Syn

Kill him.

You can't kill him.

You have to kill him.

My mind warred with the thought as Saint's body felt limp in my arms. His heartbeat was getting weaker and weaker by the second-- the intervals between each beat becoming more and more pronounced. I was losing him.

My mind stayed with Aiden, keeping him restrained as I walked to the barrier. I was sure if I tried hard enough I could manage to take it down, but it would probably kill me. I was already on my last limb from walking in here and getting Saint. My head spun, my vision becoming blotchy as blood dripped from my nose.

I blinked the blurriness away and shook my head, focusing on the spell he cast. There were a few things I could try...but I couldn't do two things at once right now. Taking down the barrier meant letting Aiden go. No doubt he'd attack me, but all I needed was one second to place Saint outside it. Whatever happened afterward didn't matter.

"Drake! Kill him!" I heard Aiden scream from behind me. My eyes snapped to Drake who was standing up and I glanced away. This just so happened to be the perfect time for him to get his revenge like he'd been wanting to.

Instead and to my surprise, he grabbed the grimoire from Cleo's hands and walked away. Good for him. Cowardly, but admirable. This way he'd get what he wanted and his hands would be clean. As he said to me before, "I'm not like you." Fine.

I began whispering spells, feeling a burn pass through my body and I heard Drake curse. "I'm going to kill you."

I looked at him and nodded slowly.

He muttered a response below his breath before flipping through the grimoire. "You should know I'm not as powerful as Cleo. I can only hold the barrier down for a few seconds at most. The moment it goes down, run."

A weak nod was all I could manage.

He knelt on the floor, working quickly and with a finesse only an experienced warlock would have. The clouds began rolling in, raindrops falling as the rumbling of thunder started. His chant was low as he cut his palm with a blade and let it drip onto each of the symbols on the ground. They sizzled, turning a bright red. He pressed his hand into each of them, burning his palm before laying it flat against the dome.

It crackled under his touch and my head seared in pain as Aiden fought my hold on him.

"Aperiam in diaboli," Drake said, the wound on his hand turning blood red. The barrier flashed the same color, disappearing completely as he screamed out. "Now!"

I set Saint down beside him, carefully as ever before stepping back. Into the barrier. It appeared again only a moment later and Drake looked at me. Only gave me a single nod of understanding before looking around at Saint and everyone around him. "I will take care of everything out here and we'll come back. Same plan."

I believed him but I had a feeling things wouldn't work out that way. The plan flew out the window the moment Aiden crossed the line and lured Saint in. Not wanting to give false hope or discourage him, I nodded once again. "Is he breathing?" I asked him, my voice breaking slightly. I couldn't make out a heartbeat anymore. All I could hear was the thunder and the pounding against my frontal lobe.

"He is," he nodded, throwing him over his shoulder. "He will be okay. When Cleo wakes up, we will send him back to his body." He looked at me, reading my expression. "Thank me later. Stay alive," he considered his words, "...or don't. Can I be king if you die?" I gave him a blank look. Out of all times..."Not the time?"

Obviously the fuck not.

He used humor as a defense mechanism, I understood that. But every bit of gratitude I had toward him in that moment vanished and I turned away from him. Fuck that guy. If I did somehow manage to get out of here I didn't know if or how I'd be able to resist killing him.

I felt the world in front of me tilt on its axis and I staggered a bit on my next step. I tried not to lose my balance, forcing a breath through gritted teeth. Shit. Just a few more steps. I willed myself to just go that much further with each step. I managed to do just that before the ache in my head catapulted into itself and sent excruciating shock pulses throughout my skull and down the rest of my body.

The chokehold I had managed to hold on Aiden slipped and I fell to the floor. I coughed into my hand, painting it in blood, and laid on my back. Cold raindrops stung my face and body. My focus on getting Saint to safety had managed to block the pressure in here away from my mind, but it was still very real.

"Queen," I managed to say in a scratchy voice. I turned to my side and pushed myself up with my palm. Another cough followed by a harrowing ache in my chest ensued. I heard Aiden laugh again through my haze and I blinked, disoriented. There were three cabins and two and a half-- no, three moons stared down at me.

"I can't say I don't admire your tenacity," I heard Aiden say and I snapped my head in his direction. Too fast. It sent another bolt of pain down my head and I winced. When I blinked away the pain, there were three of him. One on either side. All of them were shaky. The one in the middle seemed the clearest of the three. Okay.

I swung and he stepped back.

Middle it is.

I heard him laugh again. "I don't think it's wise of you to fight in your condition. You only have a few minutes left. Don't you want to spend them with Queen? I could grant you a few moments with her dead body if you'd like."

Dead body.

Liar.

I blew out a breath and threw another punch. He stepped back, caught my arm, and twisted it until it cracked. I didn't scream. The feeling wasn't a foreign one. I'd broken bones in my body before. All of them, actually. It would heal.

He scream laughed. His putrid breath filled my nostrils as he kept the grip on my arm. "I've been generous, don't you think?" He pulled a knife from his back and the silver twinkled in my vision- multiplying a couple of times before coming back to one form. He plunged it deep into my stomach and I hunched over, blood spilling from my mouth. He pulled it out. Then pushed it back in. A different spot on my stomach every time.

I'd been stabbed before, but this felt different. It burned. The blood never poured from my mouth like this.

