Chapter 13 Sacrifice #2
He waited until I’d finished the last stitch, knotting the thread neatly, before he spoke. A fine layer of sweat beaded across his forehead. “Have you done this before?” he asked, admiring my work.
I shrugged. “No memories.” I pointed to my chest. “Dud, remember?”
He chuckled, his gorgeous smile transforming his face in ways that made me want to let my guard down. “You could have fooled me.”
I became acutely aware that I was still in-between his legs and, in a sense, we were very much alone.
Olivia slept soundly on the couch, the fire slowly bringing warmth back into her chilled body, and a new kind of warmth crept up my own thighs when I turned back to the handsome Dark Mage who was still smiling at me.
“What?” I snapped. “Thought you were pissed off at me.”
“Oh I am,” he promised. His hand rested on my shoulder and his fingers ground into my collarbone in a possessive way, “but I’m also impressed, you—”
His words cut off as his pitch-black eyes swirled with a glimmer of magic, reacting to something inside of… me.
Touch seemed to amplify my suppressed gifts and even though I couldn’t draw on his life-force like the succubus in me wanted to, I could still taste his desire for me.
He liked a woman that was on the dangerous side, unpredictable, and a mystery.
I was all of those things in a neat and tidy box as if I’d wrapped myself as a present left on his doorstep.
There was something else in his gaze that had me on edge. His desire for me left a sweet taste in my mouth, but he had his own magic as well that crawled over me at our contact. It recognized me.
“I’ve seen you before,” he said, his voice low with accusation. “You’re…”
“Nope,” I said, launching to my feet. I stepped out of his reach and broke the contact, snapping free of his magic that had been tasting me and threatening to burrow under my skin.
My runes burned hot, although, thankfully, they were still invisible.
I stuffed my hands into my pockets and glowered at the Dark Mage.
“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” I reminded him.
“We never met before I came to the Academy.” I crushed the remaining orb as I said the words, making a puff of magic filter through the room.
Hendrik didn’t seem to notice, and instead he relaxed under the compulsion of the spell. He wanted to believe that I wasn’t the girl from his vision. He wanted to see me as a freshman at his academy where he was in charge. That was something familiar, something he could control.
If I was the girl from his vision…
No, he couldn’t fathom it. My spell made sure of that.
It capitalized on a deep-seated fear of what it might mean to him if I really was meant to head off the Third Echo of Calamity and I’d come to him for support.
He had a cushy deal here at Fortune Academy and he had plans that would help his people, although I couldn’t see deep enough into his black heart to decipher what those plans were.
All I could glean was that I was not a part of those plans and Hendrik, the all mighty leader of the Dark Mage clan, had enough responsibility on his plate without adding the fate of the world onto it.
“You’re right,” he said, shaking his head and rubbing his temples.
With a grunt, he tried to stand and put weight on his injured leg.
He stumbled back against the mantle and hissed with pain.
“Well, let’s get down to business then,” he said, resolve seeming to wash over him as he transformed back into his old asshole self.
His midnight eyes flashed up to meet mine and any kindness I’d seen there had vanished.
Maybe my compulsion spell had worked a little too well to push him away and convince him that I wasn’t anyone special.
“Any new Dark Mage that comes into my clan owes a blood debt.” He glanced at my sleeping friend.
“She’s in no condition to provide it. In fact, she’s drawn so much magic from her reserves that she’ll die if she tries to work a spell again without entering into our collective and drawing from the blood sacrifices.
” His jaw worked with irritation as he faced me again.
“Dark Mages don’t tap out on my watch, not in my clan.
You will repay what she owed, what she took, and what she’ll need to survive. Those are my conditions.”
I stared at him in surprise. I’d been under the impression that the blood sacrifice he demanded was some power struggle, but he had a legitimate purpose for it.
His clan survived on shared magic and worked together to make sure not any one mage’s reserves dropped too far.
Hendrik could have drawn on his collective for the magic he needed to banish the demonspawn, but he’d used his own suffering to power the spell.
“Well, why didn’t you just put it that way in the first place?
” I asked, allowing irritation to creep into my voice.
“I thought you just wanted to boss us around.”
He staggered towards the kitchen, taking his empty whisky glass with him. “I’m a leader. Bossing idiots around is what I do and I don’t need to explain myself.”
Letting that insult slide by, I followed him as he collected a half-empty bottle and poured golden liquid into the glass. He swirled it around before downing the whole thing in one gulp.
I glowered at him. He was making me wait on purpose. “I came here because you know where Dante is, and you took something from him,” I said, trying to pick my words carefully. When he turned to glare at me, I stiffened. “His hand hasn’t grown back. Apparently it usually does.”
Hendrik poured another glass before raising it to his lips. This time he sipped leisurely at the contents. “The magic the hunter needed required a permanent sacrifice. It’ll take double the power to restore him, if that’s what you want.”
