“You threatened my family. You hurt my family,” Caelan continued. Each word he spoke harder than diamonds.
Safa cackled, but it was breathless and ragged, as if the pain were making it hard for her to catch her breath. “And I’d do it all over again, for my goddess.”
“Your goddess sent you here to die. I told her if you came to Hidden Falls, you would not leave here alive.”
Her laugh stopped, but the look of defiance never left her dark slitted eyes. “Do your worst, broken king. Would-be god.”
Rayne stood there, silent. He could feel the pain and fury rolling off Caelan in sickening waves. It was his job to talk Caelan down, to be his conscience, but he couldn’t. Not when he’d already come so close to losing Eno. Not when he was still unsure of whether he could mend his lover’s arm. He didn’t just want Safa dead. He wanted her to suffer.
“Kill her,” Rayne snarled, some dark part of him reveling in those words. “Destroy her.”
A great roar erupted from Caelan’s mouth as he pulled both fists together and jerked them apart. The ripping sound was barely drowned out by Safa’s blood-curdling scream. Drayce darted over, grabbed Rayne, and pulled him away, shielding him with his slighter form, but he was still splashed by her blood around his shoulders and back. He glanced over and wished he hadn’t.
To the right a sodden mass of clothes, blood, skin, and tissue hung in the air like a soggy banana peel. On the left, writhing in agony was a skinless Safa. She was falling apart before his eyes, a low howl of pain choked off suddenly in a gurgle of wet air. And then…nothing.
Caelan had skinned her alive in one gut-wrenching motion.
“Is this what you want me to become?” Caelan shouted to the air as he tossed Safa’s corpse to the ground. “They call the God of Time the Dead God. I’ll show them what it means to be the God of Death.”
In a flash of brilliant white light, Caelan was gone. Disappeared as if he’d never existed. And Rayne had no chance to save what remained of his friend’s humanity.
SEVENTEEN
Eno Bevyn
Light peeked in between the curtains and sliced across the bed, narrowly missing Eno’s face. But it was close enough that he was squinting against the glare and rubbing his eyes with his left hand. He looked around while the wheels in his brain struggled to turn. The memories of the previous day and night were blurry, except for the screams. Those echoed in his ears even now when the only sound to be heard was birdsong.
He glanced to his right to find Rayne seated on the floor next to the bed, both of his hands and head resting on Eno’s arm as he slept. He initially moved to shake Rayne awake so he could draw his lover into the bed, but his eyes caught on his right arm.
The pain was little more than a dark phantom drifting through his nightmares. His arm was covered in a stomach-churning network of red and white scars from his shoulder to his wrist. Very carefully, he pulled his arm out of Rayne’s grip and just that left him panting softly. He opened and closed his fingers, gritting his teeth at the mild tingling. Numbness. He’d lost feeling.
But that wasn’t the worst of it.
He could barely make a fist.
He’d lost all strength in his sword arm.
He could manage a knife with his left well enough, but he had no skill with a sword in his left. Same with a gun.
Clenching his teeth hard enough to make his jaw ache, Eno held in the sob that rose in his throat. His entire world was threatening to crash down on his head. How was he supposed to protect his king if he couldn’t use a sword? He had no right to call himself the king’s bodyguard. He wasn’t even worthy of being in the Royal Guard now.
Everything he’d worked for was over.
“Eno?” Rayne’s sleepy voice broke into his thoughts, and he lowered his eyes to Rayne’s face. His sweet lover’s face was drawn, and his eyes were heavily underlined with dark shadows. He was exhausted, seeming as if he’d poured all of his essence into Eno in his attempts to heal him.
Eno wanted to pin a brave smile into place and reassure Rayne that everything was okay. That he was okay. But his voice cracked on Rayne’s name, and the tears he’d been fighting back tumbled free.
“No, my love. Don’t give up hope. I’m not done. I’ll keep trying,” Rayne said, his own words choked as he climbed into the narrow bed with Eno. Gods bless him, Rayne slid into place on his left side, giving Eno the chance to hold him as tightly as possible with his strong arm. “I’m not done fighting. I just needed some rest and I can keep trying—”