Chapter 37 #2
I didn’t try to aim my slingshot again, knowing only too well that it would do me no good. Even if I could fell one of the monstrous beings, there had to be fifty of them chasing me through the trees.
They were going to catch me, they would rip me apart with tooth and nail and all I had done, all I had thought to do, would come to nothing.
“Ferris!” Hendrix’s voice boomed through the dark up ahead and a spear of that one, most dangerous emotion struck me directly in the heart. Hope.
I almost wept with relief as I called his name in reply.
The rising moon was casting silvery pools of light between the trees as I raced father up the hill and I caught sight of him standing right at the top, a familiar tower at his back. Both saviour and sanctuary in one place.
Was it fate that had led me to him in my moment of greatest need or had the forest been working to aid me in my path once again?
Either way, it was a stroke of luck which had me near to sobbing with relief.
I’d missed him when I’d run from him. Almost enough to have made me turn back and seek him out had I known where to begin my search.
I’d been so stupid to flee from him. I’d been angry and hurt and fearful of what would come at the end of this hunt if I couldn’t win more spirits for my own but I had wanted to turn back and find him again despite it all.
And it seemed the forest or fate or maybe a twist of both wanted us reunited too.
I found some small measure of resolve still lurking in my limbs and pushed myself to run faster, refusing to look back. I could feel the Hollows mere inches behind me, their grasping fingers surely about to take hold of me at any moment.
Hendrix waited for me at the top of the hill and as I burst into the clearing surrounding the tower he swept past me, sword swinging, blood flying, Hollows falling.
“Enough!” he bellowed, swinging his sword as he dove at the beasts which grasped for my heels.
I scrambled further from the sounds of fighting before I got to my feet once more, my pack falling in the dirt at last while heaving breaths tore from my lungs.
I was no warrior, but Hendrix? Watching him cut through the Hollows was like watching a dance of well-practiced and beautiful steps.
He cut the Hollows down so simply I might have questioned why I’d been so filled with terror while I ran from them. But as they fought to get past him, feral, hungry gazes locked on me, I knew my death had only just passed me by.
Hendrix cut the last of them down and turned to me, blood dripping from his sword, face cast in shadow, his eyes burning with a relentless, furious power which I could feel wrapping around me like the arms of a storm.
He dropped his sword and strode for me, gripping my face between his hands and staring down at me with a ravenous devotion that set my heart racing even faster than fleeing from the Hollows had done.
Madness struck me as I stared up at him.
The kind of madness which wars were fought over, which songs were sung for, which folk wept and killed for.
The most dangerous type of madness in this world or any other.
Because in the arms of this brute, this infuriating, maddening male, I suddenly felt as if I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
Shadows mapped lines across his skin, darkness clinging to his features in a way that set my entire being on edge but I was lost in the fact that he was here, that he had found me, and that I never should have run from him at all.
I took hold of his wrists where he clung to me and I pressed up onto my toes as I captured his mouth with my own.
Hendrix stilled for all of a heartbeat as a pulse of raw energy raged between us and then he dragged me closer, his mouth captivating mine, his tongue sinking between my lips and my body melting into his.
I’d been kissed before. Kisses were something and nothing at all. But not this kiss. This kiss was like a breath of frozen air on a balmy summer’s night, stealing all of my attention and devouring me whole.
Hendrix didn’t kiss me like any man had ever kissed me. He possessed me with that kiss, destroyed me and consumed me and worshipped me.
I was lost in him, all the things I’d been trying to deny about the way he made me feel and the things he made me want just spilling away to nothing as he kissed me like I was all he’d ever wanted in this life or any other.
A stillness fell over the world as I lost myself in his kiss, the taste of him awakening every piece of my soul as I fell for the trap I’d been fighting to avoid since the moment I’d first laid eyes on him.
But the stillness wasn’t just that of this connection. It was the entire world falling silent like in the moment before a predator might leap from the trees.
My eyes fluttered open, my gaze meeting the wild tempest in Hendrix’s, the green I’d come to grow so familiar with seeming so much darker in the moonlight.
Black shadows crept from his eyes, painting lines across his skin, dark magic leaking from him and making me step back suddenly, a spell shattering as if a bucket of cold water had been hurled over us.
Fear captured my heart before I even realised why.
In the trees surrounding us, beyond the corpses of the Hollows Hendrix had cut down, figures stood like statues, their hungry eyes consuming me.
There must have been at least thirty of them stood frozen, their desperate wants held at bay by some power I was only just starting to realise was resonating from the Fae before me.
“You,” I breathed, stepping back but he didn’t relinquish his hold on me, his voice a low growl as he replied.
“Do you see the truth of me at last, lightwing? Do you understand the horrors I warned you about now?”
My heart was a bird thrashing against the bars of a cage which was coiling tighter and tighter around it.
I could see the shadows on his skin all the clearer now, see them for the darkness they were, feel the wretched weight of their poisonous magic as it clawed its way through his veins.
The bony hands of death which were painted around his throat seemed to be gripping him more tightly, those tattoos flexing as if they were made of so much more than ink.
A collar for a beast worse than any other.
In the spaces between the trees Hollows stared at us with feral hunger in their eyes, their lust for life and death kept in check, their bodies taut with tension, their wants suppressed by their master.
Their master who stood before me, whose kiss still stained my lips, whose truth had been right there for me to see long before this moment but which I had so determinedly fought against admitting to.
Because allowing myself to see it meant admitting to myself that the male I’d been captivated by since the moment we first met, the one I’d desired and dreamed of, had ached for and pined for against my better judgement, had been a monster all along.
The monster who had haunted my nightmares in every quiet moment, the one they all whispered of in the dark.
His name wasn’t Hendrix Draven. It was one which was renowned and feared across the realms of human and Fae alike.
“You’re Bane Crownthief,” I exhaled, terror holding me captive as thoroughly as his hold on me did. “The prince who was cursed for stealing a crown he wasn’t worthy of. The Fae whose twisted magic allowed him to raise the dead. You’re the Necromancer.”