FULL NOVELXO Chapter 44
Benjamin’s beastly form swept overhead and I swung a flail of flames at his underbelly with a growl spilling from my lips. It crashed into his scales and threw him off course, his wings beating to try and counter the strike, but Rosalie sent chains of metal out to capture them, binding them to his sides and bringing him to the snowy ground in a collision that rocked the earth.
He struggled to get free, his immense bulk shattering one of the chains and I knew my time was almost up.
“Kill him!” Rosalie cried, running around to Benjamin’s jaws, trying to strap his mouth shut with her chains. The red glow of the fire in his throat shone through his scales and I saw the blast coming as Rosalie’s binds snapped and his mouth flew open.
“No!” I bellowed, shooting forward with a burst of speed and shoving her out of the way as the fire blasted from his jaws.
It slammed into me and I was thrown onto the ground from the force of the flames, engulfed as they burned into my chest. The snow melted around me in a pool as Benjamin towered over me and blood bubbled at my lips. His gaze turned to Rosalie as she stood to face him once again, but a snarl left me at him looking at her with a promise of death in those murderous eyes.
Rosalie cast a dagger in her grip, hurling it at him, aiming between his eyes but it deflected off of his scales, slamming down into the earth beside me.
The scent of burnt skin and the bloody hollow in my chest made it hard to move, my fingers flexing with the need to heal myself, but I was almost tapped out. Benjamin was about to blast hellfire at her once more and with just a scrap of magic left to me, I took the fallen dagger into my grip and swore on the moon that this woman would not die at the jaws of my oppressor.
Within a whip of fire that could have cracked the sky in two, I sent the dagger flying towards his open jaws, every ounce of power I had left going into the cast. It slammed into the back of his throat and drove upwards at the will of my fire, slicing in with a certainty that could only equal death.
Benjamin roared, his legs shuddering, eyes wheeling from Rosalie to me as horrified realisation found him. Then he came crashing to the earth, his life leaving him in a rush, finally releasing me from the chains of my past.
A heavy breath left me and it was laced with all the what ifs I had hoped to claim in this life. Rosalie was crying my name. I swear I heard the moon whisper to me that I had done well and then the world was too dark and death was tearing me away from the sole Fae who owned me to my core.
Death stole all chance for goodbyes, the sureness of it closing in around me and guiding me from Rosalie Oscura. She was the last thing I saw, haloed by moonlight with my name on her lips. And peace found me through the love burning in her eyes. Because if there was one thing in this world that had been worth giving everything for, it had been her. Forever her.