Chapter 189 Clash of broken vows
Chapter 189: The Clash of Broken Vows
Milo's POV
"GO!"
Daphne's scream shattered through my paralysis. But my feet wouldn't move. I couldn't leave her. Hell no way I could leave any of them.
"I don't want to hurt you," he said, his grip tightening on his hilt. "But I will if you don't move."
“Never!!” Daphne roared,
“Then so be it”
Aldrich moved first, disappearing from where he was a few seconds ago.
For someone so massive, he was impossibly fast. His armored form became a blur as he charged toward Daphne, drawing a massive sword that gleamed with an unnatural red light. The blade was easily six feet long, serrated and cruel.
My body trembled. “Noo!”
Daphne met him head-on.
Gone was the gentle healer that always tended to the sick and treated everyone with kindness and compassion. Gone was the quite calm head maid I first knew her as on my first day.
In place was a retired but fearless brave warrior whose story was well known.
The widow, as she was popularly known among the shadow unit.
Her sword she had pulled out was as long as two of my height combined, and without fear, they collided. But daphne shifted Energy formed at her feet as she dodged Aldrich's first strike. The tunnel walls cracked where his sword hit, sending chunks of stone and debris flying.
I gasped at the sheer raw power behind that one swing. I had seen powerful strikes in the shadow unit, but I have never seen anything like this that could cut through anything.
"You were supposed to be dead!" she screamed, tears streaming down her face even as she fought. "I mourned you! I buried an empty coffin because they said there was nothing left of you!"
Aldrich's response was another brutal swing. Daphne barely rolled out of the way in time.
Around them, the battle erupted into full chaos. Some pack soldiers had noticed the anomaly, and trooped in, facing the queen's scattered forces in a brutal attack clash. Ferals snarled and lunged at anyone in their path. The civilians I'd been trying to save scattered, some managing to slip past the fighting, others not so lucky.
I pressed myself against the tunnel wall, my hand instinctively covering my stomach. The baby. I had to protect the baby. But I also couldn't just stand here while Daphne fought alone.
Their fight was the most eye-catching in the tunnel, every swing from the two fighters could cut through the hardest stone.
"Daphne needs help!" I shouted to the nearest pack soldier, but he was already engaged with three ferals, barely holding his own.
"You always were too soft," Aldrich said, his voice emotionless as he advanced on Daphne. "Even when we were married. Always healing, always saving. But you could never save the ones who mattered, could you?"
The words hit Daphne like physical blows. Her concentration wavered for just a second, her golden light flickering.
That was all Aldrich needed.
His sword came down in a devastating arc. Daphne threw up and in the last minutes, making him lose trajection? but the force of the impact sent her flying backward. She hit the tunnel wall hard enough to crack it, sliding down with a cry of pain.
"No!" I started forward, but two of the spray soldiers blocked my path? Baring their teeth at me.
Daphne struggled to her feet, blood trickling from her mouth, but she was alright. "How can you do this? How can you serve her? The Queen destroyed you!"
"The Queen saved me," Aldrich corrected, stalking toward her. His red eyes were empty, void of any warmth or recognition. "She gave me purpose when I had none. Power when I was weak. She made me something greater than the pathetic healer's husband who died in that fire."
Daphne paused, Aldrich words hitting home, her eyes widened, just like when I found out that he was her husband everyone thought was dead.
"You are not greater," Daphne spat, her hands glowing again. "You are broken. You are a shell of the man I loved."
"Love," Aldrich laughed, the sound hollow and terrible. "You speak of love? You moved on quickly enough, didn't you? Playing pack healer for a new Alpha, a new Luna. Forgetting all about your dead husband."
"I never forgot you!" Daphne's voice cracked. "Every day, every single day I…"
“Shut up, full of lies”
She couldn't finish. Aldrich was on her again, his sword a whirlwind of death. Daphne fought back desperately, her moves calculated and equally explosive, that I find it hard to believe she could produce such force. They clashed in the center of the tunnel, energy and steel colliding in bursts of golden and red light.
But I could see she was losing. Every strike from Aldrich was calculated, brutal, and aimed to kill. And Daphne's movements were growing slower, her attacks more desperate. She was fighting her husband, and part of her couldn't bring herself to truly hurt him.
"Remember the cottage?" Aldrich said conversationally, even as he swung his massive blade. "The one by the river? You used to make tea there every morning. Chamomile with honey."
Daphne's eyes widened. "Stop it."
"You sang while you made it. Badly, I might add. Completely tone-deaf. But I loved it anyway." His sword came down. Daphne blocked it, but barely. "I loved you."
"Then stop this!" Daphne sobbed. "Please, if any part of you is still in there…"
"That man is dead," Aldrich said flatly. "I told you. What the Queen made me is so much better, better than you ever did."
He feinted left, then struck right. His sword sliced across Daphne's arm, cutting deep. She screamed, blood spraying across the tunnel floor.
“Daphne!!” I lunged, trying to save her. My purple glow flared, responding to my fear, to my rage, to the protective instinct roaring through me, but my wolf shrank back at the last minute, her instincts to protect the child in my stomach.
I stumbled, crashing to the ground unceremoniously.