Lavender (2) : Sons of the Deveaux

9.5

LENNOX

"Where is she! Where the fuck is she?!" Screaming at his brother over the throng of ghouls that battered them from all angles, Nox was expanding as much energy as he dared. Reinforcements had arrived to try and push the wave of monstrosities back so the pair could at least look for their mate but it was no good.

Their snakes drove and twisted through the ghouls like a hurtling train without breaks tossing bodies into the air. Cricket had recovered from the poison the fastest and a basalisk on the warpath would not be held back by anyone.

More rose from the bodies of others, more grew from the sludge and thick tar at their feet, all with single-minded purpose to keep them back. Panic was a shackle around his chest, squeezing his heart tight and dampening the fire within him with fear.

She's not gone. She's not gone. My mate will not be gone from me.

Oh, now his demon wanted to go into denial? Grabbing a ghoul by its mangled face and burning until the fucker melted into sludge, Lennox moved on to the next one. If he had to burn that entire gods-damn tree to the ground in order to get her, he would.

Swinging his sword as freely as he could to hack and cut into twisted bodies, he knew he was hurt in multiple places. That he had wounds in several places and chunks of his armour had been ruined or ripped off entirely. He couldn't fight forever. Orian would run out of steam soon as well with the vigour his brother fought.

Somewhere Ruine's laughter reached him as he hacked and tore through limbs, the maniacal side of his older sibling showing in all its gory glory.

More decrepit hands grabbed at him, overwhelming him. Fuck! Lennox was sure this was it this time, his inner flame was waning, his magic and power filtering out. The fire within him wasn't worth shit if he couldn't save his mate with it. Think! Think!

There was no time for mulling over issues. For getting bogged down with worries when you were supposed to be fighting for your life.

With a yell as putrid ghouls swamped him, he shoved a hand through the torso of another, reaching up for somebody, anybody to see him going down. Gritting his teeth, his flames were banked and suffocated under the sludge they tried to burn through no matter how hard he pushed.

He was going to die.

He was going to fucking bite it right here at the roots of the tree, a useless fucker, and all he could think about was his mate. Her lilac gaze and innocent smile just as the dark started to close in and pain lanced his body everywhere as the enemy increased the attack.

Something grabbed his hand, yanking so hard Nox was sure his shoulder was about to yank from its socket with a forceful tear. His body was hauled up and out of the decayed clusterfuck he'd gotten into with two wrenching pulls when he saw it. Lucien must have seen the smoke sputtering out because he'd come to grab his ass from the bundle. Dragging air into his lungs free of the cloying stench for a second, Lucien didn't let go.

He had gone full Noctis, something Lennox had only ever seen twice in their long lives. Huge, bat-like wings as white as his hair, the ends sharp and taloned beat down as he pulled Nox higher from the frey and into the air gaining traction with the ascent. "What the fuck are you doing?" He tried to yell skyward and only got a blank stare in return.

For a second, Lucien reached for Nox's hair, hauling him up none too gently and slapping what Lennox had foolishly mistaken as a face shield. Until heat enveloped him. Until his body started to glow, his veins taking on a yellow ember from within him.

"Meteorite."

Frosty eyes twinkled delightedly and that winged fucker threw him upwards as hard as he could. Just let go like it was nothing to let him hurtle through the sky. But that didn't matter, did it? The burn coursed through his body, cauterizing wounds and rushing blood through aching muscles. Wind whistled through his hair and across his body as he caught fire. Falling.

As he became the flame. Falling.

In fire, we are reborn. In fire, we take revenge.

Burn.

And for once, Lennox repeated the phrase back to the demon that had been called to the surface, as his mind blinked like a flickering bulb about to go out.

How he'd kill for the smell of lavender on his skin one more time before the binds on his demon sizzled away to ash, the monster unleashed into a frenzy.

ORIAN

His head whipped up as something akin to the sun lit the blackened sky of the Life Tree's realm. Lucien was almost a speck above them while the meteor hurtled into the fray. Lennox was falling like a fucking comet, a ball of white-hot fire that was going to touch down with purpose and incinerate everything around them.

It was only a second of staring at his brother falling to them when a hand slid over his eyes, blocking everything from sight. A cold casing slid against his cheeks as he tried to fight the grip before his head was yanked back and for a second, a cold sweat broke out over the demon as his throat was exposed.

"Release."

Brimstone's voice was far away before he even finished the word. The darkness engulfed him in black smoke, a fog detonating like a bomb into a giant cloud that moved of its own accord. Wails of ghouls echoed within it and were swiftly cut off before the blackness was sucked back into a semblance of a body.

Orian but not Orian.

A spectre that a strong breeze could wash away, its tendrils of fog snapping out like snakes to bite at the enemy. The only thing clear was the white mask it wore, a skull-like image. Black teeth and bottomless dark eyes, whisps of smoke curling around dark horns, untouchable, as it took off in the same direction an explosion came from, the ground shaking from the force, mulch and soil spitting into the air throwing rocks and destruction everywhere around them. It was a battleground of the dead and determined.

In the destruction and chaos, ghouls' bodies piled and writhed, their wailing lifting and rising like a war chant. The dead branches of the colossal tree groaned. Giant twigs fell from huge heights and smashed into the ground below.

The carving etched into the old decayed bark opened its wooden eyes in a blinding white light.

White like the petal of a daisy.

White like Lillith's hair.

White like the moon.