I glanced around. My sword was lost somewhere, but I had a dagger inside my boot.
Dane beckoned his hand, and a tug on the cuffs made me follow him. “I’ll enjoy playing with you.”
Oh, God.
It was now or never.
I tripped on purpose, bending my head over more than necessary, causing my hair to fall like a curtain, obscuring my movements. I reached for the dagger and when Dane used his magic to pull me to my feet, I held the dagger tight.
All right. This would hurt, but I couldn’t chicken out. One fluid stab and it would be over. If I allowed my nerves to overwhelm me, I wouldn’t reach my heart and that would be just like torture.
I took a deep breath.
Three.
Two.
One.
In a flash, Micah was in front of me. He took the dagger from my hands, spun around, and threw it at Dane. Dane’s eyes widened as he looked down at the dagger embedded in his heart.
“I can’t believe you did this,” Dane said.
“Me neither,” Micah whispered.
Dane’s body fell back, but before he could hit the sand, his body flickered, becoming black smoke. A strong wind blew it away.
As if they felt what happened, the other four Death Lords stopped and gaped at us. At the same time, they conjured black bolts and threw them at the ground.
“Grab them!” Micah shouted, but it was too late.
Black smoke lifted from where the bolts had hit, surrounding them. The black tendrils spun and looped toward the sky, until the dark wisps bled into the blackness of the sky, taking the Death Lords away.
Ceris, Victor, and the other two helping them stepped back, away from the smoke.
Micah turned to me, rage in his features. “What the hell was that?”
The cuffs gone, I massaged my wrists and held my chin high, unafraid of him or his rage fits, but I didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say.
He halted before me. “I’m talking to you. What do you think you were doing?”
“Not now, Micah, please.” A lonely feeling burst in my chest and, surprising even me, I stepped into him and wound my arms around his waist, resting my head on his chest. He buried his face in my hair, his arms tight on my back. I listened to his steady heart and felt safe. When I pressed closer, Micah winced.
I jumped away from him. “Oh, God.”
He put a hand over the wound on his chest. “It isn’t as bad as it looks,” he said, through gritted teeth.
“You don’t need to be tough all the time, you know.”
Through the pain, he showed a brief grin. “Of course I do.”
Shaking my head, I grabbed his arm and put it over my shoulder, then passed my arm around his waist.
As we took the first step toward the others, Victor rushed to us. “Everything all right? What happened?”
“We’re fine,” I said, not in the mood to retell everything.
Victor took Micah from me, and we walked back to the others.
Ceris was beside Keisha, who was lying on the sand, looking too pale. Blood trickled from the wound on her shoulder. It covered the area, obscuring the severity, but by the way she squirmed in pain and how her eyes rolled back every few seconds, it wasn’t good.
Ceris looked up. “We need to take her to our place. Now.”
Victor gestured to who I thought were Deven, Eklan, and Chael. “What about them?”
She cursed.
The one in the middle looked at Ceris. “We just wanted to help, my Lady.”
“I want to believe you, Eklan, but after what your brothers did, it’s hard to trust anyone.”
Eklan nodded. “After our Lord’s death, Dane simply decided he was in charge. At first, we accepted because we needed someone in charge. Then Dane went crazy. At one point, I thought he was working with Imha, spreading chaos, but when she came and made an offer, we saw that Dane was on his own and taking us with him. We didn’t accept that, so we left.”
Micah tsked. “The Death Lords are divided into two groups?”
“Sort of,” Eklan continued. “We’ve been trying to do our work, but it’s too much for only the three of us.”
“I know,” Micah muttered, his fists clenched. “Thousands of souls are probably trapped within this world.”
Eklan frowned. “You know?”
Micah nodded. “I know this will sound insane, but it’s me, Eklan. I’m Mitrus.”
Eklan and the others gaped. “But that’s—”
“Impossible,” Ceris finished for him. “But it isn’t. This conversation is important, but so is taking Keisha to safety. We need to go.” Ceris looked at Micah. “What do you want to do?”
Surprise flashed briefly in Micah’s eyes before returning to his normal commanding, superior shine. He turned to the Death Lords. “Come with us. We’ll explain everything.”
25
I leaned against the door and watched Victor give instructions to Micah.
“Drink lots of water and rest. I mean it.”
“Shut the fuck up, doc,” Micah teased, with a chuckle that ended in a wince. “By the Everlast, this hurts.”
“You’re lucky Ceris spelled your armor; otherwise, the wound on your chest would have gone through your lungs.”
Micah wrinkled his nose. “What a pretty picture.”
Victor shook his head. “All right. Time to rest. I’ll check on you later.”
He turned and paused upon seeing me there.
“How is he?” I asked in a low voice.
Victor approached me at the door. “He’ll be okay. But I mean it. If Ceris hadn’t enchanted our armor, his human body would have died and his soul would have been lost.” He sighed. “He’s a little groggy because of the strong painkillers I gave him.”
“And Keisha?”
“I’ve been coming and going from her room. She’s okay, for now.” He glanced at the door behind us, and then continued in a lower voice, “Her armor wasn’t enchanted. Ceris swore to me she enchanted all of our armor, but Keisha’s wasn’t. The bolt ripped right through it, through her skin, and burnt a hole just above her heart. She lost a lot of blood, not to mention the third degree burns surrounding the open wound. If it wasn’t for her hero’s healing, she would’ve died by now.”
Even with my problems with Ceris, I couldn’t believe she would miss Keisha’s armor on purpose. Putting Keisha at risk meant she was putting Victor at risk too, and the goddess would never do that. She needed everyone strong to protect Victor and the creed. Yet, Keisha’s armor had somehow been missed.
“You should get some rest too,” Victor said, cutting through my thoughts.
I nodded. “I’ll try after I sit with Micah for a while. If that is okay. I mean, he could be in bad shape.”
The corner of his lips tugged in a small smile. “He’s fine. Just don’t take too long. He does need to rest, and you do too.”
I nodded again, Victor walked out, and I stepped inside.
Micah looked pale and weak in the infirmary bed with an IV in his right arm. I approached him from the left.
He noticed me and smiled. “Hey, darling.”
I rested my hand on his arm. “You scared me back there, you know.”