6. Onyx
Onyx
Onyx was quick to get out of the shower, pulling clothes on before he was more than a little dried off. He returned to Dominic with water trickling down his face. “Ready,” he said, still breathless from the fight.
“I’m going to put you into a sleep,” Dominic reminded Onyx. “When you wake up next, you’ll have your collar off. There will be targets for you to use your magic on, if you choose.” He stepped close to Onyx, lifting his hand to cup his face.
Onyx squirmed, half-expecting him to try to go in for another kiss or something equally unwanted.
“If you try to hurt anyone, including yourself, you will be stopped. Let this be a good day so we can do it again,” Dominic warned.
Onyx nodded. He took those words seriously; he didn’t think Dominic was playing around when he said that he’d set up all the precautions in the world.
There was still a part of him that wanted to try anyway, that still wanted to be a weapon, but he’d stepped away from that.
He’d…
What?
He shied away from the thoughts. He wasn’t going to attack.
If he changed his mind, he had to be damn sure that he could not only take Dominic out, but take himself out as well.
“I won’t,” Onyx promised. He paused, though, his eyes narrowing.
“I’m not going to just be docile and let you re-collar me,” he warned, only partially because it was true.
Mostly, he didn’t want Dominic to be able to try to claim later that Onyx had acted out of turn when they both knew he was only doing what he had to to protect himself when he fought.
“You know I can’t just… let that happen. ”
Dominic grinned. “I know you won’t,” he said, his voice strangely warm. “I won’t hold that against you.”
Onyx was about to reply when Dominic murmured something, and everything ceased to be.
He came awake — slowly, at first, then all at once as he sucked in a breath of air that felt and tasted sweet.
His magic was back.
Onyx knew without having to touch his throat that the cursed collar was gone. He touched it anyway, feeling skin that hadn’t seen the light of day in months.
He could see again, really see; he could feel again, really feel. This was what life was supposed to be like. People might claim that witches had no exceptional senses like wolves or vampires, but he’d like to shove them into collars and see how they felt.
He sat up and narrowed his eyes when he met resistance, reaching out to touch the shackle around his ankle.
He wondered if he should focus his magic on trying to unfasten it or to melt the chain.
Dominic’s magic was protecting it, or so he assumed because of the strength of the magic shielding it.
Would it violate their agreement for him to try to escape?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Either way, this wouldn’t be the time to try it. Dominic would be on high alert, and if Onyx was going to kill the Bancroft witch, he’d have to do it when he was least expecting it.
Because he couldn’t handle the idea that he might never try again, that he might lose more and more of himself as the days passed.
He rose and straightened up, looking around.
Dominic had said he’d be in a warehouse, but he couldn’t see much.
There were targets in front of and around him in a semi-circle, but a light-colored bubble encompassed the area and darkened everything beyond the immediate vicinity.
It was almost like the spell Dominic had used in the crate, but there was significantly more range.
He was trapped, but with his magic simmering just beneath his skin, he felt freer than he had since he’d before he’d been captured.
His senses were strange and off-kilter, with everything seeming so intense, but he didn’t know how much time he’d have before Dominic was attempting to subdue him again to put him back under. Now that he’d had a taste of his magic again, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle losing it again.
Maybe this had been a bad idea, because now… He would have to fight.
But for the time being, he wanted to enjoy what he had. He could figure out the rest later, after he’d touched his magic and tested from within the bonds.
Onyx summoned a small spark at first, his face lighting up with rapturous joy when he saw the fire flaring into life in his palm.
He made it bigger, then bigger still, then bigger even than that, manipulating the flames into a crackling sphere of intense heat.
It floated above his palm, and he gazed at it in wonder.
He’d killed so many supes the last time he’d had his magic.
How many could he kill before they subdued him this time?
The wild, careless part of him wanted to find out.
He couldn’t see anyone, though, and trying to discern the location of anyone watching would take time and energy he didn’t necessarily want to spend on something so mundane.
He glanced around himself, inspecting the different stationary targets, then he hurled the ball of fire directly at one of them, pretending he was hitting Dominic’s smarmy grin dead-on.
The fireball exploded, but what he assumed were magical defenses kept the flames from starting to spread.
He itched to take those apart, but he didn’t even know how to do much beyond destroying things with fire.
He’d never learned how to do more than basic warding with his magic, and taking spells apart sounded intricate and difficult.
He wished he knew how so he could summon fireball after fireball and leave the warehouse a smoking crater with his body at the center of it.
He would be free.
Instead of focusing on self-destructive thoughts, he manifested flames into existence. Fire, fire, and more fire appeared: it all came so easily to him, just like breathing, and he hit each target with deadly precision as he smiled fiercely.
He wasn’t giving this up again. Not without a fucking fight.
There was a sound from somewhere nearby, and Onyx whirled around to attempt to face the source, but he couldn’t find it.
