Page 205 of Heir of Broken Souls

A scream tears from my lungs.

My magic rises instinctively as it feels my pain but Peter bares his teeth. “You so much as move an inch and I’ll have his head rolling.”

Slamming my magic down, commanding it to cease, pain and panic trap me in a vise.

I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I cannotfunctionas the love of my life is beaten.

“Stop!” I scream. “Stop it!”

Tears are streaming down my face, my heart is splitting in two, and I do the only thing I can think of in this moment of despair.

Before I drop my golden power, I make one last move. I vanquish the only thing that can kill Peter when he isn’t in his true form. Wherever Aurora is, wherever she is flying, I call upon my magic and teleport the twin swords to her, taking them from my grasp. Then I placate myself and kneel before the dark lord and plead.

“Take me instead.”

Axel screams behind me, but I don’t take my eyes off Knox, not as his head hangs limply. He isn’t moving. Another demonic hound strikes him with a whip.

“Stop this!” I scream. “Take me! Take me instead. You want me, not him, so take me!”

I’ve turned feral. I can hear it in my voice, the utter panic and mania entering.

I have just doomed us all, but none of this is worth it if he is gone.

None of it.

I’d rather be sent to the depths of hell. I would rather float through the endless pit of the universe than leave him in the demonic creatures’ clutches.

I am surrounded by hundreds of hounds, Zephlyn is nowhere to be found, his promise to keep Knox safe broken, and I am at Peter’s mercy…and he knows it. Peter steps forward, his eyes gleaming with such delight I can’t help but sob as I lay my forehead on the muddied and bloodied forest ground and beg.

“Take me instead of him, please,” I sob. “I don’t care what you do to me so long as you let him live.”

“You would really give your life for his?” he asks suddenly.

“Yes!” I scream with such fury spit flies from me.

Axel is still crying, screaming at the top of his lungs, but all I can hear is my erratic heartbeat and the sound of Knox’s unconscious body being whipped to a bloody pulp.

“Take me.”

He steps back, assessing me, before he grins, devilishly wide. I just gave him what he wanted most in this world, what he has hunted down for months.

The golden witch.

Shadows wrap around my arms and iron suddenly encases my hands, feet, and mouth.

He leans forward, the putrid stench of his breath wafting over me. “You just sentenced them all to ruin.”

A sob tears from my throat and tears fall freely down my cheeks.

I know, and it’s the most selfish choice I’ve ever made in my entire life.

He turns and whistles. “Bring him to me!”

My breath hitches as Knox is unhooked from the chains and dragged across the field, through the portal, and dumped at Peter’s feet. He kicks him before using his shadows to hold him upright.

He won’t wake.

Why won’t he wake?