I held the wounds on my stomach and looked down. I felt my body's want to rest and fought against the will to drift off into darkness. It called my name, luring me into a false promise of sleep. If I passed out, I wasn't sure if I'd ever wake up.

I wouldn't give in. Not this time. I wouldn't leave Queen like this again. Not when she was still in danger.

"Looking at this?" He asked, his fingers covered in my blood as he held up the blades. "Looks familiar, doesn't it?"

I squinted, looking at it closely. It wasn't until I saw the swirls on the handle and the emblem in the middle that I realized what it was. One of Cain's artifacts. The knife this time.

A loud laugh left my mouth at the fact that this was happening again, and Aiden's slipped from his face-- my face. It was all getting so jumbled in my mind. "I-it's kind of poetic." I coughed. "I'm dying from one of these things again, but this time-- I'm the one killing myself." I guess I deserved it. I'd been slowly killing myself over the past year.

It was ironic.

"I am not you," he hissed.

I looked at him and chuckled. "You want to be, but you can't. You're a fucking pathetic excuse of a man and you wonder why Queen clocked you so quickly." I spit the blood in my mouth onto his face and gave him a crooked, bloody grin. "Don't you think I've toyed with those things?" I tilted my head at the knife. "It killed me once already. Don't you think I've tried to find some way to become immune to them, hmm?"

He wiped his face, rage swirling in his eyes as his jaw clenched.

"That same knife you're holding...I've cut myself with that almost a thousand times," I admitted. "You're going to have to do more than stab me a few weak ass times to kill me. Pussy." The last word was supposed to only be a thought. "Oops." I laughed again and he screamed, burying the knife into my stomach and pulling it out.

I hung on, waiting.

The knife was created to stab into its host and remain there. His pulling it out was supposed to be near impossible-- like Arthur and the stone, but he was doing it. It was only a matter of time before he grew tired. Then I could...I blinked. My head fell weak against his shoulder. Just a little bit longer.

My entire abdomen was full of stab wounds within a few moments. It'd be a sight to see after they were all healed. The only thing that made that a bit more bearable was that Queen would kiss them all. That made it worth it.

Definitely losing it right now.

He was slower than before. He struggled a bit more with pulling the knife out. His breathing had become heavier. I held out just a little longer, my eyes shut and I waited. Just until his hand lingered on the blade a little bit longer.

Just until he caught that breath he'd been needing to take and I wrapped my hand over his on the blade.

My eyes opened, the rain dripping down my face and making it hard to see anything. But I didn't need to see him. I pushed against him, pulling the knife out of me. He began to struggle, groaning to push it back and I flipped our hands, turning the pointy blade to him. I reached my broken arm around him, pulling him in until our heads were mere inches apart. I wanted to see the pain in his eyes. Would he scream?

I drove the blade into his stomach and he did in fact, scream. More than once. "I haven't even pulled the knife out." I smiled and he slumped against me. I pulled it out, giving him a taste of his own medicine before pushing it in one more time and leaving it. He dropped to his knees and slumped over. His hands wrapped around the knife and he screamed, attempting to pull it out. But he couldn't.

I held a hand over my stomach, the pain still jarring as I bled out. "When used correctly," emphasis on correctly, " the person you use the knife on shouldn't be able to pull it out."

"Syn," he choked out, his eyes bloodshot as an odor began to pour out of the wound.

I kicked the knife in his stomach and he cried out in agony as he fell onto his back. "Don't beg me for a fucking thing," I growled before spitting on the ground once again and wiping my mouth.

I groaned, taking slow and painful steps to the cabin. I wasn't only fighting my body. It felt like I was fighting Death himself. And a worthy opponent he was, but he had never been as in love as I was. I needed to get to her.

Just a few steps.

Then the stairs were all I needed to get through. Each hurt like hell, but I made it.

When I passed through the front door, my body finally gave up on me. I fell against the doorframe and allowed myself just two breaths before taking another step inside.

My eyes did a quick sweep of the house. I spotted her lying on the floor a few feet away from the door and my eyes widened. I couldn't hear or feel her. I rushed to her side, my wounds becoming a second painful thought as I wrapped my hands around her face. I brought my ear down to hear something, anything at this point.

When her soft breaths fanned my face, a flood of relief washed over me. I closed my eyes, relaxing my head against hers. I pressed a kiss to her nose. "You chose the wrong time to sleep, Princess."

My eyes fluttered down to her neck. Dark bruises covered her smooth skin and my rage-- already overflown managed to double. She was covered in defensive wounds and her dark shirt was covered in blood. I lifted the thin material. And my blood went cold. Stab wounds. All over her fucking stomach.

I moved, grabbing her arm with my one that wasn't injured and it went limp in my hand. Broken. Just like mine. "Fuck," I cursed in a whisper. "I'm sorry." She was still wearing her ring, but I wasn't wearing the bracelet. I remembered the moment I took it off and cursed one hundred times over as I picked her up.

If I had known...

If I had fucking known. I wouldn't have let the bastard stab me a hundred goddamn times.

Shit.

My broken arm was weak around her but I held her against my chest. I could hardly manage to walk by myself let alone with anyone in my arms right now. But I would never drop her. If it were up to me, she'd never leave my arms again after this.

I walked out of the door, the cold wind passing over us and making her stir in my arms. I stepped down the steps of the porch and stopped at the ground. He was gone. The spot he was curled up in only moments ago was empty but the barrier was still up, still as strong as before.

He was alive.

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