Things That Should Stay Buried - Casey L. Bond Page 0,117

other Zodia entered the fray.

Libra, Gemini, and Taurus aligned and attacked Aries as one. Libra coiled her body and used the power in her muscles to strike, needle-sharp fangs snapping at Aries as he batted her away. She slid several feet across the polished floor, landing in small puddles of Kes’s blood, staining her pristine scales red.

Gemini ran around to attack from behind as Taurus once again tried to gore Aries. He stepped out of the way and Taurus almost speared one of Gemini’s heads instead.

Scorpio and Sagittarius squared off while Leo stalked nearby, looking for an opportunity to pounce on our new ally. The scorpion’s barb jabbed at the centaur, driving him backward.

Aquarius attacked Leo before he could enter the fray, driving his trident toward the feline’s spine. Leo sprang forward, his claws raking across Golden Boy’s golden chest. Gouge marks appeared over his torso and golden blood pooled, just before the marks healed and disappeared.

None stronger than the rest.

Kes coughed beside me. “Larken,” he said, his swollen features still garbling his words. “The only thing that can kill a Zodia…” He hacked again.

“I know,” I told him, then froze in place with my hand on his shoulders. “The blood of their blood. Me.”

“Not you,” he coughed. “Your blood.”

“Literal blood?” I gasped. He nodded weakly. “Oh my God, Kes.”

Pisces held Capricorn at arm’s length as the goat-woman pushed her across the floor, slamming her shimmering form into the far wall and leaving a long trail of water in their wake.

“Kes, I need something sharp.” His eyes flared in understanding and he clutched his ribs, disappearing in a blink. When he reappeared with an axe, my eyes popped open in alarm. “This is the best you could do?”

“It’s the only thing I saw that was sharp when I got here.”

Great. I gripped the thick, wooden handle.

“Larken?” Kes said.

I looked at my broken brother and saw ferocity in his eyes. “Run fast. Finish first.” Kes said the same words before every race. Because he believed I could win. And right now, I knew he believed I could kill Taurus.

I reached down someplace deep inside, someplace that knew he was right, and brought the blade to my palm. Just as I was about to drag my hand down the length, something knocked it and me away. It took a minute to catch my breath, and a few more precious moments to realize what had happened. In a daze, I noticed the battle between Sagittarius and Scorpio was raging perilously close to where I lay on the ground. When Sagittarius’ hooves stomped dangerously close to my head, Scorpio noticed and shoved him away. “Get up!” he roared.

I pushed up as Virgo grabbed my hair and lifted me from the floor. “You bitch,” I seethed, wincing from the pain. “He respected you. He helped you when they hurt Lager. When they killed him.”

Suddenly, the room filled with eleven familiar faces, each mouth emitting a battle cry as Aries’s Guardians joined the fight. Helena roared across the room, fighting off the woman who healed me earlier on Taurus’s balcony. Mohawk from Aries’s castle quickly worked to heal Kes, but they were immediately attacked by Taurus’s Guardians.

Kes couldn’t get to me, but I saw the encouragement in his eyes from across the room.

“He’s not coming to save you,” Virgo chided sweetly.

“That’s good,” I told her, shoving the heel of my palm into her nose in a quick jab. She looked stunned, her pretty eyes watering as she blinked rapidly. A trickle of blood fell from her nose, but she recovered fast. “Because I don’t need saving.”

I needed to bleed, and if goading her into beating my ass was the way to do it, then so be it.

Happy to oblige, she backhanded me, flinging me into the middle of the melee. I slid across the floor, blood and water coating my knees.

Cancer skittered around me as she tussled with Aquarius. I ducked to avoid her claw-tipped legs and the sharp barnacles lacing her body.

Leo leapt over me. If I’d had the axe, I would have split his stomach open. I glanced to the place it had fallen, pleased to see it still laying on the floor.

Aquarius quickly helped me up, but as soon as I was on my feet, Virgo was there again. Leo took advantage of Aquarius’s divided attention to pounce on his back, clawing his shoulders and fighting to stay on.

Taurus roared, trying to break free from Aries, who refused to relent. Gemini and Libra