Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Vhaena
VENOM
“Stay awake.” A deep voice penetrated the haze of my mind, bringing me out of my nightmare.
I whimpered as the fragments of terror still clung to me like leeches.
I tried to move, to turn my head or twist away, but I couldn’t.
I felt weightless and leaden, like I was floating in the air as the hells fought to pull me into their depths, fighting against the fraying tether that kept me in this world.
I peeled my eyes open as much as I could, but my lids were impossibly heavy.
A figure draped in black loomed above me.
Black holes buried beneath a mask stared down at me. A mask marked with blue slashes…
He was holding me, carrying me through the forest as the canopy above passed in a blur of color.
I should have screamed or fought against his grasp, but the fear from the nightmare was greater than of the cradle of the demon’s arms. Whatever the horror of my reality, it was better than the ones of my imagination.
I stared up at him, less afraid than I should have been. Maybe I was delirious.
“You have to stay awake,” he said.
“C—can’t,” I barely managed to get out. It was a struggle to speak; my tongue felt like it was dipped in acid, and my jaw felt like it was sewn shut.
“I know it’s hard, but you have to keep your eyes open. Fight against the venom. Shit—” he cursed, his hands tightening around me.
“I don’t want…” I wasn’t sure if I was sobbing. “I don’t want to see…”
Though I couldn’t see his face, his gaze seemed to soften.
“I know. It’s not just you. What you’re seeing…
It was just a nightmare—one of the other demons, the one with the purple slashes.
” He paused, his voice strained like he was struggling, too.
“He makes you see your worst fears when you close your eyes. Even when you blink.”
“What?” I mumbled, unable to process his words past the searing pain coursing through my entire body.
“I’m trying to get us away. Just hold on a little bit longer, but you have to keep your eyes open. You need to stay awake until I can stop the venom from spreading.”
Streaks of black crossed my vision, slowly consuming my sight like ink bleeding through paper.
I fought against the weakness, raising my hand with a trembling effort to wipe at my eyes.
The air left my lungs the moment I saw my skin.
It wasn’t right. My veins were visible through my paling flesh, but they were wrong.
Pulsing with whispers of death, the blood in my veins was black.
Perhaps my reality was worse than my nightmares.
The demon saw it, too. He sucked in a sharp breath and looked down at me. I felt the muscles of his arms holding me tense with something I hadn’t expected.
He’s…scared.
He looked forward again, and my body jostled roughly in his hold, the trees passing by even faster.
“Where…” I couldn’t finish my question. My arm went limp, falling to dangle at my side.
“Somewhere safe. Like I promised,” he strained through heaving breaths. “Just stay awake.”
But before he finished speaking, my eyes closed, and my nightmares swallowed me once again.
“Ah!” A shock of pain jolted me awake. It seared through my body so viciously I couldn’t pinpoint the source until my eyes snapped open, and I saw the demon above me.
But he wasn’t carrying me anymore. He was kneeling beside me on the ground with his hands on my injured shoulder—except there were two of him instead of one. The four blue slashes were blurring into eight as my vision refused to focus.
I tried to jerk away from him, but it was like trying to fling a bag of wet sand, and instead of thrusting myself away from him, my body merely twitched. Everything felt so weak. I could barely move my fingers, and I fought to keep my eyes open.
“Get away from me,” I growled.
“I’m helping you,” he said in a huff, breathless. He yanked the collar of my shirt around my shoulder and down my arm, stretching the material. “Fuck…” he cursed through clenched teeth.
“I don’t want your help,” I seethed. “You did this.” I started thrashing as best as I could, which wasn’t much more than wiggling.
“This wasn’t me.” He pressed a hand to my other shoulder. “Now stop fighting so I can extract the venom.”
“Venom?!” I thought I screamed it, but my voice came out in breathless pants.
He nodded. “Some demons have venom.”
“I don’t care!” I made my best attempt to kick him. “It was you! I know it was. I saw the blue slashes,” I spat.
He stilled, the black holes of his gaze boring into me with that same feeling that took my breath. “You’re sure they were blue?”
“Yes…I’m sure…” My voice trailed as I couldn’t fight against the weakness anymore, and my eyelids fluttered as sleep called to me.
Another jolt of pain and they flew open once more. My head snapped to the side to look at my shoulder. He had pressed a finger to the bite mark. My narrowed eyes met his.
“Stop touching it, asshole.”
