The Rising Darkness (Ascendancy Legacy 5)
Page 18
The biter raised his daggers, and I flicked my wrist, sending him crashing into the wall. He fell to the floor, his daggers falling from his hands. The man with the sword rushed toward me. And I batted it aside easily enough. I brought my elbow up into his face. He staggered back, and I quickly lashed out, severing his arm.
Death was too good for him, so I called on my magic to cauterize the wound. He begged me to be merciful, but mercy wasn’t something that I had in mind. I slammed one of my swords down through his foot and deep into the earth before turning toward his friend. The biter was still unconscious, and that was just fine for me. I used my magic to lift him against the wall, and then I buried his own daggers into his shoulders, pinning him there.
He struggled and cried out, but the daggers held him in place. The rapist was still screaming where I left him. The sound of it filled me with glee. I pulled my sword free, and then removed his other arm and both of his legs at the knee. My first instinct was to kill him then, but it wouldn’t be enough. The beast had taken over, and it wanted more satisfaction than only blood would bring.
I left him screaming on the floor, waggling the stumps of his limbs around in horror. I moved toward the demon I had pinned to the wall. My sword slashed across his belly, and his intestines spilled out. I picked up a handful of them and shoved them into his mouth.
“You like to eat, so eat,” I screamed into his face. His mouth worked up and down, but even that wouldn’t be enough to save him now. Sickened, I took his head off with a single blow.
The broom in the corner caught my attention as I walked back to the rapist. I had just the place for it to go. I ripped his pants down and delighted in his screams before I turned him to ash.
I didn’t even know what I was doing. The beast had consumed me. It raged for the injustice of these people, and it was right. The demons had gone too far, and they had to be stopped. If they only respected power, then that was what we would show them. I broke the cages open and then marched back out into the early night.
Home after home, I kicked in the doors only to find horrors each more perverse than the last. I showed them no mercy; I let the beast run free. I didn’t come back to myself until the sun broke the horizon. By then, half of the city was in ruins. I didn’t know if the people I set free would run or if they even had anywhere to run to, but killing the demons had felt good.
Everything I had been presented with before now had been a carefully constructed lie to make me feel at ease. But now I knew the truth, and I wouldn’t rest until I destroyed every last one of these bastards. I stalked back to the castle, lighting the city on fire as I went. Any demon that tried to stop me was incinerated on sight. The power I was pulling into myself seemed endless, and the beast pushed for control.
These creatures didn’t deserve my mercy. They were a corrupt race of monsters. They needed to be so thoroughly crushed that they would never imagine returning to our world. The city burned around me, and still I marched forward. Nothing would stand in my way now. For all the pain and suffering I had seen last night, I knew it was only the tip of the iceberg. The demons in charge were probably guilty of worse.
The wall of the castle appeared before me. No guards dared to come out to challenge my presence there. Instead of looking for a door, I brought the entire wall down with a thought. My wolf wanted to take control, but I wasn’t ready to give it yet. The beast had control for the entire night; it was my turn to enjoy some of the retribution. This destruction was going to be mine. I flew up the side of the castle, ripping huge stones out of the walls and sending them raining down on the towers around me.
I reached the balcony to the throne room and marched in. Adramelech had been removed, and Salina had found her place on the throne. So it had all been a game to her. She used me to ascend to power, and I thought that I had figured her out. How wrong I had been.
She rose when she saw me, and I never hesitated. John was right; in hell, you had to act first and screw the consequences. She flapped her wings and rose into the air. A snarl curled around her mouth. There was nothing left of the lust demon that she had been. She angled forward to dive at me, and I brought the throne up from behind her and sent them both crashing to the ground.
She looked up at me as the massive piece of metal pinned her to the stone floor. She tried her best to twist her face back into a mask of seduction, but her eyes still burned with hate. She opened her mouth to speak, and I shoved my blade into it. She gagged on the sword before it split her head neatly in half.
Clapping started from behind me, and I spun around. The man in the cloak was there. His body thrummed with power, but this time I didn’t care. If it was my time to die, then I would die here making my stand for the innocent.
“Well done, my boy. Well done.”
What in the fuck did he mean by that? I had burned his city to the ground and set all of his slaves free. Why would he be complimenting me for that?
“I always knew that you had it in you, that with the proper motivation, you could become the destroyer. Now all we need to do is redirect your fury back onto the people who deserve it.”
I felt him enter my mind again, trying to twist control of myself away from me. The strength of his presence in my head sent me crashing to my knees. It wouldn’t work, not this time. Never again would I let him control me. My wolf howled and came to my aide. I let the beast take over my mind again, and the man flinched away from me as I rose back to my feet.
My magic surged through me, and I started to pull the castle down around us. If he wanted to live, then he was going to have to banish me from this realm. As each rock fell from the ceiling, I sent it crashing into the man before me. The ground beneath us shifted, and the castle started to pull away from the side of the mountain. I could sense the stones weakening. Soon the entire mountain would come down and slide into what was left of the city below. I couldn’t care less. They all deserved to pay.
I fed more magic into the spell and kept pushing and tearing at anything I could find. The man reached out a hand, and everything around me stopped. A portal opened, and he started to step through. I ran forward, knowing that he was fleeing and was going to leave me here to die as the castle crumbled around me. With a lunge forward, I managed to grab his leg before it slipped through.
He pulled me forward as he tried to shake me free. I rolled into the portal and let go. Everything went black, and I felt like I was falling. I hit something hard, and glass showered out from around me. The blaring of a car alarm started, and I rolled off of the hood and onto the ground. Was I home? Had I made it? This couldn’t be home. The entire city was burning.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
None of these books would be possible without the love and support of my wife Becky. Thank you for all of the sleepless nights and nap filled afternoons. No one has ever trusted and believed in me the way you do. I love you, Babe.
Kay is my wonderful and lovely beta reader. Without her the books wouldn’t be the same. Thank you Kay for taking the time out of your day to contribute to my books.
Jackson, Blizzy, and Cisco, I love you guys. You can’t read or write but you keep me company everyday. I wouldn’t have nearly as much fun as I do without you in my life.
A special thanks has to go out to all of my readers. Thank you for sticking with me as I continue to grow. I promise you, that there is more to come, and it will keep getting better.
ALSO BY BRADFORD BATES
To find out what else I have brewing or when the next book in the series is going to be released you only need to go to one place. bradfordbates.com
You can find links to my other titles here http://www.bradfordbates.com/books/
Table of Contents
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
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br /> Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Acknowledgments
Also by Bradford Bates