Defying Destiny (Afterword Academy #3) - Katie May Page 0,51

Pull it out of you, let it flow down your hands and press it into the cage. We can do this. Hadley is just behind this rock. We only need to believe we can break it, and the rock will crumble.”

Don’t ask me how I know this, I don’t even know how I know this, but I feel it within me. Taking my own advice, I squeeze my eyes shut and look deep within myself, finding that glowing tendril of magic that makes me a Reaper. I’d feared it might have left me after my powers were given to Hadley, but there it is, still burning bright, a gorgeous shade of fluorescent green.

Coaxing the magic out of me, I see the power brighten and extend. I feel it flow through my chest, down my arms, and into my hands. When my palms heat, I open my eyes and see a green glow surrounding my hands.

“Wow,” I mutter, glancing at my brothers who are experiencing the same thing. Auston’s glow white, Karston’s a bright blue, and Braxton’s hands have a black luminescence shining around them.

The rock begins to shake. “Keep holding it!” I shout, feeling the strain on my own power. Around us, the fight between Administer and the monster inhabited by Caius continues. I can smell the scent of blood, hear the sounds of battle, the cries, the screaming.

He can’t hold him off forever.

My whole body trembles from the intense exertion, and I worry I won’t be able to keep it up. I grunt and yell, willing the power to stay with me, to break this fucking rock to the ground.

Just when I think that I can’t hang on, the first crack sounds, and the rock cage begins to splinter.

“We’re doing it!” Karston shouts. I look at my brothers and see smiles alight on their faces.

“Yes, we fucking are!” Brax growls out.

“Protect Hadley!” Auston yells, trying to shield her where she lies between him and Braxton.

The power beneath my hand builds, pressure trying to force my hands apart. All of a sudden, we’re all yelling, trying to hold on. Then everything goes white, and an explosion sound resonates, throwing us all back from the cage.

My ears ring and my eyes burn, but I force myself to peel back my eyelids and look around. My brothers are heaving themselves off the ground, Hadley is still lying prone near the gaping hole in the cage, but I can’t see inside it. To my right, a howl sounds, and I look to see Caius’s smoke emerging from the monster where it sprawls on top of a struggling Administer. Administer is screaming and shouting, clawing, trying to free his body from under the gargantuan monster above him.

But he’s stuck, at least for now.

I lose track of Caius in the chaos and force my body to run to Hadley. I have to protect her. But just as I reach her, a tiny light filters out of the darkness of the cage, reminding me of a single lightning bug glowing in the night. It flutters about, seeming almost a bit unsure, before imbedding itself into Hadley’s chest.

Hope fills me, but before it can grow, a terrifying roar sounds in the darkness of the cage, chilling me to the bone. My eyes flick into the blackness, and I just pray whoever made that noise is on our side.

Time seems to stand still as we watch and wait, anticipating the next problem to arise, the next shoe to fall as I spot movement in the darkness.

Chapter 21

Caius

They did it.

They freed me—freed her.

As I race through the opened cave door, my smoke entering my body, I feel more powerful than I can ever remember. It’s something primal and raw, something that has my immortal heart juddering in my chest.

I enter my physical form with an animalistic roar. All of the pain and anger I felt at being trapped like some sort of prisoner of war cascades through me like rushing water.

Free.

I’m free.

That knowledge comes with a power burst so potent, it’s almost as if a physical beam of lightning has shot through the cave and entered my bloodstream. My back arches as it courses through me, ridding my body of all the dirt and scratches. The aches and pains.

It feels as if I’m standing beneath a shower, my grit-covered body turning cleaner than I can remember being in centuries. As a Fate, my body doesn’t wither away with time, my hair doesn’t grow longer, my fingernails don’t lengthen to