Chapter 444: Making a Cage 2
Another tree creaked ominously above them, this one set to fall directly on them all if it should give way. Nedra hurried to try completing the structure, feeling August’s intention fueling her own and speeding the process along. They were going to do this. It was going to be okay.
"What can I do?" Seth asked, his voice strained as he watched Nedra’s body starting to shake with the effort of all that she was holding. It was painful to watch, and he ached to help her in some way.
"Go!" She yelled. Why was he still here? Why was he edging into her concentration, reminding her that he was here and in danger, one mistake away from becoming a corpse like poor Brandt?
With that thought and the image of Brandt’s lifeless, mutilated body flashing through her mind, tears began steaming out of her eyes from the weight of everything that was pressing down on her—this island, the lives of the people she loved, and now this stupid cage that should be so easy for her to make but was now so difficult. It was taking all of her strength and then some. She was tapping into the deepest parts of herself for reserves that she didn’t even know she had available to her.
She thought of Selah and Sage out in the world somewhere without her—babies that were having to grow up without their mother... and their father. The face of her beautiful son who she had never ever seen before until just recently. The people she had let down in order to enable Zagan in his quest to find the one who could bring his existence to an end.
Had it all been worth it? Was this the only path? Was this the one intended? If she failed now and they all were killed by this psychotic monster, how could she believe that any of her choices had been the right ones?
"Nedra," August called from beside her, sensing that something had changed and that her strength was waning. She was beginning to fade.
Nedra didn’t answer. She was trying to focus on these invisible beams, these paths of light and intention that she was creating and that she had created a million times before in far greater scale. But the fear and worry were looming larger, creating a vignette around her vision that was making it increasingly difficult to concentrate.
And then that concentration snapped.
Seth bolted forward to catch her before she hit the ground, and just as he did the ground beneath them tore open. He backpedaled with her in his arms as he watched the earth beyond break open and give way, tilting toward a chasm that had erupted out of nowhere and that was now clawing at the earth like a hungry mouth seeking to be fed by the very ground beneath their feet.
"Goddess," August breathed, losing her own balance and stumbling backward away from the growing hole in the earth. She glanced over at Seth and Nedra to find that Nedra appeared to have lost consciousness, but it couldn’t have been that simple. Something else was happening—the very foundation upon which Nedra had built this world was giving way.
Trees that were bent above them began tilting more inward, completing their bow toward the ground while lightening splintered the sky above them, clapping the air thunderously with each streak of light.
And the vampire was laughing. He snapped through the final vines that entangled around him and lunged at the oddly knowledgable alyko with the golden eyes.
"Should I take you with me or use you for my next meal—you and your young?" He asked, his mouth still abnormally wide with rows of teeth that resembled a shark.
August flicked her wrist, bringing another vine to unleash from the ground next to her to lash at his face, but he caught it and ripped it from its very roots.
"That is a good trick," he smirked, pinning her wrists to the ground before she could try it again.
"It is not a trick," she growled at him, the twin golden crowns in her eyes growing a more intense gold like the design that wound around her left arm.
"Shit," another voice entered the clearing, snarling at the scene before him.
"Look who finally decided to join us," the intruder smiled wider. "Did you bring your mate to come and play?"
August turned her head to see Zagan a short distance away, pulling Penelope out of the path of a falling tree before turning his attention back on the vampire hovering over August.
"I was just about to indulge in a rather interesting meal," the intruding vampire cackled, unperturbed by the world that seemed to be collapsing around them. "And then your mate will be next."
Zagan roared something indecipherable and launched through the air, knocking the vampire off of August and onto the unsteady ground where the two males rolled over each other, landing blow after blow that seemed to rival the quaking earth under the feet. The two were like boulders being thrown around, toppling the trees and cracking open the earth each time their bodies landed.
"You have a heartbeat," the intruder snarled, deeply unhappy by this realization as he slammed Zagan against another tree, leveling it to the ground in the process. Zagan having a heartbeat meant that he would no longer be able to torture him the way he had planned. Eternity was no longer an option. "Your mate is going to suffer the most excruciating pain before she dies. She has cost me a precious victim for my chamber. The royals will be most displeased."
Zagan snarled and launched himself once again against the intruder who dared come into his sanctuary and threaten his people and his mate. Both males crashed against a pile of stone ruins, toppling them to dust as they wrestled around the ground.
"She is not a simple human," Zagan snarled. "She will fight you just as I do."
"She will lose," the intruder smirked. "And I will make sure you get to appreciate her screams before I finally end you, too."
