“I was always better than you in class. Give up now, Katy,” he taunts as I push all my strength into the next blow, knocking him back a step. He is right, Riley was always better than me at sword fights, but then again, I wasn’t a vampire back then. Using my vamp speed, I hit faster and harder, knocking him back and back until he is pressed against the archway, where there is one hell of a fall on the other side. “I can keep you safe if you stop. Just stop, Katy!” he screams at me, hitting back harder with his sword, and swiftly he manages to cut my upper arm.
“Fuck,” I swear, stumbling a little, and he takes advantage, knocking my sword out of my hand and lifting the tip of his sword to under my neck.
“I will always win against you, Katy. Let me help you, I will keep you safe and—” He stutters, shock clouding his eyes as he looks down. My hand is still wrapped around the knife I’ve just slammed into his stomach, blood pouring around the metal blade and down his white trousers. Tears fill my eyes as he drops the sword, stumbling back to the archway. My heart cracks as he reaches for me, but I don’t catch him. I do what he did to me, I let him fall. Riley falls backwards off the side of the castle, and I close my eyes for a moment, both my hands shaking harshly.
I just killed my childhood friend.
And I hate that it was me that had to do it. Gods, I hate myself right now. Wiping away my tears, I narrow my eyes on the double doors and the fake god behind it. This is all his fault. He did this to me and Riley. I run to the doors, gripping the chains tightly, and pull them apart like paper in my anger. I wrench the doors open, the blasting light flashing into me as I step into the room. The pressure of his power instantly tries to make me submit, but it doesn’t work like it did before.
I’m not an angel anymore.
“You can’t control me. That’s why you hate the vampires, isn’t it?” I chuckle, pulling out the dagger he made for me. “The child of your own creation can kill you. Funny how fate works like that.”
The three ghosts hover in the room, and I look directly at them. I don’t know how much of them is left, how much they remember, or if they are empty souls of goddesses that once held so much power.
“Help me stop him, and then we will be free,” I plead with them. The goddesses all turn to me, and each one nods their heads. They walk into the light, and it flickers before going still, giving me the time I need to kill it.
Yes!
“I am a god, you cannot kill me!” he roars as I run right towards him, dagger held in the air. “You are nothing compared to me! Compared to the time I have lived! You are—”
He halts as I throw the dagger at the light, and I watch as it disappears into him. For a moment, fear cripples me that it didn’t work, but then the spot where I threw the dagger starts to turn black, bleeding light onto the floor and making a giant hole in the ground.
“I am Kaitlyn Lightson, Queen of the Vampires, and you will be forgotten, fake god,” I shout as the floor starts to violently shake, almost knocking me over, but I manage to hold onto the wall to hold me up. The light above screams, the noise so unholy and painful that I wonder if my ears will bleed. I cover them as I run out of the room, turning to the clearing for Ayda when I see she isn’t there, and instead, the floor is covered in fallen pillars. Rushing, I grab my whistle just as another shake sends me flying across the floor towards the edge of the castle. I grab hold of a rock, cutting my hand and arm as I struggle to hold onto the castle. The screaming of the light above comes to a sudden stop, and I look up as white light explodes from the room he was in, and the blast pushes me far into the air with no one to catch my fall.
Chapter 68
Erendriel Raloxisys
Smothered in angel blood, I swing my sword through another angel before tossing him aside and tugging my sword out of his chest. The battlefield is nothing more than bodies and blood, lining the grass and rocks like ribbons on a painting. Wolves run through the crowd, leaping into the air and catching angels’ wings, dragging them to the ground for vampires or demons to finish off the kill. Everyone is working together, keeping each other alive even as so many more angels flood the battlefield, and our numbers are struggling, that much is clear. I run across a small clearing, just as Henry runs angels through with his spear and steps back, meeting my eyes.
We both think the same thing. Where the hell is Kaitlyn?
I sense her, and she is fine, but she isn’t near. A noise like no other rattles in all our ears, and we all come to a stop, looking up at the sky where the noise is coming from. I just about resist falling to my knees at the noise, but everyone else other than the angels, doesn’t. The angels float in the air, many hovering above the large sea in front of us, looking up at the sky.
“The Great Light is dead,” Henry gasps, holding his chest just before he falls into the mud and blood. Angels everywhere suddenly pass out, falling to the ground or into the sea in front of our eyes.
Suddenly I know exactly where my mate is. And who she just killed.
“Catch the angels! Don’t let them drown!” I shout across the field. I may hate their existence for what they have done, but this is not how we want to be remembered for winning the war. Letting the elements kill them is not an honourable death, and they are in need of help. Maybe if we help them...the goddesses might shine on the vampires once more.
And let me save my queen.
The tales queen, the wolves and the princes of hell start making the same commands as the noise stops, and I run to Henry, turning him over on his back, checking his pulse. He is alive, thankfully. Kaitlyn might just kill me herself if anything happened to her mates. I look up just as Ayda breaks out of the clouds, flying down to me and landing at my side.
“Good girl. Take me to her,” I demand, jumping on her back and grabbing her reins. She runs fast, flying quickly into the air and taking off towards the city. We pass the academy just as bright white light flashes in front of my eyes, and a blast like nothing I’ve felt slams into us, throwing me off Ayda into the open sky.
Kaitlyn!
Chapter 69
Groggily I wake up, the warmth of someone’s chest against my head lulling me into a false sense of safety as warm air whips against my face. A single wet tear drops onto my cheek, snapping me out of the lull I was under as I look down at the brown horse I’m resting on. I turn my head up to see Riley holding onto me, flying the horse down towards the academy, or what is left of it.
His usually golden skin is deathly pale, and his hands shake as he holds onto me. I’m speechless, lost in why he would bother to save me. He shouldn’t have. He is the bad guy, and the bad guys don’t save the day.
Gods, why couldn’t he just be a typical bad guy? Thinking of him as good at all just hurts me so much more than I expected. Riley was my best friend for my entire childhood, and there isn’t a single memory of my life up to the academy where he wasn’t in it. He was my brother, my friend I told all my secrets to, and I did love him. Just not the way he wanted me to love him. We both found our paths in life, and they led us to opposite sides of a war. I won...but I lost, all the same. Tears fall down my cheeks as his horse lands in the dust of the academy, and Riley instantly falls off onto the ground with a loud thud. The horse neighs loudly, almost knocking me off myself as I struggle to move the reins from around me. The academy looks so much worse this close up, so empty of life and dead of love. The worst place that Riley could have brought me to die.