Chapter 22 #2
Ember stepped beside Nyte and jabbed a finger at the demoness. “The only bitch in here is you, and you’re acting like you’re in heat. I swear, if you drip anything on my floor…”
Nyte put his arm out, barring Ember’s way, though he couldn’t stop himself from snickering.
Sarnessa’s jaw dropped, disbelief in her eyes. “You laugh?”
“You should be thankful I’ve done nothing more than that. It is well past time for you leave, Sarnessa.”
Glowering, she aggressively gestured at Ember. “Surely you haven’t been bespelled by this witch.” Her black eyes roamed over Nyte, and then she laughed. “You are! She bound you to her. And you thought I was cruel for taking your heart? At least I didn’t entrap you.”
Nyte bared his fangs, one wing spreading wide while the other curled around Ember from behind. “You will not speak of her. I should gouge out your eyes for merely looking upon her.”
Sarnessa’s pheromones strengthened, growing potent and heady, shedding all pretense of subtlety as they battered his mind and threatened to overcome his senses.
Nyte shook his head. The room around him seemed to waver, and a crimson haze crept into the edges of his vision.
He staggered, resisting that overwhelming, insidious influence, but the succubus’s attack was unrelenting.
The demoness smiled, her gaze holding his as she closed the remaining distance between them and reached out a hand as though to caress his cheek. “My Ny—”
Ember shoved Nyte’s arm down, positioned herself in front of him—directly in Sarnessa’s path—and slapped the demoness’s hand away. “Back. The fuck. Up.”
Sarnessa gasped, her eyes widening, and for an instant, her mask fell away. All that smugness, that sultry self-assurance, vanished, leaving only genuine shock.
Nyte breathed in. Another scent filled his nose, cutting through Sarnessa’s, diluting it, overpowering it. Infinitely sweeter, purer, and more alluring. Fresh gardenia, warm vanilla, and something wholly feminine and unique. Ember’s scent.
That fragrance forced back some of the blood red cloud encroaching on Nyte’s consciousness. Clutching his head between his hands, he turned all his focus toward Ember’s fragrance. Toward breaking free of the succubus’s charm.
Sarnessa recovered quickly. Her features twisted, becoming vicious, vile, and vindictive—the first time he’d seen the cruelty and selfishness at her core reflected upon her face. She drew her arm back, claws poised to strike.
Nyte gritted his teeth. He pushed himself forward, but it felt as though he were fighting through viscous sludge, his body sluggish, the air itself resisting his movement. He couldn’t allow Ember to be harmed, couldn’t allow Sarnessa’s blow to connect, but he couldn’t move fast enough to intervene.
A shooting star hurtled in front of Nyte and Ember. It crashed into the succubus’s face with a blue-white flash, emitting a cloud of glittering stardust.
Ember sucked in a sharp breath.
Sarnessa’s head jerked back, and she stumbled a couple steps backward with a startled cry. Starling clawed at the succubus’s eyes and cheeks with all four hands and kicked at her mouth with both feet while biting down on the demoness’s nose. Sparkling silver flecks fell from her tiny, frantic body.
Darkness gathered around Nyte as Sarnessa’s hands darted up to pry the sprite from her face. Starling latched on with claws and teeth, resisting the much larger demon. Finally, the demoness’s flesh tore, and she shrieked as the sprite came free.
“Feral fucking vermin!” Sarnessa hurled Starling aside, her lips peeling back to display her fangs. A chunk of her upper nose was missing, oozing black ichor, and dozens of tiny scratches marred her face. Her furious eyes were twin pools of boiling tar.
That hateful gaze jerked to Ember as Starling struck the wall and fell to the floor.
“Starling!” Ember called.
Growling, Sarnessa lunged at the witch, who flinched back.
Nyte roared. The sound was bestial, resonating from the depths of his soul. He swept his wings forward, protectively enveloping Ember in their star-filled night. Sarnessa’s claws bit into them. The flickers of pain caused by her blow could not pierce the veil of Nyte’s fury.
He wrapped his arms around Ember, tugging her against his chest, and channeled his magic through his wings as he swung them open. A wave of bristling darkness blasted Sarnessa backward. She let out a pained, furious growl as she hit the far wall.
