Chapter 22 Jasmine
Intense heat. Distant pops and crackles. The ground rumbles.
I open my eyes.
At first, my vision is blotched with black, fragments of shadow drifting across everything.
I blink, and slowly it clears to reveal a wide circle stretching out before me.
Miles ahead, scarlet flames writhe, gigantic and alive, their tips vanishing into the never-ending dark above.
They pulse like a heartbeat, rising, falling, forever resurrecting.
I look behind me, the same.
At least I landed on something solid: a long, narrow pathway of black stone, barely wide enough for three people, slicing straight across the circle’s centre. To my left and right, there’s nothing, only darkness. I peer over the edge, hoping for a stairway, another level—just an endless drop.
A pit.
An abyss yawning below and an empty void above. Behind me and ahead, the flames keep burning, hemming me in.
It’s like my nightmare, only worse.
This time, there’s no waking up. I’m trapped. There’s nowhere to go, but into the darkness or into the fire—
A flicker of movement catches my eye. I scan the edges, nothing but walls of flame… until something small, something eerily familiar, a thin stretch of shadow, small and serpentine, gliding out of the fire and towards me.
“You?” I gasp. The little creature blinks up at me with empty yet curious eyes. “Why are you here?”
It doesn’t answer, of course it doesn’t, its forked tongue flicks. Maybe it can understand, but maybe I’m just not asking the right things.
“Is Julien here?”
Its head tilts, inspecting me. I push harder, try sending an image of Julien from the last time I saw him, at breakfast. When his darkness was spilling over, with hunger in his stare, fangs bared—
The snake slithers closer but I step back, remembering what happened the first time we touched.
It pauses, lowering its little head, and I swear it looks disappointed.
Great, I’ve upset a smudge of shadow by not letting it fill me with darkness again.
“I’m sorry, Smudge.” Its head snaps up, the tip of its tail twitching. I smile. “You like that name? Smudge?”
It sways side to side, and I find myself laughing.
“I need your help, Smudge. Can you help me find Julien?”
Empty sockets blink, once, twice… then it turns and slithers away.
My stomach dips. Shit. I’ve offended it.
Was it the nickname? I thought it was kinda cute…
But halfway across the path it stops, glances back, tongue flickering. Waiting.
It’s not sulking, it’s leading.
Smudge guides me along the narrow path of obsidian rock until we reach a wall of flames, and slips into them.
I stop dead.
The heat should’ve destroyed it.
But it pops back out, blinking up at me, darting back and forth between the flames like it’s encouraging me to copy. The sight is so bizarrely cute that I laugh.
Cautiously, I reach out, emboldened by my little friend. The red flames lick my fingers—no heat, no pain, just a strange, brushing warmth.
I step through, and my little creature races ahead, a streak of shadow weaving towards something unseen, when something white catches my eye. Two coffee cups on the ground, their contents bleeding across the stone. My chest tightens.
The further I move in, the more the room clears as the fire and smoke thins—
Ezekial.
Even thinking his name hollows me out.
There’s already something so wrong about seeing powerful beings this still, but when it’s your bond, and when you’re the reason…
The pain in my chest splits open, the same emptiness that swallowed me when Kane fell.
Smudge bumps Ezekial’s cheek, a soft nudge, but he doesn’t stir. The little creature looks up, empty eyes somehow pleading.
“He’s okay,” I say, but the words snag. I try for a smile. “I promise.”
It blinks, tail twitching, then glides to the next body.
Sai.
The same nudge, the same awful stillness. Even his markings are empty.
“Sai too,” I murmur, but it’s thinner now, my throat tight. “They’ll be fine.”
But seeing them like this, seeing what I’ve done to them… my knees almost give.
This is on me. I should’ve pressed harder, refused their denials, forced them to bring me here.
Too late now.
I have to shove this awful ache away because when they wake… I can’t even think about that. There’s no time.
Empty eyes blink up at me, sensing my turmoil, then Smudge turns and slides through another wall of fire.
This time, I follow without hesitation.
And—
Holy fuck.
Even Smudge freezes beside me.
The cavern opens wide, and there, in the centre…
Chains. Thick iron, biting deep into stone walls on either side, a collar glinting dully in the firelight. And beneath it.
Julien.
Chained, bloodied.
On his knees. arms yanked high and shackled, his head bowed so low his chin rests against his bare chest. His dark skin is a ruin of bruises, cuts, old wounds layered with fresh blood.
He’s breathing, barely. But he’s here.
Help him.
I step closer.
Heal him.
Another step, and he makes a sound—half a groan, half snarl. Half man, half beast. It rakes over my skin.
