Ascension (The Gryphon Series) (21 page)

Chapter 27

“Conduit.” The Countess dragged the point of her pink tongue over toothpaste commercial white teeth. Her venomous ruby gaze wandered the length of me. “Nice hands. I suggest you fire your manicurist.”

I held up one talon and turned it o
ver to admire it. “You like ‘em? They were a gift from a friend of yours. Speaking of,” I sniffed the air and groaned my appreciation, “he was right. Your kind
does
smell delicious. Like cheeseburgers, cotton candy, and happiness.”

Green flames flared in
her crimson irises. “I see you’ve learned just enough backstory to make yourself even more annoying. Brava.”

“Enough to make you sweat.”
With one deadly curled claw, I pointed at my forehead. “You’ve got a little something right here.”

She flipped her head in a motion more equine than human. Her cascading hair rippled to reveal the supple curve of her
bare breast. “We’re surrounded by flames, you twit. Someone with your blaring insignificance could never garner that kind of reaction from me.”

I threw my arms out to the sides and peered around at our fiery prison of solitude. “And yet, here we are.”

“You still think we’re equals in this?” Her pert nose crinkled with amusement. “How tragically simple of you.”

Power emanated off of her
, sizzling through the air with a palpable force, and all I had to counter it with was brute strength. Not that I could let that matter. I couldn’t back down or show even the slightest weakness. My life, and the lives of all those around me, depended on it. “If that really is the case,” I stiffened my jaw and forced a smug tone despite my own trepidation, “this should be over quick.”

Her face dawned with m
aniacal glee as she beckoned me to her with the curl of one finger. “Show me what you’ve got, little girl.”

No further invitation was needed.
I flipped into an aeriel and drove my heel down hard into her jaw. As she stumbled back, I pounced. Claws swiped at flesh. Balled fists connected in what should’ve been bone crunching impact. I held nothing back, but unleashed all my pent up fury. The malicious sorcerous, however, didn’t lift one finger to fight back. Instead, she laughed. Quiet at first, a light-hearted titter, that built and swelled with each of my paltry attempts to engage her. Panting from the exertion, I inched back a step … then another. Not a scratch, blemish, or mussed hair altered her demented perfection.

“Such fever. Such zest.
How does it feel to know it was a complete waste?” Her dainty wrist flicked to her side. Sparking azure tendrils sizzled from the tips of her fingers. “Now, it’s my turn.”

A loud crack echoed through the night as she snapped the whip-like coils
in my direction. I leapt in the air in a side-tuck, barely missing her strike. Mid-rotation, she unleashed the same weapon in her other hand and sent the sizzling vines hungrily snapping for me. An anguished scream tore from my throat as I was knocked off course by the lash that sliced across my shoulder. Air was forced from my lungs as I slammed to the ground. Skin hung from bone in three angry slices across my upper arm. Rivulets of blood streamed down my arm, but I didn’t have time for the pain. Panic bubbled in my gut as hoof beats closed in. The claws of my good hand scratched across the ground as I scrambled to get my feet under me.

Just as I planted one foot
, my wrists were yanked out from under me by the sizzling coils that snaked around them, charring and blistering the skin beneath. The smell of my own burning flesh filled the air. My pulse drummed in my ears like whirring fan blades. Hooves clacked closer. I bit back a pained whimper as my arms were wrenched out to the sides, the coils shredding tissue from bone. The Countess kicked the back of my knees, knocking me to the ground. With a hoof pressed to the middle of my back she forced me forward, my arms arced up behind me at an unnatural angle. Tears streamed down my face at the white hot pain of my shredded shoulder popping from its socket.

She leaned over me
, her hot breath assaulting my cheek. “Open your eyes. Look at them.”

Through a haze of pain I lifted my weary head. T
hrough the flames I could make out the silhouette of two lions; one black and one white. They paced along the perimeter, snarling and snapping their jaws in an anxious need to help. Behind them stood Kendall, her shoulders shaking with the force of her sobs. My name formed on her quivering lips, but the sweet serenade of her voice died before it reached me. I didn’t know where Gabe and Grams were but I said a silent prayer that they would stay away. 

“Go ahead
,” The Countess hissed in my ear. “Call out to them. Let them be your saviors. I’ll reward their heroics by letting you live … long enough to watch them die.” 

“
Stay … back …” My weak plea wasn’t meant for my captor. Those words, forced through laboring lungs, were sent with an empathic push of self-preservation to Caleb and Rowan.

Their steps halted
, yet they found no peace in the matter.

“Aren’t we the righteous one?
” The Countess tasted my sorrow by catching one of my tears with the tip of her tongue. “All you did was ensure that their last memory of you will be watching your die while they did
nothing
.”

She released her hold
and stepped back. My battered, aching limbs fell limp at my sides. Enduring stabbing needles of pain, I pulled my arms in tight to my chest and dragged myself across the ground. Every movement elicited another anguished whimper to escape my trembling lips. The pavement rubbed away skin, leaving angry sores from the friction, as I propelled myself forward with my forearms and knees in an awkward army crawl. 

It took her one stride to make up the distance
I’d earned with my efforts. Sharp nails scrapped my scalp as the Countess weaved her hand into my hair and yanked my head back at a sharp angle that lodged my breath in my throat. The night stilled. Demons and humans alike gathered to watch my degradation with their individual vested interest. Some panted for my blood. Others ached to free me. The snaps and hisses of Terin’s fiery wall was all that kept those I loved at bay. For that, I was exceedingly grateful.

