Chapter 226: SUCKING THE LIFE OUT OF ME.

AXEL’S POV:

“I lived at the edge of the village. Alone. Watching. Waiting. I saw her feed the man I still loved. I watched them sleep peacefully under the stars while I drowned in silence.”

“What does that have to do with me?” Avery groaned, her voice hoarse, weak but unwilling to surrender.

Akira stopped. Her chest rose and fell.

“Shut up and listen!" she roared.

The walls seemed to crack with her voice but Avery didn't.

"I'm bored of your sob story," Avery added.

I clenched my fists. I wanted to stand, to tear her away from Avery, but my legs were stone.

“When I couldn’t live in that nightmare anymore,” Akira continued anyway, “I left. I disappeared. Everything I’d ever known—I abandoned. I travelled beyond our lands, into the west, far past the cities where no one knew my face.”

Her face softened briefly.

“That’s when I met Blackwood. Yes. That Blackwood.”

My mind went wild, the pieces clicking together—but too late.

“He didn’t know where I came from. I didn’t even know what I was anymore. But we became lovers. I trusted him. I gave him everything. And when I became pregnant—with my precious daughter London—I thought I finally had a second chance. Maybe that was my redemption."

Akira’s lip quivered.

“Then came my son. Devon. But the happiness didn’t last.”

Her voice dropped to a hiss.

“Because Blackwood found out who I truly was.”

A pause. A flash of old shame. Then rage.

“I am Divine. A being far older than him. I could draw life—extend mine—forever. And he hated me for it. But I was willing to make him the greatest. I already assisted in telling revelations I saw about his enemies making him win head of the table."

She took a step closer to Avery, who lay defenseless, bleeding, her belly rising and falling as her baby fought with her.

“So he cast me out. Took my children. Erased me.”

She lifted her hands in rage.

“That’s why I cursed him. That cancer? That was me. I sent it through his blood like a whisper from the underworld. I wanted him to rot.”

A beat.

“And I waited.”

The firelight crackled. One of the candles went out.

“I thought after his death, everything would go to my children. But no… He gave it all to you," he pointed at me, "a bastard abandoned by his own."

Avery tried to sit up, but she couldn't. “No, don't talk to my husband like that."

“And you," she turned back to Avery, "stepped into London’s home,” Akira spat. “You wore her perfume. Held her child. You warmed her murderer's bed.”

Avery’s hands balled into fists. “You’re insane.”

“And yet here you are, beneath me.”

Akira tilted her head, almost smug.

“I saw the prophecy before you ever set foot in their world. I saw what you and Axel were destined to become. That’s why I manipulated Kore’s spirit. Twisted your mind. I needed you loyal. I needed you mine.”

My throat burned with fury. She had orchestrated everything—this woman had ripped us apart from the very beginning. She made me hate and curse my blood.

“But even then,” she continued, pacing again, “you started to doubt. You felt it, didn’t you? That something wasn’t right after you brought us back. That your soul didn’t recognize mine.”

Avery’s mouth opened but no sound came.

“That’s because when Devon killed me, it wasn’t just a ritual,” Akira hissed. “He broke our bond. The pearl—the one you used to bring me back—it weakened me. It made me... unstable.”

Then she smiled, slow and vicious.

“But then… a miracle.”

She turned toward the now-burning cross of hair.

“London’s spirit returned with us. When the veil tore open, it didn’t close fast enough. Her soul slipped through, clinging to because it had left this world far too early.”

The candlelight pulsed, almost like it understood her lie.

“It was her that escaped the temple. Her spirit, wild and half-formed, has been hiding in shadows ever since. Waiting for a vessel.”

Akira's smile twisted darker, and I knew what she meant.

She looked at Avery’s swollen belly like it was a gift box she couldn’t wait to rip open.

“Your child will be hers,” she whispered. "A sacrifice to permanently keep her here."

And my heart stopped.

Her voice slithered through the air like smoke.

“When I discovered what London’s spirit had become—twisted, hungry, without a form—I knew she needed a host. Her original body was gone, decayed and rotted past salvation. But Ryan…” Akira’s lip curled into something smug, “he was perfect. Loyal. Lost. So easy to mold.  Filled with rage and longing for what Axel has. I performed the ritual myself and let her in. She’s been living inside him ever since. But needs that thing in your womb to permanently remain in the land of the living.”

My breath caught.

Avery choked out a sound. “No…”

“Oh yes,” Akira whispered. “And while you were busy playing lovers and heroes, I was gathering hair. The hair of the dead. People who died unfairly. Who had reason to hate you both. I laced their fury into the spell. That’s what’s been driving Axel mad.”

She turned to me now, eyes glowing like kindled fire. “Those visions? The shadows? The guilt? That was me.”

I could barely lift my head. Her words stabbed deeper than any blade ever had.

“But your aura, Avery…” Akira turned back to her, her tone sour. “It’s strong. It was cleansing him without you even realizing. I knew time was running out. So I turned to the lowest—I fed your rage. I used those pathetic girls—Astrid and Lyra—let them needle your peace. And it worked. You broke. You let the darkness in.”

Avery coughed, blood trickling from her mouth. But even battered, she stared up at Akira with contempt. “So all this… because you’re just another crybaby like Astrid? All this destruction and lunacy because you couldn’t get what your sister had?”

Akira froze.

Avery forced a weak, bitter laugh. “You’re not divine. You’re just a bitter, spoiled witch who threw a tantrum that lasted a few centuries.”

The temperature in the room dropped.

Akira’s lips parted, her expression tightening. She stepped forward—slow and feral. Her shadow swallowed the circle of hair and candles.

“You don’t dare compare me to that brat.”

“Why not?” Avery rasped. “You’re the same. All noise. All need. A rusted dagger dressed like a queen.”

With a scream that was more beast than woman, Akira stepped into the circle and dropped onto Avery, her hands flying straight to her throat.

“You ungrateful, wretched little—!”

Avery kept smiling as Akira's fingers closed around her neck, squeezing like she meant to crush bone, not just flesh. Her grip became tight and Avery began kicking, clawing, gurgling.

That’s when the light came.

From nowhere—and everywhere—all at once.

A single orb flared above them, golden and blinding, swirling like a sun trapped in a glass sphere. The flames of the candles roared higher. Thunder struck, loud enough to make the temple rumble. Rain pounded on the roof like a war drum.

Akira staggered back from Avery, panting. Her lips curled into a sick grin.

“Yes,” she whispered, awestruck. “It’s done.”

She turned to me.

I was on my side, my breath ragged. My limbs were numb. I couldn't do anything.

Instead, I watched like a ghost in my own body as Akira crouched beside me.

She touched my jaw gently, as though I were a lover and not her prey. “You’ve always been useless, Axel,” she murmured, brushing sweat and blood from my temple. “I wonder what London saw in you."

I tried to speak, but her fingers slipped between my lips, parting them, and then—

She inhaled.

Hard.

And the air in my chest was no longer mine.

It ripped out of me—like wind sucked from a collapsing tunnel. My lungs shrieked for oxygen, and I couldn’t give them any. My eyes bulged. My spine arched.

It felt like drowning in reverse.

She stole my breath.

My strength.

My soul.

I thrashed, my fists swinging weakly at her. But it was like trying to punch through water.

I’d held knives. Guns. Snapped necks with one hand. But none of it mattered here.

I was nothing against her.

My vision darkened around the edges. A whimper tore from my throat. Not a growl. Not a roar.

A whimper.

The orb above pulsed brighter, resting its light onto Akira’s wild face as she drank from me like I was a well, bottomless and dying.

And then… all I knew was cold.