“Can you summon fire at the location, rather than hurl a ball at it?” Dominic’s voice came then from all around him, somewhere he couldn’t pinpoint no matter how much he turned to try to find it.
Promises or otherwise, would Onyx really pass up an opportunity to set the other witch ablaze, given half a chance?
Onyx scoffed. “Not as much fun,” he remarked anyway. But he demonstrated that he could, focusing on one of the distant, untouched targets and watching as flames slowly started to lap at it from the bottom up. It was harder at that distance, and it took more effort, but he could.
“Remarkable,” Dominic said. “I don’t think we’ve seen an elemental power of your strength in hundreds of years, if not longer. Have you learned finesse with your fire, or only with offensive weaponry?”
Onyx hadn’t expected any questions at all, let alone follow-ups, and it caught him off guard. He let the targets he’d set aflame continue their constrained burning, even as he shook his head.
“I just want something on fire, and I make it catch fire,” he said, as though that was the reasonable answer. “Why would I need finesse?”
Because finesse with his magic would’ve let him release or melt the chain he was shackled to, undo the protective spells, and potentially protect his mind from another sleep spell.
But posturing was better than admitting weakness, especially when it had the added benefit of being true. With his sheer strength, why bother to learn how to refine it?
“Some of the deadliest weapons are also the most beautiful,” Dominic said, his voice still coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once. “And while I could make an illusion of fire be beautiful, I would never be able to make such beauty with fire.”
Onyx thought fire was beautiful in all of its forms, but he’d never learned to fine tune it into something others might think were beautiful too.
An illusion of a phoenix, with a body and wings made of licks of flame, flew into the arena in a shower of sparks. It looped through the space a couple of times before alighting on one of the targets and perching there like any live bird might sit.
“A pale shade of what could be done with fire,” Dominic lamented.
Onyx could never hope to replicate such a stunning mirage. “That’s because fire doesn’t need to look like a bird to be beautiful,” he countered anyway, stifling his yearning.
Dominic chuckled. “That’s true; it doesn’t.”
Onyx gestured casually to point to one of the burning targets. “Let go of the protective spells and I’ll show you how big I can make it.”
The fire seemed to jump just a bit, then Dominic told him, “They’re gone.”
Onyx nodded again, focusing on the target. It wasn’t that he was being suicidal per se, but more carried away than anything as he sought to make the flames grow larger and larger. The sheer heat rolling off of what had been a moderately sized target reached him, and he laughed, delighted.
He could easily burn himself alive just to feel the flames, his flames, all around him.
But before they could get too close to him, he halted them. It was exhausting, but he was showing off — whether he wanted to admit it or not.
Dominic already knew he was powerful; Onyx had displayed as much during the attack that had landed him in Dominic’s ownership. There was no point in holding back, and besides, his pride hadn’t allowed him to do anything else.
“Beautiful,” Dominic said, his voice full of strange admiration. “Truly beautiful. A few more minutes, my tiger. Then it will be time to go back.”
Onyx’s back stiffened. “No!” he protested. “I’ve barely had it back!” No amount of time would be enough to feel satisfied again, and now that he’d gotten a taste …
He twisted the fire in front of him, making the flames come apart, then stood panting. He’d exerted himself quite a bit, and he needed to save the last of his strength. Dominic had to at least get close to put him to sleep, and closer still to put the collar back around his throat. Right?
He wouldn’t allow it. He wouldn’t.
“We are nearing an hour that you’ve been playing with your fire, Onyx,” Dominic said. “And as good as it is to see you so happy, we need to return soon. But we will be able to come back and do this again. Be good for me, and we can do this again very soon.”
Sheer desperation raced through him at the idea of losing this again, and he frantically shook his head. “You don’t need to re-collar me. I won’t use my fire against you if you don’t try to collar me again.”
“Don’t lie to me, Onyx,” Dominic replied, his voice almost gentle. “Especially about something that we both know to be false. Do you wish to spend these last few minutes exercising your magic, or arguing with me over the inevitable?”
Loathing built up within him again, and Onyx hated Dominic so fiercely that even the thought of seeing him made him want to lash out. How could Dominic take his magic away again? Didn’t he know what it was like?
No. He didn’t. Because no one would dare collar a Bancroft witch.
He growled, but he threw another fireball at a different target, adding to the raging inferno several feet away from him. Maybe he needed to cast around him in a circle and cut himself off from being reached? It seemed like a solid idea, except the targets had only been arranged in a semi-circle.
He still set fire to what he could, his sheer strength and determination overwhelming the wards on one of the other targets.
Onyx was on a rampage, and while he knew that exhausting himself in a fit wasn’t the brightest thing to do, he couldn’t help it.
On he went, and the spell to force him back into a magical sleep caught him off guard. He didn’t even have time to yawn before he collapsed to the ground amidst the flames.