Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SAMARA
The storms were using me. Once, I’d been strong enough to turn away, to feel the pull and dig in my heels.
But something had shifted. Now, when the lightning called, I answered.
A puppet on electric strings, blank-minded and powerless.
And whatever the skies were orchestrating, I was dancing right into it.
Not long after the first bolt of lightning had struck me the first time, I started to think of the storms as sentient beings. They knew what they wanted.
Me.
The second time one chased me down, I thought it was just a fluke and bad luck. My family had always been on the receiving end of such good fortune. I figured it was our time.
The third time it happened, I really wondered what the hell was going on. Each time, my skin and hair would glow, and it was as if my entire body was infused with magic. Not just any magic either—light magic.
Instead of the lightning taking it away, it was feeding it to me.
I could no longer fight the pull of the storms. I couldn’t even lock myself up. We had tried, and I’d broken the chains.
The more times I was struck, the longer I stayed passed out. Eventually, it was going to kill me. Either the strikes would finish the job, or someone else would because I was an anomaly.
I was scared shitless.
I put on fresh clothes and swept my hair into a tight bun. With it close to my head, it was less noticeable. I had tried shaving it all off once, but the next morning it had grown back.
I took several calming breaths, counting silently until the fluttering panic in my chest subsided to a manageable hum. With one final exhale, I pushed aside the tent flap and stepped out.
The immediate surprise was finding Amari shirtless and packing up their tent.
His muscles rippled under his skin, and I hated to admit that I found him attractive.
He scowled way too much, but that was part of his appeal.
There was more underneath it, and I saw that clearly in his emerald eyes when he’d hovered over me in the tent.
Plus, I saw the way he looked at Val like he was his everything. I wanted that. I wanted Nico to look at me like I was his entire world. But that wasn’t what he wanted. He had his world, and it was ripped away from him.
Nico leaving Amari asleep next to me was an interesting choice, considering they mixed about as well as oil and water.
I sighed as I began packing our tent, my fingers working through the familiar motions while my mind wandered elsewhere.
I could feel Amari’s eyes tracking my movements, his silent observation prickling the skin at the back of my neck like phantom fingertips.
The weight of his attention wasn’t uncomfortable.
It was intense. Everything about him was.
I was drowning in a lake of testosterone from every direction, and my body hummed with an awareness that was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. There was a constant ache building between my thighs that no amount of self-pleasure could ease.
Val and Nico came from the trees, interrupting my thoughts, which had drifted toward the risqué. Val was carrying a rabbit, and Nico trailed behind, looking annoyed.
Val handed the rabbit over to Nico and then went to Amari. I couldn’t hear what was said, but he looked upset about something. His eyes landed on me as I watched their exchange.
He was probably wondering why his boyfriend slept in the tent with me. From what I could gather, Amari never slept with Val unless they were engaging in activities of the sexual variety.
“How are you feeling this morning, Peanut?” Nico set to work cleaning the rabbit so he could roast it over the fire. I’d asked him once how he felt comfortable eating one of his cousins, and he’d tickled me without mercy. He smiled as if he were remembering the same thing.
“It’s getting worse. It’s only a matter of time before…” I rolled up the tent and tied it onto his pack. I didn’t want to talk about the possibility of dying. “Amari fell asleep, and you left him.”
He grunted and lowered his voice so only I could hear. “It was like he was under a spell. I tried to get him out, but then he shifted into his panther. As soon as he touched you, he was out cold.”
I furrowed my brows and scratched my forehead. “My mother could put someone to sleep with a touch. Maybe after all these years, I’m getting my powers.”
I was the daughter of two powerful demons yet was born with no abilities. At one point, my father accused my mother of sleeping with someone else. Really, what it came down to was that I was a disappointment.
Nico shook his head. “It wasn’t that. I could see some of the light leaving you, and it spread over his body.”
That was a new development. I looked at my hands, examining the palms and the backs of them, turning them over as if the answers might be written somewhere. My skin appeared the same, with no visible changes or strange markings.
