Page 156 of Commanding Flame and Shield
Those between us fell like dominoes under the speed of my assaults, and then I was upon Agamemnon. The hulking brute snarled, a cruel smile playing on his lips as he drew the enormous, jagged sword from the sheath down his spine. Heart thundering, breath coming in hot, ragged pants, I circled the beast that had caused all this pain. He circled back. Indeed, those charging August and me seemed to still as their master raised his blade on a long arm, and pointed it at me. An arrogant challenge. His shadows billowed. The power palpable as he contained our own.
August roared, and I realized they had disarmed him.Shit, shit, shit.
Agamemnon raised his brows behind that extended sword. Fear skittered down my spine, needles pricking against my ribs, but I suffocated it.
Shock flashed across those obsidian eyes when I bared my teeth at him. Shock, as he realized I would not turn for my mate. Not anymore. We weren’t walking out of here, anyway. That was what I had decided—that it was a good day to die. And it would be a warrior’s death that finally claimed me.
I would at least take him with us.
We continued to circle, and the others held their expectant line as more soldiers arrived on scene. Waiting for blood to spill...myblood to spill.
Stepping over the slain soldiers and piles of ash, we rounded on each other. I begged my lungs to catch a scrap of breath as the sweat dripped down my back. My face. My chest. Didn’t bother to waste my strength on a threat of an execution promise. No, I would save it for his death blow. But ice still balled in my gut, as my eyes spotted August at sword tip. Veins freezing over, I noted the gash across his ribs. Marked the three Renown that held him in his spot, arms behind his back. Marked them for death if I managed to step away from this. Fear guttered in their eyes at my expression, and I sneered.
They didn’t strike the lethal blow. Still under orders to bring him in, then.
I had no such reservations.
My long blade slid out with the ring of its sheath down my spine, and I advanced. Again, and again, Agamemnon feigned right. But when I struck for that exposed left side, he parried and swung. His sword—God have mercy—was as mammoth as its wielder. I nearly bent over backwards to dodge it. The air crushed from me as his knee collided with my belly, a rib cracking. August bellowed my name. My knees screamed when they met the earth, but I rolled, finding my feet. The Renown roared in anticipation. But I gulped down a breath, and twirled, barely evading his chopping assault that would have taken my head.
Just keep moving, Ally. Don’t stop. Take this sick bastard with you.
My muscles obeyed. Kind of. The shaking had begun, exhaustion threatening to turn muscles to rubber.Not yet. Keep moving.
I did. Again, and again, I twirled, and parried. Jumped, ducked, and dodged as he hacked towards me relentlessly. A manic lumberjack, his sword swung like an axe. No precision, just lethal rage.
August bellowed my name. But he was too little too late, as the blade from behind sliced over my thigh. An involuntary scream shredded up my throat as the agony seared through muscle and I collapsed to my knees in the sloshing mud. As I scrambled to right myself, Agamemnon roared the word I had taunted him with.
“Mine!” The warrior instantly backed up. Heat poured down my leg, soaking through my skin-tight suit. I didn’t look down, didn’t allow my mind to register it as I kept my weight over the protesting bones and torn muscle, stifling the scream cleaving up my throat. Fuck, I was slower…too much slower.
Still, I shifted, just as Agamemnon's attack met my own. Blow for blow, our steel met. Every inch of my body trembled with effort and shock, as the wound gushed onto the earth. This was it, then. My last stand. Worst case, Adrastos would free our family when they were no longer leverage. Aren would see to the rest. We would not become the enemy’s weapon.
The beast barked a laugh as my leg buckled beneath my weight, body vibrating with the effort of staying upright. Someone kicked me from behind, and a sob tore up my throat as I fell to my knees. Into the puddle of ash, blood, and mud. Where I was even with August, still held by the steel pressed against his throat.
August’s desperate eyes met my own, and I willed him to remember. To remember all I’d said. To remember that I loved him. For his soul to somehow remember to find me next time. Faster. Willed him to trust me in this desperate move, too.
Agamemnon whirled, cruel smile stretching, and threw his sword down with his full might. Too fast. I braced for the impact. For the blow that would end this, and for the agony to register before the black. Heard August’s desperate howl as it descended.
But no impact came. Distantly, as if through someone else’s mind, I heard as the steel collided against ringing metal. When I peeled my eyes open, a combination of shock and twisted satisfaction reeled in my chest. Because my gamble had paid off. It wasn’t Aren bracing the enormous gold shield against the brutal assault. Wasn’t miraculously August, or even Alec, or surefooted Ansel.
But Adrastos.
SIXTY-THREE
BARGAIN
AUGUST
I’d promised Alvara—sworn I would trust her to the very end, and into the next life. I had broken that promise.
Not as I lost my sword. Not as the enormous, rancid beasts yanked my arms behind my back. Or kicked me to my knees. Not even as the one with a scar down his face, across where an eye should be, pressed the icy tip of that sword against my neck...
It was the look in her eyes, as she stared me down, so many words unsaid there. The last look in her eyes, as she closed them, rather than raise her sword….
I shattered.
Shattered into pieces, as her arm fell, and that sword thudded to the earth beneath her, her fingers loose and limp. Shattered, as she turned her face away toacceptthe death blow.
The world—the roar of the Renown, the pulse in my ears, the haunting melody, all went silent, as time stood still. As everything froze, save the sword descending on Alvara. It vaguely registered that I was screaming her name as I fought against the cleaver at my throat and wrenched at the hands on my arms.
