I move, uncaring about the pain or the damage. All that fills me is the hate I feel for these men.
They unlocked this madness when we were kids, and now they will feel the full wrath of it. I will kill them like I should have back then, without mercy or tenderness. They are dead men walking.
The one with the messed-up throat and a vicious-looking scar marring it tries to turn and run, no doubt remembering what I did last time and seeing his death in my eyes now.
He dies first.
Grabbing him mid-leap, I break his neck and then rip his head from his body. Using it like a weapon, I throw it at the other nephilim who is also now trying to run. It hits him in the back and sends him to the ground.
I stroll towards him, picking up the whip laced with barbed wire as I go. My shirt is falling from me in tatters, so I pull it off and let it fall to the grass, the night air stinging the healing cuts on my back, but it only makes me stronger.
I let the whip trail along the earth, hissing over the leaves until I stand above the man. He freezes, locked there like prey smelling a predator. I guess he does. All his life he was taught to be the perfect weapon, the perfect slave. It makes them unable to think for themselves, unable to react quickly enough.
It makes them easy targets.
Lifting the whip into the air, I let him hear it coming, enhancing his fear which permeates the air, and then I bring it down again and again, faster and faster. Droplets of blood and chunks of skin spray as I shred his back. When I stop, my chest is heaving, and I loosely hold the whip in my hand which drips with blood, hair, and skin, and the nephilim is unmoving beneath me.
His back looks like mauled meat, but I don’t want him to heal, so lifting his head I rip it off and toss it with the other, leaving them there. Slowly, my madness pulls back with a laugh in my head and I stumble.
Pain hits me and my head spins. During the heat of the moment it had disappeared, but it comes back full force and I drop to my knees on the grass, my body contorting as I try to keep in my screams. Fuck.
My eyes blur as it heals slowly. I feel each cut, each rip stitching back together, and all I can do is crouch here in pain, knowing someone could find me at any moment and I would be sentenced to death. I know what this means—my demise. If they find the bodies, the council will hang me, and it won’t be my wings they take this time, but my life.
Dawn.
She flashes through my mind, she needs me. I can’t leave her. Think, Griffin, think!
“Well, that was impressive,” comes a drawl, and I leap to my feet, spinning to see whoever is there. I crouch in a defensive stance. I won’t let them take me alive, I’ll escape and come back for her.
Titus.
He leans against the tree I was tied to, his face impassive, but there is a smile in his eyes as he watches me. He runs his gaze across the bodies and then back to me. “Well, well, well, fallen. I’ve got to admit, I didn’t expect you to have it in you.”
“I—” I fumble with words, fuck. I can’t kill him, they will launch an investigation and then I will be killed for sure, but how do I get out of this?
Escape is my only option, but I’m weak and still healing, so I won’t get far. I’m at his mercy and he knows it. He sighs before standing up and stepping towards me, ignoring my growl.
“Don’t worry. I’ll tell them I caught these two trying to leave and killed them.” He glances at the back of the nephilim I used the whip on and rolls his eyes. “Not before punishing them, of course.”
I stare at him in shock and confusion, but distrust winds through me. The only reason he would help me, lie to his own people about this, was if he needed something, and I don’t think I could afford the price, but what other option do I have?
“Why are you helping me?” I snap, my voice lined with pain. My energy is waning now and I stumble forward. I need to