“Don’t move,” I whisper.
I brought her out here…
Fuck.
If I don’t do something, she could die.
Something in me shatters.
I stagger to my feet, leaving Sienna on the ground, my entire body buzzing with an energy born from the rage within me. Blood drips from my mouth, pain consumes my body, but my fury burns through the agony.
I roar in rage as I rush at him. He raises his leg to kick me, and I block with practised precision. His eyes widen ever so slightly as if not expecting my strength, but now that I’m close enough, I push forward with everything I have.
He lifts his foot, but only to grab my arm.
His fingers wrap around it, and he snaps the bone clean in two.
I snarl, but I simply spin, dislocating my shoulder and punch him in the fucking jaw.
I’ve always been better with close combat, and in that second when my fist connects, he realises, too. He’s thrown upwards before his body crashes into the earth, the impact creating a crater.
“You don’t touch her,” I snarl, feeling something tear open inside of me.
Something… powerful.
The sky seems to split open. Brilliant blue and white light flashes above us, and lightning explodes, illuminating as far as the eye can see.
Powerful energy blazes through me, humming in my fingertips, and I look down at the crackling power that now wraps around my arms and hands. I feel tingling in my back, feeling the sizzling power and light that illuminates around me.
Then, everything stills as the man gets to his feet, staringupwards.
And then thunder shatters the silence.
A light I cannot control pours out of me like fire trying to escape. The wind whips in every direction, the trees ripping up from the roots as we stand there staring at one another.
“The Deimos King has awakened.” His voice is low, deep, and cold. “To think I was here to witness it…”
I don’t reply, the clouds crackling with lightning. Each pulse of light in the sky matches the rhythm of my heart. The air hums with energy so raw it’s almost unbearable. Every step I take leaves cracks in the road, and the power is intense.
I launch forward again, the ground beneath me giving way, and I reach him faster than anticipated. I raise my fist, my bones snapping back into place as I punch him.
He raises his arms, but he’s pushed back, boots carving deep gouges into the road. The speed and the wind whipping his hair and clothes around him. I follow with a second punch. The shockwave sends debris exploding outward, but he doesn’t fall. The ground cracks around his feet, and yet he stays upright, only his coat torn at the hem. From this close, I can see that his dark eyes have widened slightly. From the little skin I can see, he has tan skin, and there are a few small scars around his nose and eyes.
His arms tremble, but his eyes don’t move. He doesn’t blink, and he isn’t even bleeding at all. I grit my teeth and keep going.
Every punch is thunder. Every kick rips the wind apart. I twist, moving faster than the eye can see, the lightning spinning around me in blinding arcs, and still, somehow, he keeps up. Barely.
But he does.
He grunts under the pressure, the impact of my blows vibrating through the road, but then he disappears, moving so fast, so fluidly that it’s as if he vanishes from one strike only to appear behind me with no sound at all.
My body is glowing white hot, veins blazing with divine force, but still he blocks. Still, he fights. And in the moments between the cracks, I see the truth.
He’s holding back.
Not entirely.
But enough.
