To ruin an Omega - Chapter 443: Seeing Red 3

Chapter 443: Seeing Red 3

FIA

I turned back toward the sentinels.

Valentine’s screams had become something else entirely. They had lost meaning as they were not words anymore. All he had going for him now was sounds. The raw, wet, and broken kind.

“Stop.”

The command left my lips quietly, but it cut through everything. The wolves froze mid-motion, their golden eyes swinging toward me in perfect unison. One of them had its jaws locked around Valentine’s shoulder. Another had been working on his ribs. They released him at the same time, stepping back with blood dripping from their muzzles.

Valentine collapsed.

What remained of him barely looked human. His left arm bent at angles that shouldn’t exist, the bone visible through torn flesh. Deep gouges ran across his torso where claws had carved through skin and muscle like wet paper. One leg twisted beneath him, mangled beyond recognition. His face had been spared, but only just. Blood poured from his mouth with every rattling breath, bubbling between his teeth.

He was drowning in it.

I watched his chest heave, struggling to pull air through punctured lungs, and felt nothing.

A soft sound pulled my attention away.

Number Four lay a few feet from him, curled on her side among the debris. Her breathing came in shallow gasps, each one weaker than the last. The rot had spread further up her body now, blackening the skin all the way to her neck.

She lifted her head when she saw me looking.

“Please.”

The word came out barely audible, more breath than voice.

I moved toward her, my footsteps crunching over broken stone, and crouched down beside her. She flinched but didn’t pull away.

“I want a kind death.”

Tears streaked through the dirt on her face, cutting clean lines down her cheeks.

My throat tightened.

I reached for her face. My palm hovered just above her cheek, and she closed her eyes.

“What you did was wrong,” I said quietly. “But I understand. You just wanted to live. It’s the mortal thing to want.”

“You’re going to kill him.” Her voice cracked. “That means I’m going to die. If the blood loss and shock don’t kill me first, the rot will. It hurts. I don’t want to die like that. Give me something kinder. I’m fine with that.”

I started to nod.

Then I felt it.

The hum started low in my chest, spreading outward like ripples on water. Heat bloomed in my palms as that familiar feeling took over. I looked down and saw the glow beginning. Soft at first, then brighter. The hue of beautiful blue brought tears to my eyes.

“No.”

The word came out startled, confused, but the light didn’t stop. It grew stronger, spreading up my wrists and forearms until both hands burned with it.

“I believe the goddess wants you to live.” I met her eyes, watching them widen as the glow reflected in her pupils. “And I want that too.”

I pressed both hands against her.

The moment my palms made contact, the light surged. It poured into her like water filling an empty vessel, flooding every crack and hollow space. I felt it moving through her body, tracing the paths of her veins, searching out every place the rot had taken root.

Number Four gasped.

Her back arched off the ground, every muscle going rigid, and her mouth opened in a silent scream. The blackened skin on her arm began to shimmer. The rot peeled away layer by layer, flaking off like ash, revealing clean pink flesh underneath. The wounds across her torso closed. New skin grew over torn muscle, smooth and unblemished.

The light intensified.

It consumed the remaining rot completely, burning it away until nothing remained but healthy tissue. Her broken ribs knitted back together with audible cracks. The gash across her temple sealed itself, leaving no scar behind. Where her hands had been severed, the light gathered, thick and blinding, shaping bone, weaving muscle, stretching sinew. Fingers formed slowly, then all at once, until both hands were whole again, unmarked, as though they had never been cut at all.

Then, just as suddenly as it began, the light faded.

I pulled my hands back, breathing hard, and watched as Number Four slowly sat up. She touched her arm with trembling fingers, running them over, flesh and bone that had been lost and skin that had been dead and blackened moments before.

“Something’s changed.”

Her voice came out stronger now, steadier, and she looked at me with wide eyes.

“Now you’re free to live your life as you wish.”

She got to her feet, swaying slightly, and pressed one hand to her chest like she needed to confirm her heart was still beating.

“Thank you.”

“What’s your name?”

“Prue.” She said it quickly, almost surprised by the question. “My name is Prue.”

“Enjoy your new life, Prue.”

She nodded, her eyes shining, and the words came out in a rush.

“I will.”

Then she ran.

I watched her disappear into the shadows between the broken walls, her footsteps fading into nothing, and felt something loosen in my chest.

“What about me?”

Valentine’s voice dragged my attention back.

He’d managed to lift his head slightly, though the effort made fresh blood spill from his mouth. His eyes found mine, still sharp despite everything. Still calculating.

“You’re going to die here,” I said it matter-of-fact, like I was telling him the weather. “Are you afraid?”

He laughed.

The sound came out wet and broken, but it was still a laugh. Blood bubbled between his lips, running down his chin in thick rivulets.

