Page 37 of Cheating Fate

The look of pure adoration in his eyes wrecked me. He cupped my face with both hands again and leaned forward to claim my lips. Fireworks exploded in the pit of my stomach. My skin erupted in goosebumps, and the most divine warmth spread in my chest.

Our first kiss.

There was no lust or awkwardness. Just infinite tenderness, a shackled love finally freed, and the physical connection of two souls separated for far too long. Tears of joy, love, and fear pricked my eyes. We had too much to live for. Whatever hardships lay ahead, together, we would overcome.

He released me, and a devastating sense of loss crushed me.

“My love, you hang on. No matter how difficult, no matter how painful, don’t you dare let go. You hang on to me. I will get us up,” he said in a pressing tone.

“I promise,” I said in a shaky voice.

He crushed my lips again, this time with a hint of desperation. It was brief… much too brief.

“Prepared to give me your dagger,” he reminded me in an imperious tone as he turned to face the wall.

He glanced up at my brother. Neither male spoke a single word, and yet Vahl nodded as if some sort of silent communication had passed between them. Before I could dwell further on it, Gavin startled me as he emitted a low, bestial growl. My eyes bulged as his hands fisted, and his muscles began to swell. He had already been massive before, but now his entire body seemed to grow even bigger, if not taller as well.

My skin tingled, and a surge of energy blasted through me. The pain and soreness of my injuries faded sharply to a distant throb. Even the discomfort from the heat affecting me despite my suit’s cooling features also significantly diminished.

His berserker powers!

I had heard so often about that fabulous ability that only a handful of Braxian Warriors possessed. But this was my first time experiencing it. When I heard how a Berserker could boost and enhance all the people within range who he deemed friends or allies with his aura, I thought people were widely exaggerating its potency. Now, I stood corrected.

Not only did it make the Berserker stronger and faster, it also exponentially increased his pain tolerance threshold. I still didn’t see how anyone could withstand the agony he was about to subject himself to, but this further gave me hope.

Braxians were the only known species to be immune to adverse psionic powers. I’d always wondered if their Berserker powers could be affected by psionic disruptors. But clearly, they weren’t. No wonder the Guldans had desperately tried to coerce Braxians into an alliance.

Gavin lowered his hands towards his back in a way that clearly hinted for me to climb.

I swallowed hard, loosened the clasp securing my daggers on each side of my thighs, and complied. I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck. He gave my wrist a comforting squeeze before kissing the back of my hand. I reciprocated by kissing his cheek right before he reactivated the visor of his suit. My chest constricting, I closed mine as well and braced for what would follow.

Gavin removed the dagger on the left side of his weapons belt, then pulled out his blaster again.

“Don’t you let go,” he repeated.

This time, his voice sounded deeper, grittier, and a bit less intelligible. His words wouldn’t qualify as slurred, but they sounded almost as if they were spoken by a barely civilized barbarian.

Carrying me as if I weighed nothing, he ran the short distance to the wall and leapt to an impressive height while shooting his grappling hook. It sank into the rock with a muffled thud. Gavin pressed the trigger to reel us in. We flew upwards over around four meters before the hook fell out, melted to oblivion.

My stomach lurched as we began to fall in a terrifying déjà vu. But moving at lightning speed, Gavin stabbed his dagger into the wall with his left hand, the right one whipping out a second dagger which he used as a climbing pick. The effortless way with which he ran up the wall blew me away.

But watching the reinforced leather of his gloves melt on his hands crushed any sense of elation I might have felt. The heat seeping through my suit, despite the cooling effect, was quickly becoming intolerable. No words could express what kind of pain he had to be in as his armor wilted, some of it fusing with his skin as other pieces just fell right off. We barely climbed maybe another five meters before his daggers began to stick into the wall as the blades melted. Gavin only managed a couple more climbing motions before the right blade fell right off.

I gasped as he kept us dangling with the dagger in his left hand. Just as its own blade was giving up, he yanked out his third and last blade, stabbing it into the wall. I whipped out my own dagger and instinctively placed it in his left hand just as he was raising it up. Without slowing down, he resumed his ascension.

Tears pricked my eyes when fire erupted around his right hand. I couldn’t tell if it was the dagger’s handle or his own body that had ignited. I reached forward and tried to bat it off while he stoically continued to climb. The thrice damned flames wouldn’t abate. I realized then that this was a case of wick effect, where the heat was melting his subcutaneous body fat, which soaked the remnants of his gloves, acting as fuel to keep the fire burning.

Thankfully, Braxians were quite lean, so the flames didn’t have much to feed on and soon fizzled.

I barely repressed a choked sob as the nauseating scent of charred meat and burnt leather filled my nose. I couldn’t quite see his front, but I didn’t doubt it was in as devastating a state as his arms. The parts of his arms left exposed by his wrecked armor showed blisters quickly bursting, the flesh sizzling before turning black, and his muscles withering. I couldn’t even comprehend how he was still able to climb.

He should be screaming in agony. But Gavin only emitted grunting sounds as he pursued the journey up. I was barely managing to withhold my whimpers of pain as the excessive heat radiating from the wall had my own skin feeling on the verge of combustion. Alarms were going off left and right on the overhead display of my visor indicating all the places where I was sustaining extreme heat exposure. I didn’t even want to see the state I was in.

By rights, I should also be writhing in agony. And yet, it remained unnaturally tolerable…

However, my heart sank when I looked at the remaining distance. We were still much too far away. I got ready to give Gavin my last dagger, which he took moments later. His left dagger wouldn’t last much longer. At which point, we would be royally fucked.

And then it hit me.