Chapter 23 #2
I turned to the iron biting into her wrists—the bruises blooming purple, the skin rubbed raw—and wrapped my hands around the links.
The chains groaned under my grip.
With the strength coursing through me now, they were nothing.
The chains screamed as they bent beneath my grip, snapping like brittle bone.
Iron shards scattered across the velvet floor, their ringing echo slicing through the chamber.
Amara gasped, a sound too small for this kind of ruin, as I tore the cuffs from her ankles. The metal crumbled in my hands, its heat searing my palms.
She was free.
I caught her before she could flee. Pulled her against me, into the hollow of my chest where she once fit like breath. But she went still, as stiff as glass, her heart racing against mine, her body shivering with fear. My touch burned her.
“Amara,” I rasped, my voice split between love and wrath. “I’m going to destroy Severen for what he’s done.”
And before reason could stop me, I kissed her.
The world ruptured.
Her lips were cold at first—still, trembling—and then soft, quivering beneath mine. For a heartbeat, she yielded. But the shadows inside me sensed it—the opening—and they surged upward like a tide of black fire.
The kiss deepened, turning savage. I pressed harder, claiming her mouth with hunger that was no longer mine. The shadows poured through me, through the space between us, tasting her fear, her sorrow, her warmth. They fed.
Salt from her tears mingled with the taste of her. Beneath it all, I tasted iron, smoke—and something sweet, dying.
For a single breath, she kissed me back. Desperate. As though reaching for what we’d lost.
And then it changed.
Desire struck like a knife.
It wasn’t gentle. It was violent. Molten. The kind of hunger that tears rather than touches. It flooded me, set my veins ablaze, turned love to ruin in a single heartbeat.
My hands twisted in her hair, pulling her closer. The shadows hissed between our mouths, black tendrils flickering against her skin. I could feel them moving inside me, urging me on, whispering that she was warmth, that she was life, that she was fuel.
She whimpered, a sound that shattered something human in me. Her fingers pressed weakly against my chest, a plea to stop that I barely heard through the roar in my head.
For a moment, I didn’t know if I wanted to love her or consume her.
The shadows writhed under my skin, hissing in delight, their whispers swelling into a fevered chorus.
I felt it. Her kiss wasn’t just lips and breath.
It was sustenance. It was power. Every gasp against my mouth filled me until I was drunk on her.
Every flick of her tongue scorched into the marks etched across my body, igniting them alive.
I crushed her even closer, one hand tangling in her hair, the other dragging down her spine to seize her hips. She arched against me, her body soft against the hardness of mine, and the moan that tore from her lips shattered me. I devoured it, swallowing the sound like it was mine to keep.
The tattoos writhed beneath my flesh, glowing, burning, twisting like serpents with every shiver of her body. The shadows feasted, ecstatic, urging me deeper—take more.
And gods, I wanted to.
Her lips moved against mine with fire, fierce and bruising, her nails raking into my shoulders. She clung to me like she couldn’t decide whether to push me away or let me ruin her. That torment only inflamed me further, dragging me closer to the edge of something vast and destructive.
I broke the kiss only to trail my mouth along her jaw, down the fragile line of her throat.
Her pulse thundered beneath my lips, frantic, wild.
I grazed her skin with my teeth, not to draw pain, only to feel her tremble, and her cry broke through the chamber.
Her body shook, pressing tighter into me, feeding me her warmth, her fear, her need.
“Lazarus…” she gasped, her voice breaking, but instead of shoving me away, her hands tangled in my hair, pulling me closer, tethering me to her.
I growled against her skin, the sound raw and inhuman, shadows hissing in unison with me. My teeth scraped the hollow of her throat before I claimed her mouth again—harder, deeper—like I could consume her whole, drag every breath, every drop of her soul into me.
When I finally tore away, panting, her taste clung to my tongue—salt, fire, tears, and something intoxicatingly hers. My body shook with it, my skin blazing as the marks writhed beneath, and the shadows inside me purred in dark satisfaction.
Amara staggered back a step, her lips swollen, her cheeks flushed, her eyes wide and brimming with terror as they flicked to the black coils burning under my skin. She looked at me as if she couldn’t tell if the man she loved was still here or if I was already gone.