“I am the supreme of a powerful coven.” Each word cost him, his voice growing weaker. “I die, and they come for you. Blood flows. Between a coven and a pack, imagine the casualties.”

Movement behind me made me glance back.

Cian stood there. He was naked and swaying a bit, but he managed to stand upright. The pink scar tissue across his torso stretched with each breath, still fragile, but he moved forward anyway. His steps were slow and deliberate as he approached Valentine.

“You kidnapped Fia because of the message you received from Aldric, Right?”

Valentine’s eyes tracked him, wary now.

“Your sins of fleshcraft. All on paper.” Cian’s voice stayed level, almost conversational. “I assume that message is still in this house.”

“I burned them.”

“Your heartbeat gives you away.” Cian tilted his head slightly. “You’re lying.”

Valentine laughed again, and more blood bubbled out. It ran down his neck, pooling in the hollow of his throat.

“You’ll expose my fleshcraft crimes?” His gaze sharpened despite the pain. “You should know there’s a picture of Athena there. I’m sure someone will notice who Athena looks like. Or will you manipulate that too?”

“You know damn well what I will do.”

“And what about Madeline?” Something shifted in Valentine’s expression. “She might have the guts to hate me, but she’s still my daughter, and I know for a fact that she still loves me. Would you do that to her?”

“Do you remember what our last conversation was like?” Cian crouched down, bringing himself level with Valentine’s face. “Given that you were there.”

“Enlighten me.”

“You have sinned. I have her permission. I’m fairly certain this will set her free. Part of why she suffered so much was because of all she had to give to you. For you. She does not deserve that kind of life.”

Valentine’s attention swung back to me.

“He’s a cold-blooded killer.” The words came faster now. It was clear that he was desperate. “But can you really do it? I know you have a conscience. If you kill me, wouldn’t that make you as bad as me?”

I took a slow breath.

“Someone old and wise wrote something I read once.” I moved closer, each step measured. “Sometimes poison is the only mercy for the doomed.”

Valentine tried to speak, but I kept going.

“You won’t stop. You can’t stop. Not unless you’re put down. And I cannot stop what needs to befall you. Not when… This is what they want.”

“Who?”

“Your victims. Your experiments.”

They appeared again.

One by one, the apparitions materialized from nothing. Athena stepped forward first, her younger face serene and terrible at once. My mother followed, still a child, her small fists clenched at her sides. Then the others. A boy who couldn’t have been older than twelve. A woman with gray hair. More and more until they surrounded us completely.

They reached for me.

Translucent hands touched my shoulders, my arms, my face. I felt their presence like a weight, like pressure, like something solid despite their ghostly forms. Their pain flooded into me again, mixing with my own and therein becoming indistinguishable.

“This ends with you.”

My hand began to glow.

Not blue this time around.

The color was red. A deep crimson that pulsed like a heartbeat, growing brighter with each passing second. The light crawled up my arm, wrapping around my forearm and wrist like living flame.

Valentine saw it.

His eyes went wide, all the calculation draining away, replaced by pure animal fear. He tried to move, tried to drag himself backward with his one functional arm, but his body wouldn’t cooperate.

“What the hell is that?”

I didn’t answer.

I just reached down and pressed my palm against his chest.

Valentine screamed.

The sound ripped out of him, wet and jagged. It tore through his throat, rough and unformed, more instinct than voice, more wound than sound, and it scraped the air on its way out before collapsing just as quickly as it came. The red light spread from my hand like spilled ink, covering his entire body in seconds. It consumed him, not through burning or tearing but by erasing him completely. His flesh slackened first, losing its shape as if it could no longer remember what it was. Then it broke apart into something thin and insubstantial, like smoke slipping through unseen cracks. It lifted from him in slow, uneven strands, unraveling from his bones and muscles, from the outline of who he had been, until there was nothing left to hold it together. Even his shadow lingered for a moment, stretched thin against the ground, before it, too, thinned and vanished.

The light ate through everything.

I pulled my hand back, watching the red light fade from my skin, and stood slowly.

Cian stared at the scorched mark on the floor.

“What was that?”

“The red.”

“What is the red?”

I looked down at my palm, still tingling with residual heat.

“The power to unmake.” The words came out quiet but certain. “He didn’t deserve an easy death or the chance of an afterlife. Now there’s no body to anchor him to this world. No soul to anchor him to the next.”

Cian nodded slowly, his gaze moving from the shadow to me.

The moment he did, everything went wrong.

My legs gave out.

The world tilted sideways, and I felt myself falling. The ground rushed up to meet me, but I never hit it. Cian caught me, his arms wrapping around my waist, holding me upright even though he was barely standing himself.

Darkness crept in from the edges of my vision.

I tried to speak, tried to tell him I was fine, but no words came out. My body felt impossibly heavy, like someone had filled my bones with lead.

Then everything went dark.