Lena's body arched like a lightning-struck tree, every muscle taut as her new heart stuttered into motion. My palms, pressed to her bare sternum, glowed with faint green light—wood nymph magic working slowly, agonizingly, to rebuild what Kharon's twisted ritual had destroyed.
"Breathe," I growled, sweat stinging my eyes. "Come on, kid. Breathe."
For a moment, I thought I'd failed.
Then—A gasp. Guttural. Desperate. Like a diver breaking the surface after too long underwater.
Her eyes flew open, wide and terrified. Alive. She lunged forward—and before I could so much as blink—kissed me. Hard. Full-on, heat-searing, no-holds-barred kissed me.
Not gonna lie. I didn't pull away.
Because in that moment, it wasn't about power or war or blood gods. It was about her. Just Lena. Breathing. Alive.
Her hands fisted in my shirt, dragging me closer, and my heart slammed against my ribs like it wanted in on the reunion too. It wasn't like anything I'd absorbed before—this fire was different. No monster had ever made me feel like I was burning from the inside out in the best way possible.
Then—
"Whoa there, lovebirds!" Dean's voice cut through like a brick through stained glass. "How 'bout we don't start the honeymoon while the apocalypse knocks on the front door?"
Lena pulled back, face flushed, eyes dazed. We stared at each other, panting. The glow was gone. The stone was gone. Just her. Just me.
And then I heard it.
Screeching.Metal tearing.Wings—lots of them—scraping against Bobby's rusted shipping containers.
I stood, every nerve wired.
Bobby muttered behind me, "Oh hell. He's got that look again."
He was right.
I grinned.It was time.
The security monitors in the salvage room flickered in and out, static dancing across the black-and-white feed. But what we could see was enough.
Drakons—dozens—circled overhead, blotting out chunks of the sky.
Frankenstein monsters—hulking freaks stitched together with wire and bile—shambled through the wreckage, smashing salt lines beneath rotting boots.
And in the center of it all?
A swirling vortex of shadows, like oil bleeding into water.
Kharon.
He'd come to collect.
Sam slammed shut one of Bobby's bigger grimoires. "I got a tracking spell ready. We move now, we might—might—outrun him."
"No chance," I said, shaking my head. "He's not here to chase."
"He's here to kill," Bobby finished grimly. "And Marcus is the bullseye."
Lena gripped my arm. "Then we fight. Together."
I looked down at her—pale but steady, chest rising with every blessed breath. Her hands were shaking, but her jaw was set.
"No," I said gently. "You just got a new heart. You fight, and we lose everything we've bought tonight."
She opened her mouth to argue, but I raised a brow. "Also, someone's gotta protect these chuckleheads if I die."
Dean snorted. "Look at this guy. Gets kissed once and thinks he's in charge."
Bobby tossed me a duffel bag that clinked with menace. "Salt grenades, silver slugs, and holy water Molotovs. Try not to burn the place down."
I caught it one-handed, slinging it over my shoulder. "No promises."
Lena stepped in close and kissed me again—quick, fierce. Like a brand pressed to my soul. "Don't die."
I smirked. "Never do."
They were gone seconds later—Bobby's truck growling out of the yard with all four tires screaming like banshees.
And I was alone.
Exactly how I liked it.
I stepped onto the porch just as the first Drakon landed—massive, scales blacker than midnight, wings wider than a city bus. Its claws tore through Bobby's old '67 Mustang like it was tissue paper.
I rolled my shoulders, fingers crackling with static.
"Evening, ladies," I called out. "Heard you missed me."
The Drakon turned its serpentine head, yellow eyes gleaming. "Lord Kharon demands your—"
I Shadow Jumped behind it mid-sentence and decapitated it with a blade of bone extending from my arm.
Black blood sprayed across the gravel like tar.
Power flooded into me.
Oh yeah. This was going to be fun.
I leapt into the air, using telekinesis to lift myself like a jet-powered marionette, then dropped like a meteor onto another Drakon, smashing it straight through Bobby's shed. Flaming debris exploded around us, and the monster shrieked as I drove my fist into its chest, caving it in like a soda can.
The yard became war incarnate.
Frankensteins came next. Ugly sons of stitched-together sins. I hurled engine blocks at them like dodgeballs. One caught me in the ribs with a steel pipe—shattering three bones—but I growled through it, flesh stitching back together under my Fleshweaver Morph.
I pulled bone daggers from my arms like Wolverine on a budget and carved through them one by one, each kill feeding the maelstrom of power inside me.
Ten minutes in, and I was covered in blood—none of it mine.
Fifteen minutes, and the yard looked like a butcher's daydream.
By the twentieth kill, I was swaying on my feet.
Blood poured from my nose from overusing telekinesis. My vision blurred. A Frankenstein clipped me across the jaw and sent me flying into a pile of rusted mufflers.
I lay there, gasping, bones cracked, face pulsing with agony.
Then it happened.
The dam broke.
Every monster power I'd ever absorbed surged to the surface, snapping into place like tumblers in a lock.
Strength? Twenty-five tons.
Telekinesis? I could lift a city bus with my mind.
Wings? They exploded from my back, shadowy and flaming.
Fire? I didn't breathe it—I was it.
I stood, flames curling up my arms. My eyes burned like coals.
"You want me, Kharon?" I shouted into the storm.
The shadows coalesced at the edge of the yard. For a second, I swore I saw his face—carved obsidian, molten eyes. He didn't speak.
He just watched.
"Then come get me, you withered old candle-snuffer."
I leapt skyward, a jetstream of hellfire propelling me up, wings slicing through the wind. I turned midair, slammed down, and unleashed an inferno that incinerated three Drakons mid-flight.
They fell like meteors, setting half the junkyard ablaze.
The Frankenstein army wavered—just for a second.
I grinned, lips cracked and bleeding. "Oh, you boys really done screwed up now."
The final Drakon slammed into me at full speed, tackling me into the rusted hull of a school bus. We rolled through twisted steel and broken glass before I finally pinned it down, shoving a flaming bone blade through its skull.
It screamed.
I leaned close. "Tell your master... I'm just getting started."
I twisted the blade.
It died.
And across dimensions, I felt it—Kharon reeling. The link between him and his constructs fraying with every monster I killed.
I stood amid a field of corpses, chest heaving, wings dripping with blood and fire.
The junkyard smoked and burned around me.
But I was still standing.
Barely.
And the war was just beginning.