He needs us.
I take another small step, slower this time, and his head snaps up.
There’s still so much space between us. Enough that I could flee this room quicker than I could ever reach him.
But I don’t.
Those eyes hold me where I stand.
Deep red, black, maroon—colours shifting, fighting, bleeding together like fire straining beneath dark ice. Not a trace of white.
My heart thumps so loud, so fast. My gaze races all over him, taking in every chain, every line of strain in his body, trying to see the man I know inside this caged thing.
His fingers curl around the chains binding his wrists. A slow flex, testing, then with one brutal yank, the left one tears free of the wall.
My blood runs cold. This, coming here, suddenly feels like an awful idea.
I step back. Julien’s eyes track the movement. Unblinking.
Then the right arm wrenches loose with the same terrifying ease.
Oh fuck.
Why did I come here?
Why the fuck did I do this?
I call to my darkness, begging it to shield me, but nothing stirs. Nothing comes. My power stays still, silent, as if it knows something I don’t. Fuck. I don’t have time to fight it, I just need to move.
I stumble back faster, refusing to turn my back, refusing to look anywhere but him.
Not even when his fingers grip the final chain—the one sunk into the ground, locking the collar tight around his throat.
Not even when he rips it up with a monstrous pull, the sound like stone screaming as he plucks it from the earth like a weed. The black floor splinters, sickening cracks racing out from him to me, stopping just before my feet.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Then he moves.
I flinch hard, eyes squeezing shut, every muscle braced for impact.
But nothing happens.
Only his breath, heavy, ragged, almost feral. Low grunts, soft snarls. He’s there, right in front of me, but I’m too scared to open my eyes.
My heart slams against my ribs, every breath too sharp, too shallow, waiting for him to—
“Mon ame.”
Soft. Thick. Darkness woven through every syllable, so heavy I can barely grasp the words.
My own darkness shivers, finally curling around me.
“Is this a dream?” he murmurs.
No. No, it isn’t.
Because when I force my eyes open, the sight before me is more terrifying than any nightmare.
I tilt my head up.
Up.
Up again.
And there he is—staring down at me.
Panting. Bloody. Wild. Chains rattling with every breath. His eyes two pools of black, no light left.
And then he falls.
With a heavy, echoing thud, he drops to his knees before me. Head bowed low.
He’s kneeling.
“I betrayed your trust,” he grits out. Every word is dragged from him, as if each syllable is a fragment of glass tearing a deeper wound. “I betrayed you.”
He stares at the ground. “I am sorry. So sorry. You deserve more.”
Lower and lower he goes, sliding his bloodied hands across the floor until his fingertips almost graze my feet.
And my darkness sings. Savouring it all. Devouring the sight of this powerful being surrendering to us.
Cherishes it. Marks him as ours.
He is worthy.
“You must leave,” he says, voice seeping into my mind.
And it’s that, his internal voice, that lights the fire, burning away all my unnecessary fear, igniting my darkness into full, vicious force.
“Please, leave me—”
“No,” I say, stern. Defiant.
He looks up, still so low beneath me, but I catch a flash of red, pure and wild, rupturing the heavy darkness of his gaze.
“Please. I cannot—” His jaw clenches, chains rattling as his fingers grip them tighter. “I don’t deserve you, but I want you. My beast and I agree on both… But you’re here and I—” He winces, cutting himself off with a low growl before rumbling out, “I cannot resist you.”
Heal him. Help him. Take him. He’s ours.
“Then don’t.”
The air shifts, hunger swelling thick and sharp between us. But another emotion clings heavier than all the rest—
Fear. His fear. Thick, cloying, tangible.
He’s terrified, terrified of hurting me. And I remember Kane’s words, the misery of Julien’s affliction, how it would haunt him for eternity if he acted upon it and caused me pain.
I raise my hand to him, wisps of black curling around it in thin, hungry veins.
Julien’s gaze locks onto it, his body tense, trembling, but still so damnably low beneath me.
“Feed from me.”
There’s a fracture in time, the flames freeze mid-dance. Nothing but silence.
Julien’s eyes close, then he rises slightly, still on his knees, shaking his head, chains clinking loudly with every strained movement.
“I am not worthy,” he whispers.
I step closer, eliminating the space, holding my hand steady. “I am not asking.”
His eyes snap open.
He stares at me, fractured gaze darting between my hand and face, maroon cracking through, staining more of the black.
“This is my choice. This is what I want.”
He tries to refuse me, not with words, but with stillness.
But I don’t waver.
“Feed,” I command. The word isn’t just a sound, it echoes around the cavern, inside our minds—everywhere.