Chapter 32 Prince Sloth #2
Her head cocked to one side, her gaze sharp and calculating as it narrowed on the male behind me. She reminded me of a hawk sizing up its prey.
There was nothing soft or forgiving in her face; there was hardly anything human in it. She wore a mask of vengeance that would make the fiercest archangels tremble if they dared to gaze upon it.
She was a perfect nightmare.
An inkling of recognition flickered in, but I couldn’t sort out what was familiar.
My sweet ray of sunshine who burned hotter than the surface of the sun when provoked. It seemed like I was the only one who admired her ferocity.
I heard the Fae’s boots catch on a rock as he stumbled back.
It was the wrong move.
Showing a predator any fear was the quickest way to ensure they attacked.
Right now Lore was no different.
I sensed the rising tide of power a moment before she detonated.
“You hurt what’s mine.”
Her shadow ribbons unfurled like a nest of vipers.
But I was momentarily fixated on her declaration.
She’d claimed me, out loud, and the second she uttered the words, it almost felt like a second heartbeat pounded in my chest. Something had awakened, something I hadn’t even been aware of that slumbered deep inside me.
I had never felt something like that before.
I snapped out of the odd sensation, taking in the darkness that had suddenly descended, noticeable even under the cover of night.
Lore hadn’t taken her attention from the horseman of death.
It looked like she was channeling the rage she felt while staring at him and turning it into something worthy of the Book of Nightmares.
“Now you’ll pay.”
Dozens of dark tendrils writhed through the air with a menacing hiss as they lunged at the horseman who had just leapt from the tree.
I twisted around to watch the magic she wielded with ease, staring at the sheer power and control she exercised over it.
She was focused, sharp. And utterly lethal.
She wasn’t using the shadow ribbons to shift stories. She was wielding them like the true weapons I’d suspected they could be.
Lore had somehow unlocked the full might of her magic.
And it was a great and terrible sight to behold.
If this was her test for this Trial, I didn’t doubt she’d win.
I’d had no idea she was capable of shadow magic, but it was clearly something a dreamweaver could command. It had to be a skill diluted from the goddess’s bloodline.
Death’s eyes widened in disbelief, a fleeting expression of shock frozen on his face, just before the dark magic engulfed him entirely.
I couldn’t tear my attention away.
Shadows twisted and coiled around him like a living storm, and in only a few seconds a gut-wrenching scream came from inside its swirling darkness.
The keening howl was the embodiment of pure, unadulterated torment.
It was so harrowing and desolate, it actually sent shivers down my spine.
Another wail breached the shadow storm, louder and more tormented than the last. It sounded like his own nightmares had come to life.
I couldn’t imagine Death’s darkest fears, considering the starring role he played in so many others throughout the centuries.
My heart thudded solidly in my chest. The mass of shadows that kept pouring into the swirling storm was so thick, I couldn’t see beyond them.
He screamed again.
It sounded like the shadows were feeding off his terror and reflecting every horror he created back at him until all he could do now was cry out, too lost to his nightmares to even beg for mercy.
I didn’t think he was capable of speech anymore.
Lore was shattering his mind, and she hadn’t lifted a finger. I thought of our lessons in mental shielding; she’d used that skill and speared into his head.
With her power to create reality from dreams, it made sense that she could also slip into someone’s mind and bring forth the darker side of them.
Just like the goddess who held that same magic.
That same flicker of recognition hit me. Was Lore’s magic coming from the Book of Nightmares itself, or was she using the goddess’s magic some other way?
We were on a precipice, close to the truth but just out of reach.
I was wrenched away from my thoughts when his sounds of terror suddenly ceased. An eerie silence fell.
War didn’t so much as breathe from where he still bled out on the ground.
A beat later, the shadows finally broke their hold on the Fae, and all I could do was stare at the pile of ash and bones that used to be the harbinger of death.
Lore had annihilated Death with her magic.
She’d plunged into the deepest well of her power and mastered it beyond what I had thought possible, even with decades of training.
All within seconds.
I had no idea what had set her—
Understanding slammed into me.
I swallowed hard, trying to come up with a more logical explanation for her sudden mastery, but even with all my years of study, I couldn’t.
There was something far more powerful than dreams or nightmares, something so rare that not even the gods themselves could re-create it or destroy it.
A bond strong enough to overcome almost every obstacle. Something deeper than love, more passionate than lust, and far greater than hate.
I staggered back like I’d taken several blows, my thoughts racing as I tried to deny it, tried to find some other explanation.
There were none.
The primal instincts I’d been battling. My emotions that kept oscillating so wildly out of control… They were signs. It wasn’t the influence of the Liber Noctem. It had never been about that.
Lore finally wrenched her attention away from the Fae she’d destroyed. A slight line of worry creased her brow. It was the first semi-human look she’d worn.
“Are you okay?”
“I—”
My pulse roared through my veins, driving the poison deeper.
But I couldn’t calm myself.
I shook my head, not meaning to respond to her question.
I was trying to clear my thoughts. Not because I couldn’t accept the truth but because I wanted to be completely certain before I said it out loud.
There would be no coming back from this revelation.
And I wanted there to be no doubt that it was true.
All the little pieces slowly came together, forming a larger picture in my mind. Now that I was searching for the threads, I found them easily.
When we’d been practicing her mental shields, I’d felt it then.
I’d been overcome with the need to claim her as mine, and she’d accepted. I felt the moment her mind welcomed the connection.
I’d dismissed it as impossible. As some strange anomaly of our intermingling powers. Had the strangeness ended there, I could still shrug it off.
