Pelzyq drove his fist into the big hairy beast’s head. Knuckles bleeding, feeling like they were aflame. He kept swinging, not caring about the hurt, hammering until the beast’s skull caved in. The bones in his hands felt broken. Probably because they were. The pain was less than he deserved. If he died fighting tonight, he’d do these women a favor. Do the whole damn world a favor.


    “Aren’t you a sore sight for sore eyes?” Zyryxa said, smirking as she cleaned wyvern blood off her axe, wiping it in the snow.


    He’d even tricked the ice princess into thinking he could be more than Pavinax’s shitty son. He had to remind her that he wasn’t good before he got her killed like everyone else he’d cared about. “I’m not here for you, Princess.”


    He glared at her. She should’ve lashed out at him, like she used to. The sympathy in her eyes was too much. Pelzyq looked away, feeling more unworthy than ever.


    “I’m glad you came back,” Zyryxa said, her voice soft even as beasts roared and shrieked in the dark, surrounding them. “You’re not fooling me anymore, Pelzyq. You won’t make me hate you. So, don’t try.”


    On the verge of tears, he strode away from her, seeking the next monster to slay. He couldn’t stand it. He hurt Lexyn. He pushed her to the ground in his rage. He couldn’t trust himself not to do it again. He was his father’s son. Worse, he was still himself. He was the little boy that couldn’t stand up to his father as he beat, raped, and killed his mother. Hatrox had shown him that. He paralyzed him without even touching him, making him the little boy watching as his father tormented the women he cared about.


    Zyryxa deserved a better brother. Lexyn deserved a better lover. He’d kill as many of these monsters as he could, but he’d let them take him once he knew the women were safe. If they didn’t let him die, he’d do it himself. Finally. He’d give them the greatest gift he could: a life without Pelzyq.


    Lexyn called his name. He couldn’t face her. He wasn’t worthy of looking at that angel’s face, the one he’d put fear into moments after he failed to protect her from a stronger man. He had no right to see those eyes again that looked at him with such love and faith, to see those lips that made him feel alive and whole in their embrace. He didn’t even deserve to hear her voice, her gratitude, her forgiveness. He tried to ignore it, block it out.


    He rushed toward the coming horde, trying to outrun Lexyn’s love. Roaring to drown it out, his axe carved into the first gura, then the next. He didn’t bother to shield himself, taking as many hits as he could while rampaging through their flesh with axe and fist. The pain felt right. If he had been a better man, he’d have felt this when Hatrox threatened them. But he wasn’t a better man. He was Pelzyq, son of Pavinax, curse to everyone he loved.


    More and more the monsters came. He charged headlong into the battle, doing whatever he could to ensure Lexyn survived. Yet it was her arrows that kept saving him. Each time he put himself too far in, an arrow brought down the beast at his flank or rear. He couldn’t even die right without his unworthy ass being rescued by the woman he failed.


    The dead piled around them. Sabretooths, guras, wyverns, direwolves, yetis, wraiths, horned mammoths, sprites, trolls, these scaled beasts that seemed to have dozens of legs little legs and huge antennae, and some monstrous wolf creature that had already been slain before his unworthy ass returned. All while the crystal dragon flew above them, roaring at the carnage below but not engaging.


    Pelzyq didn’t need to ask where they came from, why they kept coming. Twice already Hatrox and his dark dragon had flown over, swooping down to prove and enrage the monsters. The dragon rallied them to battle with its mind powers, drove them like yaks into their camp with its wrath. Hatrox wanted to break them. Wanted to leave them all dead until the one he wanted was all that remained.


    Zyryxa was a divine destroyer. Qoryxa incarnate. Her endless wrath carved through the hordes, sundering scales, cleaving heads, leaving little left for Pelzyq and Lexyn. As the battle went on, edging closer to dawn, she seemed to lock in, becoming one with the violence rather than fatiguing. The dead beasts piled up in her wake, while she remained unscathed by claw, fang, or frost.


    Of the drakes, only Zyrxl fought on. Maxilla and Dryxl down and Xilliax clearly dead. Natazia was nowhere to be found in the carnage. Probably a lifeless corpse among the gathering hundreds. Pelzyq no longer cared. That bitch could rot.


    He tried to join her, trusting that Zyryxa would succeed to protect Lexyn where he failed. Yet each impossible situation he dashed into, Zyryxa or Lexyn were there to save him. Once, when they had a few moments reprieve Zyryxa seized him by the arm, her mighty grip locking him in place. Qoryxa’s flaming eyes! Her power was beyond anything he’d ever known.


    “Stop,” she said, giving him the wrath he deserved.


    He tried to wrench his arm free. Zyryxa was far too powerful, proving his worthlessness.