“Tell me—where is Severen?”
My voice came low, vibrating through the room, a sound that wasn’t entirely mine.
Amara’s breath faltered. Her gaze slipped away, as though meeting my eyes might tear her apart. When she finally spoke, her voice was sharp, bitter—choked with disgust.
“In his throne room,” she said. “Torturing prisoners. Slaves. Sacrifices.”
She shook her head, the motion small. “It’s worse than anything you’ve seen.”
I turned—and found Salvatore watching me.
He stood motionless, his tome clutched tight to his chest, his knuckles bone-white.
His face was carved in stone, but his eyes betrayed him—burning, jealous, storm-bright.
He had seen the kiss. The way Amara trembled against me.
He had felt the shadows surge when our lips met, the spark of power that had flared between us.
And he hated me for it.
The whispers in my skull hissed their delight.
“He envies you. He despises you. He will never taste what you have.”
Their voices crept like smoke through my mind. I ignored them, though their truth stung bitterly on my tongue.
“Then this is where we split,” I said, my words rough, breaking like stone under strain. “Amara and I will stay here—in his den—and find the Noctyss flower. Meanwhile, you go through the prison. Free the captives. Get them out before he drains them again.”
Salvatore’s jaw tightened. His hands gripped the tome until the veins on his arms flared black. His silence was a storm barely held in check. His eyes lingered on me a heartbeat too long—smoldering, edged with something darker than hatred.
At last, he nodded—once. Stiff. Controlled.
“When you’re done,” I said, “meet me at the doors to his throne room. That’s where it ends. That’s where we destroy him. Together.”
He said nothing. He only turned, his shoulders rigid, silence echoing louder than any curse. His footsteps bled into the dark, devoured by the shadows.
When I looked back at Amara, she was still watching me. Her eyes—wide, wary, filled with the ghosts of what I had become—reflected the glow of the coils beneath my skin.
I wanted to reach for her. To prove I was still the man she’d once trusted, the man who had shared his bread with her in the dark. But there was no time for softness.
There was only one purpose.
Vengeance.
“We’re looking for a flower,” I told her, forcing my voice to stay even though the shadows inside me writhed like fire beneath my skin. “Its petals are black, streaked with silver. They shimmer—like it’s alive. It’s held under a dome glass.”
Amara didn’t hesitate. Her breath was unsteady, but her eyes met mine. “I know, Lazarus,” she said quickly. “I’ve seen it before. I know exactly what we’re looking for.”
Together, we began to search the room.
The pleasure chamber was a cathedral of corruption.
Velvet curtains smothered the walls, but their folds were darkened with handprints, the stains glossy in the torchlight like old blood that refused to dry.
Low tables ringed the edges of the room, heavy with chalices half-filled with black liquor—some rimmed with red, teeth marks pressed into the metal.
Platters of fruit lay in ruin, their sweetness rotted into stench, crawling with flies that glimmered like jewels in the dim.
At the center stood the bed—enormous, obscene, draped in silks that glistened with stains too deep to ever wash away.
Shackles were bolted to each carved post, their chains long enough to promise mercy but never freedom.
Above it, from the ceiling’s iron beams, hung ropes of velvet and leather—some torn, others stiff with dried sweat and use.
Mirrors lined the walls, catching light and motion in endless, shifting reflection. But the faces that looked back were not ours. Their mouths curled when ours did not. Their eyes glowed red, as though the glass itself remembered the cruelties it had seen and hungered to witness them again.
Incense still burned in cracked braziers, its smoke thick and cloying, threaded with something bitter—sweet perfume turned rancid, the undernote of charred flesh.
On carved shelves along the far wall sat jars of oils and balms, their contents once fragrant but now soured into musk and iron.
The glass was smeared, the labels long dissolved, the colors inside as dark as blood and pitch.
Beside them lay whips coiled with ritual precision, their tips gleaming with tiny barbs meant to draw both pain and pleasure. And scattered between them, masks carved with grotesque smiles waited in silence—faces without warmth, without eyes, waiting to be worn again.
The air felt alive.
Heavy. Watching.
Even the torches seemed to tremble, as if the room itself knew we didn’t belong here—and feared what we might find.