Kissed by a Dark Prince(109)

Vail growled and hit Bleu with a powerful blast of psychic power, sending him tumbling through the air and landing hard on the scaffolding. Bleu crashed through it, hitting each floor and some of the steel poles, flipped and landed on his front on the gravel.

Loren threw his hand out towards Vail and sent him flying through the darkness across the grass.

He sensed Olivia move, saw Kordula’s gaze dart to her location as she ran towards Bleu, and kicked off as the witch sent five black needle-like shards at her. He threw himself into their path and two struck him hard in the left side of his chest.

The remaining three embedded into the stomach of the man standing before him, shielding him.

Vail.

Loren hit the ground, the force of the impact causing every one of his injuries to blaze with pain and the two long needles to burn fiercely.

Vail collapsed to his knees, his back heaving as he breathed hard, his right hand shaking as he reached for the long black spikes that punctured his stomach and came out of his back.

Loren yanked the two in his chest out, grunting as each pulled free of his flesh, and discarded them as he rushed to Vail’s side.

Vail wavered and fell backwards, and Loren caught him. Blood coated his brother’s lips and formed rivulets down his chin.

“Vail,” Loren whispered and looked down at the three spikes in his stomach. He silently apologised to his brother for the pain he was about to cause him and threw a mental command at them, pulling them out of Vail’s flesh. Vail cried out, bowing forwards in his arms, the sound cutting Loren to his heart as his brother’s agony tore through him.

Loren growled and looked up at Kordula through his lashes, his gaze narrowing on her and his lips curling back off his fangs. His ears flattened against the sides of his head beneath his helmet and he snarled as he flung his bloodied right hand forwards and sent the five spikes flying at her.

She smiled wickedly as she dodged each one, taunting him with how easily she evaded them.

Loren grinned, flashing his fangs at her.

And teleported just as she dodged the final spike.

He appeared before her, his right hand flattened to form a point with his vicious black claws and shoved it upwards before she had even noticed him.

His claws ripped through the metal corset and the black material of her dress and plunged into her flesh just below her ribcage. He grabbed her shoulder with his left hand and drove his other one hard into her, until his claws punctured her twisted black heart and she gasped, her vicious grin becoming a look of horror and disbelief.

Loren closed his claws around her heart and stared down into her eyes as the red faded from them, revealing pale icy blue, ensuring he was the last thing she saw as he tore the vital organ from her body, spraying her blood across the gravel.

She dropped to the ground.

A huge broadsword came out of nowhere and severed her head.

Loren raised an eyebrow at Thorne.

“Just to be sure,” the demon king said and nodded towards the heart still clutched in Loren’s hand. “My kind would eat that.”

Loren grimaced and dropped the black heart. “My kind would not.”

He turned away and bright red light flared across his eyes, searing them. He raised his hands to shield them from it and squinted in search of the source.

Vail arched off the ground, a collar of markings blazing around his throat, his agonized bellow ripping through the night. Birds fled their perches in the trees and nature herself trembled in response to the harrowing sound.

Loren pushed forwards, driven to soothe his brother and help him somehow.

The markings disappeared and Vail looked at him, his purple eyes verging on black and rapidly filling with a wild and crazed but sorrowful look that Loren had seen too often in the past forty-two centuries not to know what it meant.

“Bleu!” Loren shouted and rushed to grab Vail before he could escape.

Bleu managed to reach him before Loren could but Vail fought him, vicious and savage despite his injuries. He clawed at Bleu, snarling and growling like a beast, his visage that of an animal as he bared his fangs and gnashed them. Bleu blocked as many blows as he could but others struck, Vail’s serrated claws cutting easily through Bleu’s armour and into his flesh.

Loren used all of his remaining strength to cross the distance between them in a blur of speed but even that wasn’t fast enough.

Vail leaped backwards, pressed hard into the ground and propelled himself upwards, flipping heels over head to land on the remaining scaffolding.

“Vail... stay. I can help you get better.” Loren reached for his brother and Vail hesitated, giving him hope that he would do as Loren bid.

Vail paused only long enough to look down at Loren with regret and a dreadful sense of finality in his eyes, the emotions flooding the restored link between them both speaking of his pain and issuing a silent apology, and then swan dived off the scaffolding towards the collapsed section.