Chapter 58
No. No. No.
I reach for my mental shields as realization sinks in.
Snap.
I whip around to the sound of the breaking branch behind me, throwing everything I have into my shields…
But I’m too late.
Too fucking late.
A fanged leer hangs like a crescent moon in the shadows. Painted across the plumb lips of the pale figure prowling from the darkness… as day becomes night.
Black mist coils around me, seeping into my pores. I try to run, only for my eyes to widen. I’m frozen, every single muscle in my arms and legs unmoving.
My eyelids clasp shut on prickling tears as I reach for my power, only to find it just out of reach. All the windows in my mind are sealed shut, a black mist hovering over the locks. I can’t even move my body within my own fucking mind.
Talons pierce into the moonlight, retracting into nails along a pale hand; shadows of twisting vines in crimson and black snake along her flesh. I swallow the terror racing through my veins.
Wuvon.
Her eyes meet mine. No pupils, just crimson dusted in flecks of light, as if the night sky were drenched in blood. Long, black, metallic hair dips into the light, sharp as the features it frames.
She’s stunning.
Ash flints on a black mist, ebbing and eddying, like a rolling fog around her. Her voice severs the silence. Smooth as silk. Fine as ash. A lulling, venomous entrance.
“My, oh, my. Look at what a pretty thing I’ve found! Lurking far too deep in the Blackwood. What do we have here?”
I try to wriggle out of her compulsion, but her grip only tightens. Talons tap and scrape my golden mental shields. Gouging in. Cracks splintering across gold, like too much pressure on thin ice.
“Get the fuck out of my head!” I snarl.
“Tsk, tsk. Don’t bother, my pretty little thing. I’ve caught you in my spiderweb, and you have nowhere to run.”
The tone of her voice curving up at the end with pure delight, knowing I’m trapped. Perfectly matching her serpentine smile, revealing sharp, pronounced canines, leering to carve me up for her feast.
Something coiling around my ankles drags my gaze down. Vines mirroring the crimson night sky reflected in her eyes twist into chains protruding with thorns. Yet the spikes don’t bite into skin as they curl and crawl up my body. Snaking around my neck, they wrap around my face, suffocating me.
A serrated gasp slits up my throat, flesh-searing pain whipping and ripping through my mind, my golden shields blazing to ash. My lashes pop open to find myself in the crimson night sky of her eyes, teleported into another reality altogether, another dimension.
A mindtrap.
Thorny chains retreat, binding my wrists and ankles as I’m splayed apart.
She circles me, a sea serpent stalking its prey. Her presence presses into mine, dominating me. Her silky hum slithers down my skin in a wicked caress.
“My, what an interesting catch I have here.” Her voice low and sultry as she purrs with delight.
Eyes wide, screams trapped in my frozen throat, I watch my armor fracture off my body, shattering into a thousand pieces. Leaving me with nothing but the bands around my breasts and the briefs on my hips.
Her nail elongates into a talon, scraping into the gold marking my flesh. She twirls her finger through my iridescent hair as she looks me dead in the eyes. Her irises take shape. Gold slit with vertical pupils, swirling with ash. A golden blaze of wildfires, destruction. Endings.
“Lumaé Nasceá. Our little immortal Celestial has come to claim her reign once more,” she hisses through a maniacal smile. Followed by a cackle that has me questioning her sanity. Her words mince my brain. Is she talking about our prior Celestial or me? I’m still not entirely sure what I am.
I summon just enough movement to spit out, “If you’re going to kill me, get it over with. I don’t like being played with.” Banking on Kivi’s theories about my being immortal.
“Oh, but I do so love playing with you. The games we shall play! The wars we shall wage,” she croons, stepping around me like a vulture ready to devour its carrion prize.
She sucks on her fang, pausing before she tsks, tapping me on the nose. “My, oh, my, you have no idea what you are.”
My lip curls into a snarl. I open my mouth to respond that I don’t need to know what I am to kill her, only to find it frozen, too.
Her head leans in, lips brushing against my ear. My nostrils flare, drowning in her scent of wood ash and moonlight magnolias.
“Oh, but, my dear, you are far too valuable to kill! And much more meaningful alive.” Her sultry voice of silk licks down my bare skin, crackling my power, but I can’t reach it.
This dimension seemingly keeping it out of reach.
I can feel the separation while my magic struggles to fight its way back to me.
