on the ground, trying to push back the horde that keeps trying to flank her mates, but she doesn’t give them an inch. She moves so fast that it nearly rivals Wrath’s skill, and every time she lets off another Xena warrior call, I can’t help but smile.
Now that I know my sisters are good, my gaze finds Morax. He’s moving closer to the portal, his mind-controlled demons using all sorts of power to combat the Sins.
Lucifer is on the other side of the Origin Stone, his legs outstretched the same way his hands are as he plucks demons off in the distance, group by group, just with the curling of his fists. He does dozens of them at a time, but more of Morax’s demons come to fill in the gaps, climbing over the dead bodies like ants.
A stream of power lobs right past my face, jerking my attention away, and I whirl around in the air to see demons have spotted me from below. Another one forms something like liquid lava in his palm and then throws it at me, but my darkness shoots out and incinerates it like a vengeful viper, swallowing it whole.
I grit my teeth when another one of them shoots something like tiny needles straight for me, but I toss my darkness up like a shield, and the sharp little blades bounce right off. “Okay, pricks, now you’re just pissing me off,” I say, and then I bolt toward the ground.
Before I’ve even landed, I’m already swinging.
Monster cuts down everyone in my surrounding circle with wicked glee before the demons can even open their mouths to scream. My dark light shoots out further like an unforgiving tornado, whirling through more of Morax’s followers and sending pieces of singed demons flying.
But just as I’m settling comfortably into the bloodlust—or maybe the ashlust—of the battle, like I’m sinking into a warm bath, I hear Toreon shout. With knees bent, I push myself into the air, immediately searching him out as my wings pump behind me, lifting me higher off the ground.
There.
My eyes land on Toreon where he’s standing, and I see a familiar massive giant right beside him. Vudu.
My heart soars at the sight of my other mate, but it nearly tumbles right over itself when I see a third demon there beside them. Ire.
Ire’s fighting with them. I don’t know when he got here or how he ended up with Toreon and Vudu, but I’m stunned as I watch Vudu and Ire fight together to defend Toreon. I don’t know why it affects me so much to see all three of my mates working together, but it does.
Ire and Vudu are on either side of Toreon, both of them fighting and protecting him as he works on the portal above. Ire decimates everyone with the same weapons as his Matron used: a double-ended longsword and a horror-inducing chain mace. Meanwhile, Vudu fights with a stolen sword and his power, using the earth as both a barrier and a weapon.
My eyes track Toreon, and instead of threads coming out of his palms this time, he’s grabbed onto the rope of light making up the portal, and he’s pulling it into him.
His entire body strains as he tugs like it’s a two-ton bull he’s trying to pull out of a barn. His feet are braced into the ground, his green muscles straining as he heaves. Every time he gets a little bit of slack on the string of power, he moves his hand up and pulls more, his face already dripping with sweat.
The piece of darkness I left behind to protect him is circling around all three of my mates, batting away demons one at a time as they come up. Whoever the darkness misses, Vudu and Ire cut through, and then kick away the dead bodies that are quickly piling up around them.
It’s brutal. It’s bloody. It’s violent.
This is war. It’s gruesome and noisy, and death clings to the air, mixing with the blood and the ash. I look around at what Morax forced on the inhabitants of Hell when he spread his unrest within the Rings. This is what happens when the balance is threatened.
I need to end this.
In my peripheral, I see the Sins have split up, some of them taking down more of the horde beside Lucifer, while the rest are still fielding hundreds of demons and their power as they try to block the Sins from Morax. The bastard has inched his