Pretty Spelled by K.A Knight

Lilith

It’s been days since anything has happened. She has been building her army, but I can feel her frustration. She isn’t the idle type, and even though she is busy conducting her plan, she aches to massacre for something fun. So when we both feel the pulse of magic spreading out into the world, we turn to the horizon where we felt it.

It was miles away, in a different country, but oh so strong… So strong, it could have only come from a god.

One of my family.

“Well, well, well, shall we go and have some fun, my pets? See if we can’t capture a god for me to torture?” She grins, and before I can protest, she jumps through time and space, reappearing in a mist of black smoke on a different continent.

“Hmm, now where to find them? Come out, come out wherever you are, little god.” She giggles. Frowning, I realise her bodyguards aren’t at her side. “I do not need protection,” she roars. “This world needs protecting from me, not the other way around!”

Yet a spark of fear ignites in her. She squashes it just as I feel it. We are in a sunny country with fields on the left and right of us. Denmark maybe, if the flowers I see are anything to go by. We feel another burst of magic and spin to see them watching us.

My heart freezes as I press my hand to the screen, aching to touch them, hold them, to kiss away the pain and anger flashing through Atlas’ eyes. I want to stop the wince of hurt that crosses Khalid’s face. His mate presses closer to his side, and I’m grateful for her. They are standing in a line fifty feet away. Atlas has magic balled in one hand, his other clenched into a fist. His eyes are narrowed, and his bald head glistens in the sun. I wonder why he cut his hair off.

His lips are in a flat line, and his cheekbones stand out as he grinds his teeth. His huge body is encased in blue faded jeans and a black T-shirt, which strains around his wide arms and chest. He looks like a true magic user, so beautiful, it hurts.

“How predictable you are,” he growls.

“You called?” She grins, snapping her fingers, and suddenly, the sky turns dark and mist rolls through the field, obscuring us until we can barely see each other. I’m attuned to him, though, our mate bond still leading us to him like a lighthouse across the darkened seas. “You brought me more playthings, how nice,” she taunts, her voice floating through the air like knives.

“We knew you would come, you couldn’t not. You crave power,” Remi snaps. “Fucking greedy necromancer. Give up now. Release Lilith.”

“Or what?” she retorts, cackling.

“Or we kill you,” Remi shrugs, her eyes going black, “and free her anyway.”

Our fingers snap again, and Remi flies backwards. She groans and gets to her feet, Khalid rushing to her side, and my heart lurches when I spot blood dripping from her head, but she seems okay. “Was worth a shot,” she mutters to him.

“Amore,” Khalid chastises, and then helps her back up as Atlas steps into their path, blocking them from us. Protecting my family from me.

That hurts more than anything.

“Stop,” Atlas demands, his voice booming across the distance. His magic bursts into the air, easily lighting up the dark. “You will not hurt my family.”

My… I flinch and recoil. Not ours—his. He’s already started to give up on me, hasn’t he? Thinking of me as nothing but this darkness that controls my body. Nothing but the evil that fills me. Not the woman who held him as he cried when they found out what happened to Khalid. Not the woman who taught Kyro how to ride a horse, showed Slate the safe path through the woods, stood in support when Nyre first flew, and fed Ciar safely so we know he wouldn’t kill.

Now I’m nothing but a memory, a puppet controlled by the evil of this world.

Evil they have always been destined to stop.

To kill…

“Oh, but I think I will,” she snarls, and then she gathers her darkness and flings it at them. It shoots straight at Khalid and Remi, and with a snarl, Atlas raises his arm, forming a protective barrier glinting with magic. It bounces off and shoots back at us, smashing into us painfully.

His eyes burn with his power as he creates a ball of pulsating magic. “Do not make me kill you. Let my mate go.”

“Never.” She laughs. “That was just the beginning.” A second later, the ground rumbles and hands shoot up from the ground… Oh fuck, are we on a graveyard, or did she bring them?

The skeletons claw out of the ground and then crawl and drag themselves towards them. Remi and Khalid turn to intercept the corpses, smashing boots and knives down on them, as Atlas steps closer. “Wildflower, if you’re in there, fight now, I need you to,” he pleads as more and more skeletons surround them, starting to overpower Khalid and Remi, who are fighting to hold them back. Atlas just stares at me, his eyes imploring, as I watch from my prison. “I know you’ve fought for so long… I know you can do it now. Please, Wildflower, fight.”

She laughs, the sound ripping out my heart, and he flinches. “She can’t, she’s too weak. She’s going to let you die and watch it happen.”

Attie’s face drops as he raises his magic, and I see the struggle in his eyes. He knows what he has to do. Remi and Khalid are losing. They will be overpowered soon, and she won’t hesitate to kill them. They are standing in her way, and no matter how much fun it is to torture me with them, she will do what she has to. But Atlas can’t… Can he?

“Kill me!” I try to scream, but she pushes me down, silencing me.

“Atlas!” Remi screams. “Do it!”

He hesitates and winces. “I can’t. I can’t kill her,” he whispers, and the magic drops.

“So fucking weak. It will be the destruction of your family.” She laughs and her head tips back. Thunder crashes overhead, and more and more skeletons crawl from the earth. Suddenly, magic smashes into us, and we go flying backwards. She didn’t see it coming. We hit the earth hard and she snarls, but we can’t move or get up. The magic holds us immobile. I feel her fighting it with wave after wave of her evil energy, peeling back his god magic, but it gives them the time they need. I distract her, adding all of my soul, my energy, to keep her back as long as I can so they stand a chance.

So they can kill me and be free.

A loud boom sounds, and we are left staring at the sky as bones fly overhead from the explosion. Not a moment later, we hear them coming for us. With a yell, she pushes the magic away and leaps to her feet, panting and pissed. She’s angrier than I have ever seen her. I know it means their death, though, since no one hurts her and gets away with it. So, with the last drop of my soul, I wrap it around our body, stopping her long enough for them to reach us.

Atlas appears before us, but Remi pushes him to the side, holding a knife in her hand. “No!” Khalid screams, and her eyes bleed to their usual colour for a moment, a snarl falling from her lips, and she starts to turn away.

Just as suddenly, she spins back with a growl. My eyes widen as her fist smashes into my face, and then everything goes black.