“This is not good, Nico.” My voice came out smaller than I intended, tinged with the fear I was trying desperately to control. After years of wishing for powers, they finally manifested in the most terrifying way possible.
Because while I might have spread light magic to Amari, the lightning took it from others and gave it to me.
His fingers paused over the rabbit, knife suspended mid-air as his eyes met mine. There was no judgment there, only concern that deepened the lines around his eyes.
“I know, Peanut, but we’ll get through this just like we have everything else.” Nico’s voice dropped to the tender tone he reserved for when I was truly frightened.
He’d called me Peanut since I’d met him, and somehow the familiar nickname made the situation feel both better and infinitely worse.
After an awkward breakfast where no one spoke and Amari kept staring at me, we set off into the forest. We circled through the forest around the village, and about an hour in, Amari caught a scent.
We followed the panther at a distance so that our horses’ scents wouldn’t interfere with his tracking.
It was a tedious process, and I didn’t know why I volunteered to do it.
Part of me wanted to prove myself to the council, but I had a feeling that even if we found the missing demons, they would never accept me.
The silence was killing me and giving me too much time to think. Val picked up his pace until he was next to me but kept his eyes looking straight ahead. “Why did you never send word that you were alive?”
Nico looked over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows. I wanted to dig my heels into the horse and gallop ahead, but I heard the hurt in Val’s voice. I needed to be honest with him. Or at least as honest as I could be.
“I knew that if I tried to contact you, you would come and get me.” Maybe if I hadn’t been struck by lightning, I would have contacted him, but that night had changed everything.
He made a strangled noise in his throat and glanced over at me. “And what would have been the problem with that?”
I gripped the reins, the leather digging into my skin. “I didn’t want to be found. Reve told me to run and never look back.”
“My family would have protected you. You didn’t give us a chance. Lilith left us alone mostly. A few of our people went to serve her, but most of them ended up dead.” We rode in silence for a couple of minutes longer. “You could have at least sent me a letter saying you were okay.”
“Val—”
A low, rumbling growl cut through the stillness ahead of us. Amari had frozen in place, his body rigid and ears flattened against his skull.
Buttercup halted so abruptly that I nearly pitched forward over his neck. He took several uneasy steps backward, his usual bravado replaced by clear distress. The horse’s muscles tensed beneath me, and I could feel his sides expanding rapidly with each breath.
The other two horses weren’t doing any better. They whinnied sharply with high, frightened sounds that pierced the quiet, while their hooves struck the forest floor in nervous, staccato patterns.
The forest had gone unnaturally quiet, except for our horses’ agitated breathing and my pulse thudding in my ears.
Something was moving toward us through the forest. I couldn’t see it or identify it, but I felt its approach like a pressure change before a storm. After centuries of surviving, I’d learned to trust that feeling more than any of my other senses.
“Run!” Amari roared.
He didn’t have to tell me twice.
I pulled Buttercup’s reins to the side, and he knew what I wanted. He did a one-eighty and took off at a gallop back the way we came. Val and Nico were right behind us, the sounds of hooves pounding the forest floor creating an unsettling noise.
I braved a glance over my shoulder and saw Amari behind us at a distance. Behind him, gaining ground, was a large group of vacants. Their eyes glowed red, and they were running.
Vacants didn’t run.
I faced forward again and urged Buttercup on. He was not happy with the speed we were going, but I think he knew we were in deep shit.
“They aren’t stopping!” Nico urged his horse faster and got in front of Buttercup. “We need to go somewhere they can’t. There’s a lake not far from here!”
There were only two things that could stop vacants: fire or water.
We had already been heading north, so going to the area where there was a lot of fire was out of the question. It would take us days to get there, and the horses would go lame before then.
Nico curved our path, and we followed him since we had no other options. The only relief was that vacants operated on their sense of smell, so they were following the same path as us. If they had any kind of visual perception, they would cut us off.
I looked over my shoulder again, and the vacants were slowly gaining on us. It wouldn’t be much longer until we were ripped to shreds, starting with Amari.
“Do you think we’ll make it?” Val tried to keep his voice calm, but it was hard to with flesh-eating monsters hot on our tail.