Burned

Tendrils of Darkness, like smoke from a toxic fire, spread, thickened, and took form. His wings appeared first. Massive, black, and unfurled, they blotted out the golden light of the Goddess’s sun. Then Kalona’s body formed—bigger, stronger, more dangerous-looking than Stark had remembered.
    Still hovering above Stark, Kalona smiled. “So, it is you, boy. You sacrificed yourself to follow her here. My work is done. Your death traps her here more easily than I ever could have.”
    “Wrong, asshole. I’m not dead. I’m alive, and I’m gonna stay that way. So is Zoey.”
    Kalona’s eyes narrowed. “Zoey will not leave the Otherworld.”
    “Yeah, well, I’m here to make sure you’re wrong again.”
    “Stark! Get back in here!” Zoey shouted from just inside the boundary of the grove.
    Kalona’s gaze went to her. He sounded sad, almost heartsick when he spoke. “It would have been an easier thing for her had you let the human boy do my will.”
    “That’s the problem with you, Kalona. You have that god-complex thing going on. Or, no, I guess I should call it a God
dess
complex you got. See, just because you’re immortal, it doesn’t make you in charge. Actually in your case, it just makes you wrong for a really, really long time.”
    Slowly, Kalona shifted his gaze from Zoey to Stark. The immortal’s amber-colored eyes had gone flat and cold with anger. “You are making a mistake, boy.”
    “I’m not a boy anymore.” Stark’s tone matched Kalona’s.
    “You’ll always be a boy to me. Insignificant, weak,
mortal
.”
    “Which makes you wrong three times in a row, mortal doesn’t mean weak. Come on down here and let me prove that to you.”
    “Very well, boy. Let the pain this causes Zoey be on your soul, not mine.”
    “Yeah, ’cause I’d hate for you to fucking take responsibility for any of the messed-up shit you’ve done!”
    As Stark knew it would, his taunt pushed Kalona’s simmering rage to boiling. He roared at Stark, “Do not dare speak to me of my past!”
    The immortal stretched out his arm, and from the Darkness writhing in the air around him, plucked a spear, tipped by metal that glistened wickedly, black as a moonless sky. Then Kalona dropped from the sky.
    Instead of landing in front of Stark, his massive wings swept down and forward, slicing the ground in a perfect circle around Stark. Under his feet, the earth shuddered and then disintegrated, and like hell opening beneath him, Stark was falling down . . . down.
    He hit bottom with such force his breath was knocked from him, and his vision grayed. He struggled to stand as he heard mocking laughter all around him.
    “Just a small, weak boy trying to play with me. This won’t even be amusing,” Kalona said.
    Arrogant. He’s more arrogant than I ever was.
    And with the thought of what he had been, and what he’d already defeated, Stark’s chest loosened. He was able to draw breath. His vision cleared in time to see a flash of brilliant light pierce the darkness between him and Kalona, and the Guardian claymore was there, blade driven in the earth at his feet.
    Stark grasped the hilt and felt it instantly, the warmth and the pulse of his heartbeat as the claymore,
his
claymore, sang in tune with his blood.
    He looked at Kalona and saw surprise in the immortal’s amber eyes.
    “I told you I wasn’t a boy anymore.” Without hesitation, Stark strode forward, holding the claymore with both hands, perfectly centered on the geometrical strike lines that coalesced over Kalona’s body.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
    Zoey
    The shock I felt when Kalona materialized above Stark was terrible. The sight of him brought back everything that had happened in that last moment on that last day, before my world exploded in death and despair and guilt. Fully formed, his amber gaze met mine, and I was frozen by the sadness I saw there, and by the memory of how I’d looked into his eyes before and believed I’d glimpsed humanity, kindness, even love.
    I’d been so, so wrong.
    Heath had died because of how wrong I’d been.
    Then Kalona’s gaze moved from me back to Stark, as my Warrior taunted him.
    No! Oh, Goddess! Please make him be quiet. Please make him run back to me.
    But Stark seemed to like taunting Kalona. He wouldn’t shut up; he didn’t run. Horror filled me as Kalona plucked the spear from the sky. His wings cut a hole in the ground and then he and Stark disappeared into its blackness.
    It was then I realized that Stark was