Dozens of shadowy tendrils lashed toward her, blotting out most of the bedroom’s light, their tips hardened into solid black blades. A writhing mass of night given shape and instilled with rage.
Sarnessa’s form rippled, and she vanished in a cloud of crimson mist that dissipated when Nyte’s shadows struck it.
Keeping Ember held firmly against him, he scanned the room with all his senses, seeking any sign of her. The succubus’s scent was already fading. Moments dragged by, marked by the thumping of Ember’s heart.
Sarnessa had fled. Of course she had; everything she did was in the service of herself, was for her own survival. She wasn’t the sort to risk everything in a head-on fight. No, she preferred to coerce and manipulate her prey. Even a nocturnus’s heart wasn’t worth her life.
“Is she gone?” Ember asked.
“Yes.” As his shadows faded, Nyte turned Ember to face him, raising her chin with a hooked finger. “Are you all right?”
Her eyes met his, steady despite the shakiness of her breaths. She flattened her hands on his chest. “Yeah. But Starling—”
Nyte sensed the infernal pulse behind him just before Ember’s eyes rounded. He yanked his witch protectively against him as something hot as lava plunged into his back, tearing through his physical form. Searing fingers clutched his heart, his core, his very essence.
Agony pervaded him. That crushing grip held him paralyzed, sapped his strength, rendered him helpless. He knew his knees would’ve buckled were his limbs not locked by pain.
“Nyte!” Ember gasped. He’d never seen such horror and worry on her face, had never felt such pure, potent fear coming from her.
Not fear of him, but for him. She feared for his safety, for his wellbeing, for his life, and he wrapped his mind around that, clung to it, as Sarnessa’s hand squeezed. The demoness was pulling on his heart, intent on ripping it out.
Nyte growled and resisted that pull with every sliver of willpower he possessed.
“The strength this granted me the first time…it was exhilarating,” Sarnessa purred. “I felt like a goddess. And I deserve to feel that way, always and forever.”
Ember tried to pull away from Nyte, but he could only hold on to her, keeping her in place, as Sarnessa’s claws sank deeper and she pulled harder.
“No,” Ember rasped, shaking her head, fighting against Nyte’s hold. “No, please no.”
Nyte’s heart thrummed in the succubus’s grasp. He felt its tethers to the rest of his being stretching, straining, beginning to tear.
“Ah, my beautiful Nyte, your heart is brimming with… What is this?” Sarnessa chuckled, the sound dark, seductive, and sickening. “Love? Did my nocturnus learn to love? Oh, this will be delicious.”
Ember’s brows fell, her nostrils flared, and her jaw tightened. Fear still gleamed in her enthralling blue eyes, but fury outshone it now. “I said no!”
Her shout swept through the room on a wave of staggering power, a raw, punishing arcane burst that resonated through every mote of Nyte’s being.
That power forced Sarnessa back. She cried out, losing her hold on Nyte’s heart as her hand tore free.
Nyte gasped and sagged forward. His body and soul quaked at the echoing pain, at the near sundering that had occurred, at the sudden cessation of all that pressure and agony.
Ember caught Nyte, steadying him as everything inside him shifted back into place and the burn of Sarnessa’s invasive touch eased.
“I’ll gladly feast on your heart after I take his, witch,” Sarnessa spat.
Straightening, Nyte spun toward her. The succubus lunged at him, eyes alight with fury.
“Don’t touch him!” Ember commanded. Again, her voice flooded the room with magic.
It took shape before Nyte, and he saw it glint in the air as it formed a translucent aegis standing as tall as him and twice as wide. A shield of light.
Sarnessa crashed into the barrier. It rippled with golden sparks, but did not yield to her, halting her advance dead in its tracks. She reeled backward, dazed.
Baring his fangs, Nyte raised a hand, and his shadows burst from the floor beneath Sarnessa, coiling around her body and trapping her in place. Her eyes widened, and the first hint of fear wafted from her.