“This is
the hero you chose to follow!” the Countess hollered at the townspeople as she held my head like a prize. “
Did you really believe a girl so young could be your town’s salvation?
Now, all of you will learn the same painful lesson I did,” she dipped down to snarl against my ear, “
you can never trust anyone associated with the Council
.”

She
threw my head to the ground. My brow cracked against the unyielding pavement with a hot rush of pain. The air sizzled as she activated her torturous tendrils once more. The first strike lashed across my back as four surging bands seared through my flesh. Her other arm arched back and administered a blow that sliced through nerves straight to the bone. Again and again she delivered fresh blows more powerful than the last. The fight drained from my body, leaving behind a lump of flesh that jerked and quivered under each hate-filled lash.

“You have lost everything to protect your pre
cious Gryphon, but where is he now?” she screamed and brought both hands down in a criss cross mess of gore and blood. “
Where is your hope now
?”

I yearned for death.
Could feel myself inching toward it, eagerly dipping a toe in that final good night …

Distracted by her own rant, she paused
my lashings to pace the perimeter of the flames. Her voice came in forceful stutter stops. “
Show your face, you … coward!
She’s not the one I want! Don’t make her die for
your
sins
!”

 
The night’s silent response tossed fuel on the inferno of her hate. A crazed shriek tore from her throat as she raised the whips high over her head and galloped toward me to deliver what was sure to be the death blow. I squeezed my eyes shut and braced myself for the sweet relief of the end.

A s
cream—
no
—a roar, primal and raw, cut through the night. I forced my heavy lids open and tried to focus on reality’s harsh lines.

A tawny mass leapt over a sea of red.
Grey fur retracted in a fang-baring snarl as the two masses collided.

“Grams?” I croaked. My palms
scraped across the ground as I struggled to pivot even an inch to see.

With her ears flat to her head
, the Grams-lion pounced. Her claws sank into the Centaur’s side, yet they spilled no blood and left no mark. Time slowed. The Countess’s face drained of emotion, to a stillness far more frightening. Dagger-like nails sank into Gram’s jugular. The Countess used Gram’s forward momentum against her to flip my grandmother over her head and plant her face first into the pavement. Bone cracked. Vertebras crunched. Gram’s eyes stared back at me … her pupils slowly dilating.

“No, no, no,
nooo
!” I shook my head, denying the truth seen by my own eyes. Wincing at the pain that I refused to let slow me, I scuffed and scraped my way to her side. 

M
y nemesis’s lips moved in a hate spewing rant, but my ears were closed to it. Whatever she said or did to me was inconsequential. All that mattered now was Grams. Adrenaline granted me the strength to pull myself up on one knee, then the other. My legs quaked and repeatedly threatened to buckle, but the sheer force of my will denied them of that option.

With the faintest of motions,
Gram’s chest rose and fell. Her breathing was labored and shallow—but it was there. I gathered her head and shoulders into my lap and cradled her in my arms. “I’m right here, Grams. I’m so sorry. You never should’ve been put in the middle of this.” As I gently stroked her cheek I noticed the color draining from her face, making the contrast against the red gash in her neck even more gruesome. “But you can’t leave me. You hear? I can’t do this without you.”

As a fresh onslaught of tears fell, subtle
warmth sprouted between my bloody and battered shoulder blades. It bloomed across my ravaged back, easing the pain and sprouting a delicate flower of hope that was nourished by every physical and emotional scar I’d suffered. Cartilage grew from my shoulder blades in a glorious expansion that brought no shock or fear … only peace.

My shoulder found its way back into the socket w
ith a loud
pop
and a rush of that needles and pins sensation. That allowed me the range of motion needed to roll my shoulders and release my new feathered appendages. Beautiful earth-toned wings spread wide to the sides of me, their span expansive enough for me to tuck the base of them in behind me and curl the length around Gram’s feline form.

Protectors glow with a calm illumination
, but I wasn’t a Protector. My healing light exploded in a bright beacon that scoffed in the face of subtly. Behind my eyes, Grams appeared as the twinkling essence that weaved life into her being. Her injuries appeared to me like snags in an intricate tapestry. Those were the areas I focused on, scooping out bits of my own light to fill in the gaps in hers.

“I’ll never stop. You have to know that. You could save her today and I’ll just take someone else you love tomorrow. You can’t be everywhere all the time, Celeste. One day I
will
claim one of them—by death or a sentence of servitude. It’s just a matter of whom. Your sister? Your mother?
Gabe
?”

If
the Countess had continued to rant like a surly drunk, I could’ve tuned her out. It was her steely calm and pointed emphasis of my brother’s name that prompted me to risk a peek through my parted feathers.

Gabe, naked and exposed, knelt at the Countess’s feet. Panic darkened his
gaze to a deep cobalt blue. Her whip-like coil sizzled and sparked around his neck, holding him at her mercy. In her hand … a branding iron. 

“Do you k
now what a Cerberus demon is?” the Countess asked as she rolled the iron between her thumb and forefinger. “I bet your friend the Gryphon does. He would know all too well the consequences of such a beast being unleashed from the confines of Hell. Perhaps he’ll give you tips on how to kill your own brother?”