IMMORTALS

C H A P T E R 5

The beast lunged with bone-snapping speed.

Ethan threw himself sideways into the mud, swinging the jagged branch of petrified oak with everything he had. c***k! The wood collided violently with the wolf’s jaw, deflecting its lethal bite by inches. The massive predator hit the bank with a furious snarl, its claws tearing deep trenches into the silt as it turned, baring yellowed fangs dripping with thick saliva.

Behind it, the other two wolves closed in, their low growls vibrating in Lili’s aching chest.

They were circling. Hunting.

Lili tried to push herself up, but a sharp spike of agony tore through her shoulder where Jude’s celestial lightning had scorched the flesh. Her legs trembled; mortal exhaustion was setting in like lead weights. For millennia, they had possessed endless stamina. Now, every muscle screamed in protest.

"Lili, stay down!" Ethan barked, his back braced against the wet trunk of an uprooted pine. His golden hair was wild, plastered to his blood-streaked brow, and his chest heaved in ragged gasps. Yet despite the mortal fatigue, his blue eyes burned with a lethal, protective ferocity.

The second wolf sprang from Ethan’s blind spot, lunging straight for his ribs.

"Ethan!" Lili screamed.

Instinct, ancient and primal, took over. Lili lunged forward through the mud, grabbing a sharp obsidian stone from the bank and driving it down with desperate force into the flank of the attacking beast. The wolf yelped in pain, its jaws snapping shut on empty air as Ethan drove the jagged end of his oak branch straight into its throat, dropping the monster into the silt with a sickening crunch.

The alpha wolf roared in fury.

Before Ethan could recover his balance, the massive beast slammed its full weight into his chest, pinning him to the muddy earth. The heavy jaws snapped inches from his throat, hot, rancid breath washing over his face as Ethan desperately held the beast’s throat with both bare hands, his veins bulging against the strain.

No. Not him. Never him.

A surge of blinding terror and raw, possessive fury detonated within Lili’s chest. The crimson heart beneath her dark skin flared with incandescent brilliance, turning the rain into shimmering vapor around her. The dormant spark of creation—corrupted, awakened, and fueled by mortal passion—exploded through her veins.

Lili threw her hands forward, pressing her bare palm directly against the beast’s skull. A shockwave of searing, blood-red flame erupted from her skin, violently blasting the giant wolf off Ethan and hurling its burning body across the riverbank into the black water.

The third wolf whimpered in pure terror, turning tail and vanishing into the tangled shadows of the primeval woods.

Silence slammed back over the drowned valley, broken only by the hiss of rain on burning silt and their ragged, synchronized breaths.

Lili collapsed onto her knees, trembling violently as the fiery glow in her chest slowly subsided into a steady, warm pulse. Ethan scrambled to her side in a heartbeat, his bloody, mud-caked hands pulling her trembling frame hard against him. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, his body shaking with pure relief.

"You saved me," Ethan rasped, his voice breaking with raw emotion as he kissed her cheek, her temple, her lips—tasting rain, ash, and the iron of his own blood. "You burned it alive, Lili."

"I don't know what that was," Lili whispered, clinging to his torn tunic, her fingers digging into his back. "It felt like... the heart wasn't just beating. It was fighting."

"It’s life," Ethan murmured against her mouth, his gaze locking onto her amber eyes with fierce, unyielding devotion. "They kept us numb so we would never realize the power we had."

He reached into the pouch Melin had given them, crushing the dried herbs between his palms to dress the scorched wound on Lili's shoulder. As the soothing sap touched her burn, Lili leaned into Ethan’s warmth, watching the mist swirl across the vast, uncharted wilderness.

Then, far across the misty horizon, through the gaps of the ancient drowned forest, a flickering light caught her eye.

Not lightning. Not celestial fire.

A distant plume of gray smoke, rising from a sheltered cliffside cave—accompanied by the faint, unmistakable clink of worked bronze and human voices.

Mortals had survived the flood.

And high above them, at the unseen summit of the Great Wall, a single horn of celestial war sounded across the storm.