She immediately softened her expression, replacing all her fury with exaggerated fear and confusion. “Nyte, please…”
He tightened his shadowy grasp upon her, dragging her down onto her knees. “Would you have stayed your hand, had I begged for mercy?”
“This hunger,” Sarnessa sobbed. “It clouds my mind and drives me to madness.”
“God, you really are the worst.” Ember stepped up beside Nyte, settling her hand on his back where Sarnessa had attacked him, his shadowy flesh having already mended itself.
Her touch was soft and warm and gentle, so completely different from Sarnessa’s from moments before. It was actual caring, actual comfort.
Starling flitted over to the succubus, practically bristling. “I have heard enough of her drivel.”
She sped around Sarnessa, moving so fast that she became little more than a streak of blue-white light. Stardust rained in her wake, landing on the floor to create an unmistakable pattern—a binding circle.
The succubus gnashed her fangs and struggled to swipe her claws, but the shadows restraining her ensured she could not harm the sprite. Once the circle was complete, Starling moved to Ember, lighting upon the mortal’s shoulder.
“You know what to do, witchling,” Starling said.
The barrier of light flickered and vanished. Removing her hand from Nyte, Ember stepped forward. His heart roared in response to her getting closer to the succubus, but there was something in her posture, something in her movement, that kept him in place.
Clad in only a towel, with her hair hanging in shimmering silver waves, she looked gorgeous, majestic, powerful, confident, imposing…and utterly radiant. Her skin was glowing, truly glowing, with its own soft luminescence.
As Ember spoke, he realized she was reciting ancient arcane words, which flowed from her mouth with an almost mystifying musicality.
Sarnessa’s eyes darted over the floor as the stardust circle faintly glowed.
She fought the shadows holding her with more desperation, but she could not break free of them.
“No… No! Stop! Release me!” Her gaze rose to Ember.
The fear radiating from her made her voice quaver. “What are you doing, witch?”
Starling folded her arms across her chest and grinned. “Banishing you. Suck on that, succubitch.”
With an animalistic snarl, Sarnessa thrashed, but all her fear and rage could not break the bindings. Ember’s words wove their magic around and beneath the demoness. Light erupted from the circle, intensifying even as the light she emitted grew.
His Ember had become a flame.
She was exactly the sort of radiance that should’ve blinded him, the sort that pained him, but he could not look away. Would never look away.
Sarnessa’s face contorted with desperation. She opened her mouth and released a piercing, ferocious, impotent scream. The luminescence blossomed around her and enveloped her.
Ember spoke the final word of the spell.
The mass of light collapsed inward on Sarnessa, flaring bright enough to make Nyte turn his face away and slit his eyes. In an instant, the glare snuffed out. The succubus vanished with it. Only the arcane circle on the floor remained, its glow rapidly diminishing.
Starling zipped up into the air and twirled. “Yes! I have been waiting so long to see that bitch get hers.”
Beside Nyte, Ember staggered. He hurriedly banded an arm around her waist, drawing her body against his. She held him tight, though she regained her footing quickly enough.
The luster of her skin faded like the final embers of a fire going out.
He cupped her cheek and guided her face toward his, smoothing his thumb over her skin. “By all the hells, Ember, are you all right?”
She beamed up at him. “Did you see that? Did you see what I did? Holy shit, I have magic!”
And gods, what magic it had been.
He looked at Starling, who remained nearby wearing a grin that seemed much too large for her little face. “You taught her all that? Taught her a banishment spell?”
Somehow, the sprite’s grin stretched wider. “Banishment and binding. Sarnessa will be trapped in the Pit of Despair for many, many, many years to come, and her meals certainly will not come easy there. But the rest, our witchling did all on her own.”
Nyte’s chest swelled as he looked back at Ember, his heart nearly bursting with that huge, complex, delightful emotion called love. He knew it was the only thing holding back all the pain and residual fear he should’ve been experiencing.
He could’ve lost her forever tonight…and that only reaffirmed what he had to do once their lunar binding was dispelled.
He drew Ember into an embrace, his clawed fingers slipping into her hair. Part of him wanted to hold her like this forever.
Nyte pressed his lips to her forehead. “Ah, my Ember. How brightly you shine for me.”