“Just tell me what to do,” I said without hesitation. Whatever Dante was up to, I knew it was because of me. I would fix this for him.
Hendrik raised an eyebrow. “You’re already in enough debt to me as it is,” he reminded me.
He set his glass down and began counting off on his fingers.
“Let’s see, enough blood to pay for a fledgling Dark Mage, which might have been impossible to take from you without any permanent damage, but now,” he tsked and counted off on another finger, “you also took three weeks of my own magic to banish the demonspawn you so carelessly summoned. Not to mention the damage to my own body.” He tested his weight on his leg and grunted.
“My wounds will have to heal naturally, slowly, unless you provide the sacrifice needed to heal. I don’t want to take any further resources from my clan. ”
I wasn’t sure where I was going to get enough sacrifice to cover that sort of debt, but I’d figure it out. “Like I said,” I said, digging my fingers into my arms, “just tell me what to do and it’ll be done.”
I didn’t like the grin that stretched across his handsome features, turning them sinister. “I have a few ideas, but you’re not going to like it.”
I shifted my weight onto my hip. “Well, go on, I’m listening.”
He sipped at his whisky again, delight crinkling his eyes as his gaze raked over me again.
He smacked his lips with satisfaction. “Well, my allies have plenty of power they don’t always know how to part with.
There’s Orion. His weakness is sex. Take that away from him for a period of time and that’ll cover at least a third of the sacrifice you need to recover your debt. ”
I snorted on a laugh. “Really? Making a demigod abstain from sex is some great sacrifice?”
He nodded, gravely serious. “Greek myths hold a lot of truth to them. The gods divine their power released from sex and pleasure. It’s similar to the succubi, but they don’t feed on a person’s life-force that’s made vulnerable by passion.
They’re able to extract the raw power from passion itself, like I am able to extract power from pain. ”
I shrugged. “Okay, make Orion hang up his dick wand for a while, I can do that.” No fucking clue how I was going to get Orion to stop sleeping around—he was literally a playboy demigod—but I’d cross that bridge when I got to it. “So, what else?’
“Then there’s Logan,” Hendrik said wistfully as he eased onto a stool, only wincing slightly as he twisted his leg into a more comfortable position, revealing an attractive curve on the inside of his thigh that the succubus in me wanted to explore.
“He already suffers, but I haven’t figured out a way to get his defenses down enough to capture that raw energy.
He’s a lone wolf, you see, yet he’s bound to lead his pack.
He’s an alpha, even if he never wanted to be.
” Hendrik pointed at me. “Get him to turn on his pack and it’ll break those defenses. ”
“I thought you wanted me to stay away from Logan,” I sneered. “Now you want me to break him?”
Hendrik chuckled. “Break his defenses, that’s all. Logan will be fine, and maybe better off in the end.”
The thought of hurting Logan made my stomach twist, but if what Hendrik said was true and Logan didn’t want to be alpha of his pack, he was right, I could be helping him in the long run. “Okay,” I relented. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Wonderful,” Hendrik said, beaming. He eased to his feet and beckoned me to follow. “You’ll need an artifact to absorb the suffering. I have just the thing.”
I followed Hendrik into his bedroom which was easily three times the size of my shared room with Olivia. He gripped a painting that could only be described as the underworld decorated by elaborate caverns and pits of fire, and pulled it away from the wall. It twisted on hinges, revealing a safe.
He leaned down and a scanner moved over his eyes. I wondered how pitch-black eyes could have a signature, but the safe seemed to recognize him and popped open.
I tried to see around his shoulder, but he blocked my view of the contents. He pulled something out and then shut the safe and painting again, settling both back with a click.
He presented a necklace with a stunning red gem dangling on the end of it. “A Blood Stone,” he announced with pride. “I save it only for special occasions, but in this case, I believe you’ll put it to good use.”
He took my hand and dropped the gem into it, the silver chain pooling on my palm in a fine swirl.
I examined it, trying not to be too impressed with how beautiful it was, but the ruby hue was so deep and the facets of the gem caught the light in a way that had me mesmerized.
I tore my gaze away from it and raised a brow at him. “How does it work?”
He closed my fingers around the prize and flashed me a smile.
“Just be the cause of the sacrifice. The stone will do the rest.” He waved his hand over mine and a trickle of magic settled into the chain, heating up slightly before cooling again.
“Wear it, don’t take it off. When the job is done, come back to me.
” He winked. “I might even let you keep it after I extract your debt.”
It felt appropriate that the first piece of jewelry I’d ever gotten from a guy would be a Dark Mage artifact designed to feed on suffering.
I nodded, pinching my lips together as I accepted his proposal. If he meant to let me keep the stone, then this wouldn’t be the only job I’d be doing for him.
He eased his arm around my shoulder and guided me out of his bedroom, far too pleased with himself. “I believe this is a start of a wonderful alliance,” he said with a grin.
The scent of roses and blood followed us out and I wondered what kind of shit I’d gotten myself into now.