But that hadn’t been the last sign.
It happened again when I’d felt myself falling into that endless abyss the first time we kissed on the pirate ship; I’d thought I was going mad. That the Liber Noctem had been somehow stirring up hidden desires to distract me.
All the while it was the bond growing stronger.
When the sea monster took her, I’d never felt fear that potent before.
Then there was the tether I’d followed across the Isle of the Damned despite the logical route I would have taken to the lighthouse first.
This whole time I’d convinced myself it was the dark book, or the Trials. Neither had been the case.
I’d been jealous and possessive more times than I’d ever experienced in my immortal life. Fighting the dragon shifter, seething at the pirate king.
Nearly turning as feral as the vampires when I’d caught her scent mingling with another male’s. It was irrational, and even being aware, I couldn’t control it.
I’d come across ancient texts that claimed it was possible for my kind to experience such a connection, but I hadn’t believed it was true.
To my knowledge, none of my brothers had felt it. Wrath and Emilia came close, but I wasn’t sure if they were simply fated in a different way.
I also never read anything that indicated such a bond could form between a mortal and a Prince of Sin, which was the main reason I hadn’t put much thought into it even after that odd claiming in our minds.
It was easy to dismiss my protective urges; I did want to keep Lore safe—she was the key to keeping Nyantha from being reunited with her power.
But it went deeper than that.
Even if she wasn’t a dreamweaver, I would feel the same. I’d realized that long before tonight. I just didn’t admit it to myself.
Fate was a fickle thing, I’d never placed any stock in it. It couldn’t be weighed and measured; it couldn’t be easily explained.
I lived in a world of logic and reason, and fate defied them both.
It made me uncomfortable to simply let go, to believe in something with my heart without facts or reason backing up them up.
Now I couldn’t deny it.
I should have known the moment she plucked my true name from my head what it meant. She was the only one in any realm who’d be granted that level of intimacy without me uttering a word.
I dragged my attention back to her face.
My mate’s face.
But her fury wasn’t sated.
I was bleeding and struck with at least a dozen arrows, and she’d snapped, just as I had done when she’d almost been hit with one of the throwing stars.
Her need to protect me was as fierce as mine was to keep her safe. It had been fierce enough to unbind her magic in force.
I needed to temper the emotions roiling through me, the ones that wanted me to encourage her wrath, to watch the realm burn and destroy everyone in it.
The Book of Nightmares had played its hand well—it struck right after we’d begun to secure our bond.
My revelation had only taken seconds to piece together, and now that I had my proof, I delved deeper.
I mentally flipped through any information I could recall about the mating bond and how it worked. We’d need to guard ourselves from manipulation.
This was the most fragile time for a mated pair; it was when our emotions were the most unstable and heightened.
When we were the most likely to lose control at the slightest threat or provocation. It would remain this volatile until we’d secured it completely.
And that usually occurred after sex, the ultimate forging of two into one.
Which meant we were both standing dangerously close to the encroaching darkness, and it couldn’t have come at a worse time.
The Trials had to be reaching an end.
And it would be even more challenging to keep our focus on the light, on remembering dreams were the way to overcome the dark book.
Though, looking at my mate, it seemed like she’d plunged into the abyss.
And I wasn’t even sure if I could bring her back.
If this test was about mercy, I feared the outcome.
She turned to War and a new fire ignited in her gaze. Tiny embers of her magic sparked in the depths of her dark eyes, flickering with calculation.
There was little sunshine left in this version of the dreamweaver.
This was the opposite end of the spectrum of her magic—this was the weaver of nightmares. This was the worst of Nyantha’s magic come to life.
There was no part of her I would fear, no place too dark I would not follow.
She was my mate. And I’d accompany her to the ends of the realms if I must. I’d vowed to not leave her side and nothing had changed. Nor would it.
She could strike me down and it wouldn’t keep me from my promise.
If she fully accepted me, we’d secure the connection and then we’d take on the Book of Nightmares as a unit and end this.
Not even the gods themselves could stop us then.
But we needed to hurry before the book found a way to breech her defenses.
Lore’s attention flicked back to my wounds, her jaw clenching at the sight of the dark veins of poison spreading out.
I felt the shift in her a moment before her expression hardened again—a lock snapping into place.
Whatever spark of humanity she’d clung to was now behind that door.
Her shadows rose like demons waiting to be unleashed.
I took a step toward her and halted.
Several shadows whipped out to block my path, throwing up a writhing wall that prevented me from taking her hand.
I cursed.
The shadows grew taller, thicker, more solid, like tentacles whipping around.
We weren’t running out of time. We were already out of it.
Whatever happened next would either see the Goddess of Night reunited with her magic and the realms destroyed, or we’d survive and lock the book away for good.
Everything balanced on a knife’s edge; Lore would either win or she’d lose.
And like the Goddess of Night herself, my mate didn’t just submit to the darkness; she became it.
“Lore.” She didn’t give any indication she’d heard me. “Fight back, Peaches. You’re stronger than the dark book and its magic.”
Despite her being fueled by the Liber Noctem, our bond flickered. It was weak, barely noticeable, but I’d felt her respond.
I tried to take a step toward her, but the shadows buffered me again.
It took a moment to understand why she’d thrown the wall up.
Her magic wasn’t keeping me away from her; it was protecting me from the nightmare that was about to be unleashed next.
I just hoped she didn’t get lost to it.
Lore turned her attention back to the Fae.
The great harbinger of war promptly pissed himself from just one look at her face.
Her mouth curved into a slow, wicked grin.
“Leave nothing, not even ash this time.”