Metal Deep 3: Infinite and Forever by G. X. Knight Read Free Book Online Page B

that had been cut off when the doors closed on it seemed to come out of the ground, and latch itself onto Meg’s foot. She didn’t feel it, and cussed at me when I told her to stop moving away.
     
    “Stop!” I ordered again.
     
    She sneered and screamed, “NO!” But it was too late.
     
    The thing crawled up her leg, body, and entered her eyes. She dropped to her knees as her skin began to pale as if she were dead. Her flesh cracked and then turned to some kind of scale. She made not a sound as horns grew from her elbows, and bat-like wings snapped outward from new bones that exploded off her back. Her hands morphed into claws, her teeth pointed into a razored trap, and her eyes turned as blinding as the sun while her hair ignited into actual fire that crackled on her head without burning her.
     
    “I am the Dragoness, Corona.” She growled. “You will free the rest of my people from this lauded prison, Keeper.”
     
    Meg’s Viper friend quivered beside her. The Dragoness would have none of the weakness. She grabbed him by his head, squeezed until a crunching sound turned my stomach, and then tossed his limp body over the same waterfall his brother had been sucked into the day before. She was strong, and I was scared. I gave Largo the wave to leave, but they stayed close as he shook his head, “No.”
     
    There are times in life when you speak as though someone else moves your lips for you. Sometimes the puppeteer is cruel or incompetent. There are times, however, when he seems to know exactly what to say.
     
    “I am the heir of Thantosa your jailor, and by his memory, I will not.”
     
    She jerked a little when I said the name, Thantosa. She must have known it well.
     
    I stared her in the eye. She didn’t like it. I imagine there was almost nobody who could have held eye contact as she had stars for eyeballs. Anybody who looked into her eyes for too long would go blind. Guess I found another reason to be thankful. I moved closer, and she shook with hate.
     
    “You will!” She ordered.
     
    “I will not!” I yelled.
     
    A beam leapt from her eyes, and hit mine. It felt like a storm wind blowing against the door to a house. It knocked with a thump, but I felt completely safe. The beam bounced away harmlessly. She screamed again. I don’t think that was an attack so much as it was her trying to do to me whatever she had done to poor Meg. I took another defiant step forward.
     
    “Who are you?” She howled in bloodcurdling anger. 
     
    I pulled from my pocket a piece of paper I had made for Maeve. I had already given the others theirs. On it was the answer to her question. An answer that had been too long overdue, to them, and especially to myself.
     
    Largo held his, and yelled at her. The answer caused her to rattle with a jolt of pain as he joined me in standing against her, “He is a Thantosa!”
     
    Kata came up beside us next. Her platinum and pink hair tossed about in the wind, “He is an Infinite hailing from a long and distinguished bloodline!”  The Dragoness shrieked. She really hated that.
     
    Finally, Sway joined, and as the beast backed away, she yelled, “He is named after two great men who gave their lives seeing things like you destroyed. He walks in the memory of his ancestors, he lives by the sacrifices of the selfless, and he stands against you in the company of family. His name is Scion Hades Thantosa, and if you know what’s good for you Bitch, you’ll run!”
     
    There was something about the new name that carried power against Corona. Clearly it wasn’t powerful enough to drive the thing from Meg, but it shivered, spat, and flailed as Sway screamed my new Amalgam name at the top of her lungs. Corona panicked and took flight through the crushing waterfall as if it were a mere trickle from a leaky sink.
     
    She howled to the moon and screamed, “The line of our jailor will be broken. This I swear!”
     
    “Big words for someone on the run,” Sway screamed