She grasps my chin with her fingers, yanking my attention back to her.
“We have been waiting many millennia for you. Icarus felt your presence come into the world. We searched but couldn’t find you. As if you were hidden from us.” She snarls the last words, clearly disgruntled about that bit.
“No doubt the work of Seer. Tricky little fucks can even hide from the Fates.” She clicks her tongue before her voice slips into silk and sultry. “And then your magic called to me, drawing me to you. As we are made for one another. Now here you are, having walked right into my beckoning lap.”
A growl rumbles from my chest. She’s not made for me! How dare she? Her words pinching my heartbeats in palpitations of terror as I think of S?las, my mate. If I’m facing her, he’s no doubt dealing with a Wuvon of his own. I need to get to him.
The lady of silk and night stiffens at my thoughts, gaze drifting down to his mark of shadows swirling beneath the bands of my chest.
“I see someone’s already marked your heart, but it’s so new… and you haven’t accepted it yet, have you?”
She tsks again. “Naughty little thing, rejecting a Fated mate when there hasn’t been one in half a millennium. You are so very fun, aren’t you?” She twirls with delight before returning to her prowl, stalking around me, a panther poised to pounce.
“Don’t worry, my darling Starfire. It’s almost too easy for me to remove. Can’t have someone else marking my precious gem.”
Her sultry voice dips into a possessive growl.
“I want him to smell me on you. I want him to taste me on you. To know what he holds precious and dear no longer belongs to just him. I will ruin him—for you, for him, for what he is. Then perhaps, you’ll join me in my darkness.
No rules, just pure mayhem. I will give you my rebel heart and savor you in chaos like he never can. ”
I want to scream and thrash at her words.
The bond gnaws on my ribs, shredding the flesh in between, ripping me apart to seek vengeance at her threats.
My resolve crumbling as I’m able to do absolutely nothing.
Of fucking course, once I’m ready to accept the bond, the Fates would send someone to destroy everything.
Kissa is right. They are cruel, cackling themselves silly on the sick joke they’ve weaved into my fate.
I may be their weapon, but I will wield myself at them for this twist.
The female before me prowls closer, her presence cold as the night dripping off her in a fine black mist. Her scents lingers, like crisp winter air with a hint of moonlight magnolias and burning wood, perhaps from the bits of ash that float in her dark mist.
No matter how alluring her presence is, I refuse to let her spin me in her silk. I will not give in. I focus my thoughts on S?las. How my starlight shines brightest in his dark embrace. My love. My mate.
Her hand collides around my neck. Her grip bruising. She licks up the side of my face, her tongue sharp as a whetted blade. Her fangs nip along my jaw.
My heart screeches in my chest. Her touch is pure ice compared to the flames S?las ignites. Yet something builds deep inside me, uncurling from the darkness I keep buried away, the feral part of me that enjoys my own pain as much as others, reveling in her grip.
I want to hate that hidden part of me. The one I’ve created to survive the atrocities of my childhood. The part of me that finds a unique pleasure and thrill in pain and blood. With the shields of my mind quivering at bay, I have no control over the things she brings out in me.
I wonder if accepting the bond would quiet the darkest parts of me, filling them with light? Or would it starve them until they lash out and hurt someone? Hurt him.
“Let those damaged parts of you lash out and whip me raw. Your depravity is safe in my midnight. For stars shimmer brightest in the deepest dark,” she growls as her fangs plunge into the side of my neck, exactly where the bruise from S?las healed.
The pain and pleasure mix along my nape, stirring the darkness in me, stretching its reach for her. Traitor.
I curse myself for the shiver she lets escape her control. Warm crimson trickles down my chest, curling a whimper from my throat as I listen in horror.
She laps my blood up, purring like a kitten drinking warm milk, a sound and sensation I don’t want to admit has heat pooling between my legs.
I’m never one to kink-shame, but knowing my Fated mate is somewhere in these woods—potentially dying—while my darkness enjoys this depraved moment twists my stomach with sickness.
If anything, it’s becoming a fucking big red flag that I can’t give him the love he longs for, the love he deserves.
Nor do I deserve the boundless, wild, soul-crushing love he promises me.
I know he has a darkness in him, too, but his heart is so full of love, it makes even his shadows appear vibrant and full of color to me.
She hisses, “Don’t you dare think of him when you are with me. You’d choke on your own thoughts if only you knew his true darkness.” Her manic cackle curls around my throat.