“How dare you dishonor me, horseman. After all we have been through together.”
The warmth in the room climbed to a sweltering temperature as Wrath’s waves orbited above his head. “I was not…” Adres choked, attempting to explain. “I was p-praising you.”
Wrath stretched his arm in Adres’s direction, his fingers splayed as flames gloved his palm in orange and red. “You call that praise. There was a time where you walked beside me. Now, your very presence insults me!” Wrath’s voice echoed around the room before he snapped his hand forward and shot the flames two inches from Adres’s head.
He jerked to get away from the blast. The fire didn’t touch his body, but the heat did, making his skin feel as if it was being peeled away and pinned with iron nails. Macauley’s brother Aleksei had not needed to come in his god form to kill him for what he’d done. Adres would willfully lay down his life for his disgrace.
“Look at what you have become. Have you truly forgotten who you are?”
Adres was engorged on a Volkov alpha’s blood; he was never stronger than he was at that moment. Yet Wrath kept him pinned to the wall with his feet dangling off the floor as if he was nothing. Insignificant.
Adres had never felt humidity so intense, and he had once braved a mission in the Death Valley. Wrath possessed the kind of heat that seeped into his bones and burned from the inside out. Adres groaned as Wrath formed another explosion of fire with his fist. True terror seized his heart and pumped fear through his veins.
“You have let this curse defeat you.” Wrath’s voice rippled like the aftershocks of an explosion. “You once wielded that evil as a great weapon. And when you prayed to me on the battlefield, I answered the call.”
Belleron stood silently amongst the smoke that invaded every space in the cabin except the space around him. He was practically basking in the heat as if it was an ambiance.
“Now you cower in the dark in shame while your beloved lies dying at your own hand!”
Adres attempted to holler, but his mouth was filled with liquid fire as a coil of smoke pressed across his throat like a steel bar. Desperation yanked at him, fight or flight overriding his senses as he tried to take a breath before he lost consciousness.
“The spell has now darkened your light until you can no longer recognize it.” Wrath extinguished the flames in his hand, but Adres was unable to feel a second of relief as the smoke around him formed into the shape of an arrow that Wrath shot directly into his heart.
Adres jolted violently as hundreds of the evil wards locked around his soul disintegrated at once. The pain was so instant and sharp that it knocked the last of the air from his lungs, preventing the wail from escaping his throat.
Wrath came closer, but his imposing presence was blurred by the smoke as visions began to form within the layers. Adres was able to make out a reflection of himself fighting as a young warrior with Wrath by his side. Acrid fumes slithered up his nose and threaded through his brain as another image of an eight-foot giant in a gold Corinthian helmet with rich mahogany feathers appeared before him. He was draped in heavy bronze-colored robes that had embroidery similar to his own and diamonds decorating the long train. He rode in a chariot pulled by six ebony Friesian warhorses three times the size of Razboi.
Wrath’s voice was compelling as he explained. “Your great ancestors were the Titans of the wind who controlled the four cardinal directions. You, Adres, are the descendant of the west. Your father, the great Titan Tephyros, was more feared than the gods. His steeds were inescapable, and as he charged onto the battlefield, he shook the earth around him. When he mated with a vampire queen—your mother—she gave him many heirs.”
The curse had made him forget.
“You think those nectar-breath, privileged fairies are the ones who gave you that magic?” Wrath curled his lip in disgust as the heat in the room rose another few degrees. “It was always yours. They just unlocked it for you.”
“Oh my gods.” Belleron shook his head as he stared up at Adres’s suspended body, Wrath’s binds of smoke restraining him harder than titanium shackles.
“Look how you have disgraced your name.” Wrath yanked his hand back to his side, and Adres hit the floor like a boulder. The vapors and fumes attempted to choke him as a dense cloud enveloped his head. “I’m not even in my god form, Orestes. I should be no match for you.”
What did he call me?
The edges of Adres’s vision got brighter in the corners as he slowly got to his feet, his eyes never leaving Wrath’s. Belleron placed his hand on his mate’s broad shoulder, and Adres didn’t know if he was trying to intervene and stop them or if he was taking cover.