Vail swung one sword over his back, blocking Loren’s blade, and deflected Bleu’s spear with his other blade.
He couldn’t defend against three blades though.
Thorne’s aim was impeccable. He drove his sword through the slash in Vail’s armour and deep into his flesh.
Vail bellowed, dropped his blades and grabbed Thorne’s broadsword. He yanked it from him and staggered backwards, towards Loren. Blood pumped from the wound in Vail’s side, the scales of his black armour glistening with it as it ran down to his thigh.
Loren stared at his brother, hesitating when he should have struck a vicious blow, injuring him further.
He couldn’t move.
All he could do was breathe hard, battling the debilitating pain that seared every inch of him and blazed in his heart like an inferno, threatening to burn it to ashes in his chest.
Vail.
The link between them was wide open for the first time in forty-two centuries and all that flowed through it was crippling pain, dark and devastating, born not of his injury but of something else.
A red and black vortex appeared behind Vail and pulled him into it.
Loren collapsed to his knees and Bleu raced to him, coming to a crouch beside him.
“My prince, are you injured?” Bleu’s concerned expression turned to one of relief when Loren shook his head.
Loren grasped his knees, his hands shaking. Vail’s pain faded, the connection between them severing again, but it left him weakened.
A different feeling surfaced in his heart and he closed his eyes and pressed his hands to his chest, focusing on the faint link, nurturing it. Olivia. He could feel her and she was hurting. He had to find her before Kordula and Vail could have their revenge on him.
Loren lifted his head and looked up at Thorne. The immense male stood before him, his eyes shining bright like coals in the near-darkness. Bleu helped Loren to his feet and Sable joined them, flipping one of her knives, a black look on her face.
Thorne raised his broadsword with one hand and rested the blade on his free palm. He closed his eyes, licked the blood from the end that had punctured Vail’s side and swallowed it.
Loren’s heart pounded. This had to work.
“Well?” he said, his patience leaving him as fierce need to find Olivia claimed his heart. “Can you track him?”
Thorne opened his red eyes and they met Loren’s. “I have him.”
Relief beat swift and fierce through Loren. Only a few demon species could track someone via their blood and he was thankful that Thorne was the king of one of them.
He would be with Olivia again soon enough.
All they had to do was follow Thorne’s senses and Loren would see her again, and he would stop at nothing to save her from his brother’s grasp. He couldn’t save both of them, no matter how much he desired it deep in his heart. He had to sacrifice one dream to achieve another.
“Take us to them,” Loren said to Thorne and the demon king nodded, turned on his heel and stalked towards the Archangel building at the other end of the park, his bare muscular back shifting with each heavy step that pounded the earth.
Sable started after him, muttering dark things to herself about taking Vail apart when she next saw him. Loren took a deep breath.
He had felt Vail’s pain.
What had happened to his brother to make him hurt that much? There had been so much darkness in the link between them, when once there had always been light. Vail had always had a zest for life, had been outgoing and compassionate, forever in search of fun. That part of his brother was gone now and Loren was no longer sure that it was his bond to Kordula that had turned him mad and crushed his spirit.
“Is something wrong?” Bleu said in their language and Loren stared ahead at Sable and Thorne, and the Archangel building beyond.
He shook his head, shaking away his thoughts at the same time. It was too late now to consider what had happened to his brother. It was too late to save him. His brother had taken Olivia. His brother had brought death down upon his people. He had made thousands suffer and he would pay for it.
Vail was no longer his brother.
He was just another enemy to kill.
Loren moved off and Bleu fell into step beside him, his spear held down at his side, his gaze fixed ahead on Sable. Loren lost himself in thought as they followed Thorne, unable to completely shut out Vail and his suffering, torn between wondering what had happened to him and focusing on Olivia to keep the hazy connection between them alive.
Thorne left the park, crossed the road to the wrecked Archangel building, and turned around to face him.
“Have you lost him?” Loren feared that the demon had and he would fail to save Olivia.
Thorne shook his head and spoke in his demon tongue. “Still tracking. It was strange. He moved closer. I wondered if he was coming back, but he has returned to where the portal took him now.”