    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    “Stop this,” she said, holding onto him. “You will never hurt me more in life than you would in death, my brother. Don’t you dare die on me. On Lexyn. We love you. Get that through your hollow skull and fight for your life.”


    “My life is worth nothing!” he roared. “Let me go!”


    She shook her head and the divinedamned tears starting to break through. “I’m no good,” he cried. “I’ll only hurt you.”


    Zyryxa shook her head. “No. Not true. You’re a good man. Honorable. Loyal. Protective. Forgive yourself. We already have.”


    He shook his head, crying like a little boy after his mother died, after his lover died. “I can’t. I don’t deserve it.”


    “Wrong again, dumbass.”


    “Pelzyq.”


    Pelzyq sighed. The voice he dreaded most. He wouldn’t look at Lexyn. He’d managed this far to keep his eyes from her, no matter how much he craved to see her beautiful face again. He needed to remember her as she had been, when he’d thrown her to the ground.


    “You can forgive yourself,” Lexyn said.


    He tried to free himself, but Zyryxa’s grip was too strong. Wolves howled. He wanted to go to them, to let their teeth sink into his heart. That would hurt less than this.


    Her arms wrapped around him, gentle, loving. She was perfect and he was a piece of shit. “I won’t,” he said. “Now let me go before I do it again.”


    Lexyn clung to him. He couldn’t shove her. Even when Zyryxa let him go, he could bring himself to tear free of Lexyn’s embrace. He shut his eyes, but couldn’t shut the tears in. Zyryxa fought around them as Lexyn wouldn’t let go and he wouldn’t push her off.


    “You have to let me go,” he cried. “Please.”


    “No,” she said, snuggling his head. “I’m right where I want to be.”


    “I’ll hurt you.”


    “I’ll trust you.”


    “I’ll get you killed.”


    “Then I’ll at least have lived.”


    “I can’t live with that.”


    “I don’t want to live without you. I want to fight all my battles at your side.”


    “Please stop,” he cried.


    “I want to hold your hand as we change the world. I want to fly beside you, reaching the top of every mountain.”


    “Stop!”


    “I want to bear your children, and help them learn to love themselves, to believe they’re good.”


    “STOP!”


    “Never. I won’t stop loving you. I’m not going anywhere without you.”


    “I can’t be who you want me to be.”


    “You already are.”


    Pelzyq sobbed, unable to form anymore words through the tears.


    “I love you, Pelzyq. Please love yourself.”


    Zyryxa roared like a dragon, a wolf’s dying yelp quiet as a whisper in comparison. “It’s done. End this, Hatrox! YOU WILL NOT BREAK US!”


    Lexyn twisted Pelzyq’s head. “Look at me. Please.”


    He opened his eyes. In a perfect world, he’d start each day with the sight of this beautiful woman beside him, staring into her boundless love like it was an endless ocean of blue. She didn’t fear him, but he feared himself. Feared what he could do to hurt her.


    She brushed his face, wiping away at tears. “I’m not fragile, Pelzyq. We will protect each other. From monsters, from men, from ourselves. You make me better. You make me want to wake up each day and take on the world. I want to see you beside me tomorrow. Whatever may come, I know I want to be with you. Do you want to be with me?”


    “I do,” he admitted. “I want it so bad. More than I’ve ever wanted anything.”


    She smiled. That was all it took to make him soar. To alight atop the highest peak man had ever reached.


    “I love you,” he said.


    She nodded. “Of course, you do. I’m your life’s mate. You know what that means, Volqori?”


    He felt his lips rise for the first time since Hatrox landed. “It means we’ll be together forever.”


    Pelzyq kissed her, letting himself back into her life, making a silent promise to never do this again. She deserved a man who remained steady in his love for her, even if he sometimes didn’t love himself. He’d try to learn how to for her, to see himself with her eyes.


    “I’ll never leave you again,” he promised.


    “I know,” she said, kissing him.


    Thoughts burst into his mind, uninvited, disrupting their kiss. He returns, worthy warriors. Prepare yourselves.


    Pelzyq and Lexyn stared at each other, then up at the dragon Amarzallax still circling the skies.


    “You both hear that?” Zyryxa asked.


    They nodded. Dread bubbled up in his gut, but he held onto Lexyn. She wasn’t going to let go. Neither was he.


    “We need to get Natazia up,” Zyryxa said.


    “Why?” Pelzyq was ready to leave her behind, if she even lived.


    Lexyn gripped his hand, squeezing her fear into him. “Without Natazia, he will make us go to Riverwatch.”


    Pelzyq would never forget the way Hatrox looked at Lexyn. He would hurt her. Unless Pelzyq kept her safe.