Dark Love

B2:P23

They were coming for her. All of them. Saera drew out her sword, holding it in front of her ready to strike. But they never got a chance to close in on her. Nick got there first and with a few well placed blows, made mince meat of the beasts. Hacking their way through was draining and while the deamons were coming for her, it was clear they had no intention of killing her. It wasn't long before everyone else caught on to this and joined the fray of let's-cut-down-the-creeps while Saera played bait.

But despite the attraction, Saera still had her fair share of slice and dice. Only she took up arms in defending the others. Soon, the body count on both sides grew too high and Saera was covered from head to toe in blood and gore. Her sword cut through a particularly tough hide as a deamon made for Nick. It got stuck mid way and clattered to the rock hard ground. Fire and brimstone littered the floor as the lower deamons that collapsed from their attack turned to crumbled stone. Brimstone.

Highly combustible brimstone. A fact once discovered had the mages directing their powers to light the keg of hell fire that surrounded them. The air was burning pure heat. Sweat drenched over her frame and not all of it from the flames. Fatigue pulled at her limbs slowing down her moves to counter the clash of blades. But that not what had her worried. She was burning up on the insides. With each deamon set alit, she felt the collective flames tearing through from her insides.

You are one of us.

The voice in her head belonged to the collective. The draw to them was making it harder and harder to fight against them. No longer did her blades draw their blood. She drew them to deflect their blows refusing to even nick them in the flesh. Her aim only to defend her mate.

Nick dragged his feet behind her, his battle had been no intense. He fought to not only take them down but to save her ass as well. But the stream of the enemy flooding in seemed endless. The clatter of a blade hitting the ground behind her had her reeling back to look over her shoulder. Horror flooded her mind, ripping at her soul. Nick had been struck through with a deamon blade. Her own hit the ground right after and her knees followed suit. She was crawling around the brimstone littered ground towards him a moment later. Tears mingling with the sweat that dripped over the almost molten floor. A sizzle of steam hissed into the air with each drop. But Saera was oblivious to all of it. She was oblivious to the sounds of waning battle as each Elven half-breed hit the ground one after the other. She was oblivious to their cries of pain and horror. She was oblivious to the blisters and burns that scalded her over as she moved through hell fire and brimstone to reach Nick.

He lay there unmoving, gasping for air and with his own blood flooding his mouth. It slid down his cheek to sizzle off the ground. Her anguished eyes slid desperately down his lean frame settling on the pool of blood he laid in. His blood, drying and burning where it hit the ground. The metallic scent of it mixed with the scent of brimstone filling the air. Burnt flesh followed. His and her own.

Saera moved on, shoving past embers of brimstone and severed limbs. Then she reached him. Her hands splayed out helplessly as she sat back on her haunches to study the damage.

He gurgled something up at her, unable to speak with his blood choking the breath out of him.

"Nick," she sobbed, her hands reaching out to touch him. Flitting restlessly over him trying to stem the flow of blood that was weakening him. Trying and failing.

"Don't die," she begged. Her voice hoarse from all the screaming she didn't even realise she had been doing. "Please."

"Nick," she said, unknowingly calling out his name again and again. "Nick."

Her trembling hands framed his face, gently lifting with the last of her strength as she cradled his head against her chest and rocked back and forth, trying to soothe him off his pain. She dragged in a ragged breath and lifted tears blurred eyes searchingly for someone, anyone to offer him help.

"Help!" She called out. "He needs help! Please!" She looked towards the barrier. The barrier that kept the wizards and witches safe behind it watching the deamons slay them all. "Please!" She begged.

They stared silently back unmoving, uncaring. A shudder ran down her frame.

"They will never be there for you daughter."

The words rang in her head.

"They will never care."

"Mother?"

Hope flooded her being with an intensity that left her weaping. Then a cool brush of darkness slid across her skin and Saera turned to her side facing the shadows.

"Save him," she cried. "Please."

The shadows drifted over Nick's frame, shrouding him completely before drawing back to settle beside her.

"It's too late."

"Wha...," Saera wrench her gaze back to Nick's face. She stared down unseeingly, only realising belatedly that the water pouring out of her eyes was blinding her vision. She lifted a hand to scrub at her eyes, willing herself to stop crying so that she could see. Her movements frantic and she moped up her face but try as she might she couldn't see. She couldn't see his face. She couldn't stop her tears long enough to see. She couldn't...

Her cries of anguish intensified and with it her tears flooded down anew.

She needed to see. She needed to see him. Unable to catch a sight, Saera clutched him to her close and gulped down at the tears clogging her throat. She struggled for air and ignored the unrecognisable sounds that left her throat.

She didn't know how long she sat there trying and trying to catch a sight of Nick's face. Nick's face that was being held so close to her own. Nick's face that her lips were roaming over unseeingly. Unheeding of the dried up blood caking off his flesh. Unheeding of anything.

"You belong with me, daughter," said the voice from the shadows beside her. "Come find me." It urged. "Come to me.... and let them all rot in hell."