Chapter 22 #2
“You want a piece of me, want to feel me up? Do it properly. In fact, let me give you some pointers, because the way you’re going about it is honestly sub-par.”
“What are you—”
“You’re trying to dominate a Dominant. That alone is a failure of a setup.
Let me guess, you think you can force pleasure from me?
Degrade me? Induce shame? Make me beg for you in the end?
Then only offer up punishment after punishment to further the shattering, until I’m both begging you to stop and to give me more—until I don’t know which way is up, what is my will and pleasure and what is yours?
” I burst out with a dry laugh. “By all means, give it your best shot.”
“Foolish youngling,” he snarled at my ear.
Then he fisted my hair and jerked my head back. “Your hubris will be your downfall.”
“That’s your affliction, not mine.”
He released me roughly, then spoke to Morien over me who was scrubbing his hand over his face now and shaking his head, “Send a unit to obtain more dust from the Light Fae Realm.”
“You use too much and you’ll break his body, rather than his mind.”
Gregor grunted, then rounded me and slapped his hands down on my thighs, glaring heatedly.
“There is not one soul that I haven’t been able to break.
Every mind breaks eventually. All you’re doing is extending the process, inviting more torment.
” He started fondling my pants, stroking up and down my thighs, while intermittently brushing over my cock.
“Haven’t you endured enough, Almighty Necromancer? Wouldn’t you rather go peacefully?”
I held his gaze steady. “There’s no death wish here that you can exploit.”
He snarled again and dug his nails into my thighs.
“Yeah… harder,” I breathed in mock-pleasure.
With a roar, he was in my space and grasping my chin, forcing my head back at an uncomfortable angle as he got up really close and stared into my eyes.
“Seems I’ve caught you at the perfect time,” I rumbled.
“While you’re on the edge having just suffered through so many of your Puritas cells being destroyed.
The Guardian Movement and The Shadowed really bring it well when they work in tandem, hmm?
No judgment to you losing your grip from all that failure.
I mean, your despicable empire is crumbling around you.
All you have left is this Hail Mary of Morien taking my power and using it to wipe out all those hybrids you so dementedly despise.
And now you discover that you can’t break the one thing standing in the way of giving my dear father what he needs to become powerful enough to accomplish that. ”
He released my hair, then reared back and struck me in the face—with his magic.
As my head snapped to the side, I tasted blood.
Perfect—as my lovely Dark Beauty would say.
Fucking perfect beyond belief.
He’d just unwittingly opened up a blood-magic connection I could exploit.
Game on, motherfuckers.
The magical binds tightened then untightened, the mixture of magic belonging to two different beings while my blood was in the air being registered too, confusing the mechanics of the device.
Just as I’d predicted.
“Get back!” Morien cried out.
I smirked.
His eyes widened, and then he hesitated looking at the containment cylinders and the door, a moment before he teleported out in a burst of gray power.
In the very next second I called my power in a sudden surge.
Searing pain started to tear through me—but only for a second.
Because then I burst from one of the restraints with my magic and snagged Gregor, wrapping one of the binds around him and sealing him to the chair with my own power.
I ripped myself free all the way and with what I’d done, he took the brunt of it, shrieking and convulsing as he hung off the chair bound there by one hand as my magic usage punished him.
Poetic justice had never been sweeter.
“Come!” he shrieked. “Subdue him!”
I swept my hand around the room, ripping away the illusion.
The altar was still there.
The core. The magic.
The only addition to the space that had been hidden were the other walls and a door to my left.
In seconds, part of what remained of Puritas came barreling through.
Before I could tend to that insanity and the few hundred fools rushing into the space, trying to shove through the door, unstable surges of magic caught my attention and I looked to see the chair about to detonate.
What Morien had warned about.
I went to dart toward the containment cylinders, but blasts of magic began raining down on me, making me hiss as they burned into me.
I pushed on, blasting back at them.
But there were so many and that Light Fae dust was compromising me.
I stumbled.
Vampires burst in front of me, physically blocking my path.
My intent to use Undead Domination was cut short as two of them slammed into me from either side and ripped me off my feet.
I hit the rough ground, grimacing as skulls and bones crunched beneath me and I felt some disturbing shit through my fingers too.
Even for a necromancer, this was grotesque.
Magic rained down on me, blows from Puritas vampires, werewolves, all of them working desperately to put me down.
I caught sight of the chair through it all where part of the army had come to Gregor’s aid.
Good luck with that.
He was being held there at my will and I wouldn’t give that up, no matter how much they beat on me.
Grunts filled my ears and I realized they were my own, as bones cracked, sharp and blunt pain collided as one.
I managed to call a shimmering red shield, but my hands were shaking just holding it right now.
I strained to crawl forward.
I was just feet from the core and Corvin’s magic. I couldn’t… stop.
“Use it! Now!” I heard Gregor roaring.
A rush of power shot through the area and I turned with a struggle to see gold and white streams shooting toward Gregor.
Then a roar tore from my throat as it broke my bind on him, the force of the reverberation sending an agonizing jolt through me.
Gregor was helped from the chair by his minions and then he was being handed that staff with the peach orb. But it was glowing with Celestial power now.
He took aim at me.
I lunged forward just as it hit.
It didn’t make direct contact, but it blew me into the altar.
I threw my hands out and sent my magic forward in a rush, managing to catch the containers before they hit the ground.
But I had to drop my shield to accomplish it.
I rolled onto my back, clutching the containers in one arm, my other palm flaming with my crimson power.
The army closed in.
Gregor staggered to the front and took aim with his staff.
I braced myself.
In my current state I didn’t know if I could actually hold back a shot like that.
Under the best circumstances, Celestial power couldn’t be withstood as it was.
I usually employed workarounds to manage that.
But right now that just wasn’t possible.
“I will shatter you!” Gregor thundered. “Break free, try to run, it will still happen! You are slated to crumble and fall!”
The ground rumbled.
Ear-splitting creaks sounded.
The minions jolted, many losing focus and looking all around.
Gregor registered it, but it didn’t hold his attention for long.
He was very one-track right now.
The king of torment and debasement didn’t take well to having that upturned and tasting it himself.
The rumbling intensified.
I tried to invoke teleportation, but I fucking couldn’t.
It just… I couldn’t maintain more than what I was already managing.
Ebony smoke caught my attention.
It filled the area so quickly that even the vampires barely had time to react.
And then it slammed up and out into the walls, sparking into black flames and tearing the place apart, shooting up through the ceiling and fucking decimating the place.
Vampires grabbed magic-wielders and wolves and started bursting through the door in panicked escape.
Gregor hesitated as many others tried to urge him away.
Through the chaos, a black funnel cloud tore through what was left of the ceiling and ripped through the room, headed straight for me.
I was aware of more of the army escaping, and I lost sight of Gregor in the craziness.
And then a hand shot through the funnel and snagged my arm, while black smoke wrapped around the containers, and dragged me and them straight into the funnel.
In the next moment, I was steadied, and looking upon a familiar face.
The face of an ally.
“Ambrose,” I rasped.
His navy studded cloak was whipping in the wind he was invoking, the hood down and his white hair flying about his face.
His lips curved into a smile, the black veins all over his face seeming to twist with the movement.
“My apologies for the delay in getting back to you.”
“I’ll consider this your recompense.”
His white eyes blazed with his power as he thrust the funnel up and out of the hellhole, before he enveloped it and us in a mammoth cloud of teleportation.