Alexa,” he whispered. “I can’t stand her pain. She is a wreck right now. For her, I would part the seas … I would give her everything. I had to find you.”
“He thought that I was Alexa. I didn’t tell him. I just let him believe?—”
“Shhh shhh shhh. Good girl. You did well,” Ken said soothingly.
“I had a premonition that he would kill her,” Lucie said in a whimper, feeling the muscles of the man tense.
“As long as he thinks you’re my mate, he won’t touch her. I need to make sure I stay away from her and keep her safe from him. And as for you …” Ken said as he effortlessly held Lucie in one hand and used his other to wipe some of the fresh blood from her face. “He won’t ever touch you again. Selene has gone to Rogio. He’s the deity that protects the vampires, and let’s just say you don’t want to end up on his bad side. He has the council in the palm of his hands. Trust me, I know. I angered him once, and it got me cursed. Rogio’s been sleeping for a while, though, so no one has felt his wrath lately. However, Selene has woken him up, and his rage will be directed at Erebus. You will now be under the direct protection of Rogio.”
“Why did Selene go to you?”
“Well, she didn’t come out and say it, but I know why she came to me and not Leviathan. She is still protective of your aunt. And just in case, if Erebus did get the best of him, it wouldkill your aunt as well. I was the one she deemed an acceptable casualty. Especially since I’ve been refusing to claim my mate.”