“The pain keeps you awake. Now, tell me how you know for certain they were blue.”
“I got a pretty good look when I pulled the spoon out of your eye—” I stopped myself. There was no blood dripping down his mask or splinters protruding from where his eye had been.
He tilted his head in an infuriatingly arrogant, I-told-you-so kind of way.
“You stabbed him in the eye with your spoon?”
Wait, my spoon! I wasn’t holding it anymore, and I suddenly realized how badly I needed it. It had become my crutch….
“Where’s my—” I turned my head, trying to fight off the pain shooting through my temples from the movement as I searched the ground around me.
“Your trusty utensil is right here. Satisfied?” He held up the spoon with the splintered handle in front of me. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I felt them roll with his words.
I didn’t respond. I didn’t have the energy, and quite frankly, my ego was a little bruised.
“I have to get the venom out. I can separate it from your blood while I extract it.”
I leaned away, wary of what that entailed. “How?”
“I have to suck it out,” he said nonchalantly.
“Absolutely not,” I refused. I didn’t care how badly my shoulder throbbed, I wasn’t about to let another demon’s teeth near me.
He released a frustrated sigh. “Look, I’m doing it either way. Do I need to hold you down, or will you let me help you?”
I didn’t like ultimatums, but there was no room for discussion in his tone. Reluctantly, I relaxed a bit and nodded.
“Great. Whatever you do, do not look at me. Now, bite down on this.” He held up a stick and placed it between my teeth.
“Why?” I mumbled around the wood, my slurred voice sounding more panicked than I intended.
He moved behind me where I couldn’t see him. He lifted me slightly, propping my back up against his chest. I felt his breath against the shell of my ear before he spoke softly.
“Because this is going to hurt like hell.”
He didn’t give me a chance to respond before his mouth was on my shoulder.
The contact stung, but it was bearable. I felt his fangs pierce my skin.
Then, I felt the pull of his mouth. At first, it felt fine—weird, but fine.
Then, it became one of the greatest pains I’d ever endured.
The violent draw of venom felt like every nerve in my body was set on fire.
From the tips of my fingers, to my eyes, to my chest, my blood fought back against the hold of the poison.
My fingers dug into the earth beneath me as I held back a scream, grunting around the stick while I clamped down on it hard enough that it began to crack.
The extraction process was much worse than being bitten in the first place.
Every vein in my body trembled from the agony, and I started shaking uncontrollably.
“Stop! Stop! Stop!” My voice came out as a muffled whimper around the stick wedged between my teeth.
I tried to force myself to remain still, but raw instinct took over, and I pulled away from the demon behind me.
The demon wrapped his arm around my waist and held me to him tighter.
Tears fell down my face, and I clawed at his arm to make him stop.
But he didn’t give in no matter how much of his blood I drew with my nails. His hold was unbreakable, unforgiving.
He continued to suck out the venom for what felt like long, excruciating minutes. But then, slowly, the pain began to lessen bit by bit.
It’s working.
The scorching heat of my blood reduced to a simmer until it was nothing but comforting warmth flowing through me once again. I spit out the stick, and I didn’t resist him anymore.
The tension released from my muscles. My fingers loosened, and I relaxed into him, resting my head against his chest. My head rose and fell with his breaths. Up and down. Up and down.
I shouldn’t have surrendered to his will so quickly. I shouldn’t have felt so comfortable leaning back against a demon with his mouth on my skin. It should’ve felt wrong.
Except…it didn’t.
Several more minutes passed, then the demon removed his fangs from my shoulder. But he didn’t move. His lips lingered on my skin. His breaths slowed, and I could feel his eyes on me, watching me. Like he was drinking me in with his gaze.
And for reasons beyond me, I remained perfectly still.
He swallowed and took in a long, deep breath through his nose.
“Close your eyes.” His gruff voice was quiet, like a pained whisper. I felt his lips move against my neck.
My body responded before my mind. The sound of his voice, the feel of his breath against my flesh, sent a tremor rippling through me. Like a memory I couldn’t quite place, his tone brushed against a part of me that I thought I’d once buried.
Then, I felt him get up from the ground and gently push me forward so I could sit up.
“Why?” my voice came out breathlessly.
Why did I need to close my eyes? Why did I miss the support of his body behind me? And damned to the hells, why did his voice do that to me?
Oh my god, Vhaena. You are so fucked up.