Chapter 18
Nyssa
“Be careful what you wish for, Vale,” I mutter as the soil erupts in a shower of wet earth and rotting turf.
Suddenly, I’m the centre of attention for about twenty shambling nightmares.
They’re messy, disjointed things with limbs stitched on backwards, jaws hanging loose, eyes glowing with that same red light as the boar-thing from earlier.
A skeletal hand claws at my ankle, and I stomp on it with enough force to shatter bone. I snarl, spinning into the fray.
Usually, a horde like this would have me looking for an exit strategy or at least a defensible bottleneck. But not tonight. The cold hum in my blood spikes, and I move.
My blade is a silver flash under the moonlight.
I decapitate a ghoul before it can even moan, then pivot to drive my heel into the chest of a creature that looks suspiciously like a patchwork of local wildlife.
It crunches satisfyingly. This new speed is intoxicating, and I absolutely loathe it.
Every effortless kill is a reminder that I’m running on borrowed battery power from a god I explicitly told to piss off.
It feels like cheating, but since the other side isn’t playing fair either, I suppose I can’t be too picky.
A creature lunges for my throat. I don’t even blink. I duck under its clumsy swipe and sever its spine with a backhanded slash that feels frighteningly casual. It drops like a sack of potatoes.
Spinning, I catch a skeletal arm mid-swing. With a sharp twist, I snap the bone, then drive my boot into the thing’s chest, sending it flying back into its mates like a gruesome bowling ball. Strike.
The sheer efficiency of it is terrifying.
My body is moving faster than my thoughts can keep up with.
It’s like being a passenger in a car driven by a maniac, only the maniac is my own reflexes supercharged by whatever Voren lit up inside me.
I slice through a neck, duck a rusted shovel wielded by a corpse in tattered overalls, and gut a wolf-thing that’s trying to shank me.
I cut through them like a slayer possessed. The horde thins. Fast. The ground is covered with disintegrating bodies. The glowing red eyes of the remaining few flicker with uncertainty.
“Is that it?” I ask, though I’m barely out of breath. “I was just getting warmed up.”
The last one, a lanky thing with its head sewn on crooked, screeches and charges. I meet it head-on, vaulting over its low sweep and driving my blade down through its skull before my feet even touch the muddy grass.
“Messy,” I mutter, wiping black sludge from my cheek. “But effective.”
I glance around and see that I’m alone again. The fight did nothing to ease the restlessness coursing through me. I need more. I need to hunt, to kill.
Marrow House catches my gaze again as it sweeps around.
With narrowed eyes, I move out of the cemetery, and ignoring the mud squelching around me, I march up the hill and kick the garden gate open.
I’m halfway up the path when the front door swings open, and Voren looms in the doorway, looking infuriatingly calm, yet menacing at the same time.
“I wondered how long it would take you to come back.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I snap, stalking closer. “You did something to me. Fix it.”
He tilts his head, pale blue eyes glinting with amusement. “Fix what, exactly? The fact that you’re not dying anymore? You’re welcome, by the way.”
“I don’t feel like myself.” The admission costs me, but I’m too wired to care about pride right now. “Everything’s too fast, too easy. I just carved through twenty of those stitched-together abominations like they were made of paper.”
“And the problem is? Sounds like a win to me.”
“The problem is I didn’t earn it!” My voice echoes across the hillside. “You can’t just upgrade people without their permission. Especially slayers. That’s not how this works.”
Voren’s expression shifts to something I can’t, or won’t, read. “You were dying, slayer. The corruption from that beast was unravelling your soul thread by thread. I stopped it. The side effects are temporary.”
“How temporary?”
“A few days. Maybe a week.” He shrugs. “Depends how quickly you use up the energy.”
“So, if I run around the village ten times, it will go?”
He shrugs. “Hard to say.” He studies me with those eyes so pale a blue, they are almost white.
Something clicks inside me, something that horrifies me but at the same time feels so right.
I launch myself at him suddenly, and he catches me, his arms going around my waist. I wrap my legs around him and crush his mouth with mine, thrusting my tongue into his mouth. This is better than fighting, better than running around the village.
“Whoa,” he mumbles, even as his hands slide down to my arse, hoisting me up further. “What are you doing?”
“Using up some energy,” I reply, grinding against him. “You broke me, you fix me.”
His eyes darken with an intensity that makes my breath catch. “Is that what this is? You’re looking for a quick fix?”
“I’m looking for anything that will make this stop,” I admit, my fingers digging into the back of his neck.
The cold electricity under my skin is demanding an outlet, and right now, with his hands on me and his mouth inches from mine, this feels like the most logical solution.
Or the most reckless. I’m not sure I care about the distinction anymore.
“You realise this is a terrible idea,” he murmurs, but he’s already moving, carrying me through the doorway and kicking the door shut behind us.
“Most of my ideas are terrible lately,” I reply, biting his lower lip hard enough to draw a hiss from him. “At least this one comes with benefits.”
He laughs, low and dark, the sound vibrating through his chest and into mine. “You’re going to regret this when you come back to your senses.”
“Then stop talking and give me something else to regret.”
He slams me against the nearest wall, his mouth on mine, demanding, cold and utterly consuming. The chill of his power seeps into me, meeting the buzzing energy like an occluded front. Steam rises between us, which we both ignore.
My hands fumble with his coat, shoving it off his shoulders.
It hits the floor with a heavy thud, and I’m already working on the buttons of his shirt, my fingers clumsy with urgency.
He makes a low sound of approval, his hands sliding under my muddy hoodie, tracing the curve of my ribs with fingers that are ice-cold and utterly perfect against my overheated skin.
He presses his hard body against mine as he cups my breasts, pinching my nipples through my bra.
It sends a rush of desire straight to my pussy.
If I were having any second thoughts about this, they vanish when I drop my hand over his bulging cock.
“Fuck,” I pant, unsnapping the button and lowering the zip to release his god-cock.
I wrap my hand around it, and he groans, slamming one hand next to my head as his other one tugs at the waistband of my leggings.
With a frustrated growl, he grips them and yanks them roughly, tearing them so he can get to me.
His fingers find me slick and ready, and the smirk that crosses his face is infuriatingly smug. “Already desperate for me, slayer?”
“Shut up and fuck me,” I demand, my nails raking down his muscular chest hard enough that if he were mortal, I’d draw blood.
With one swift thrust, he’s inside me, and the shock of the cold of his power meeting the furnace of whatever he’s done to me, makes me cry out. It’s not gentle. It’s not tender. It’s raw and desperate and exactly what I need to burn off this restless energy clawing at my insides.
He grips my arse again and spins, so we are in the middle of the old entrance hall. I rise up and ride him, cupping his face as I kiss him harshly. This is reckless, irresponsible and flies in the face of everything that makes me… me.
But I don’t care.
It feels too fucking good to stop now.
The thought that it will piss Dreven off slides slyly into my thoughts, and I gasp as it makes me wetter.
Voren grabs my hips and takes control, bouncing me on his dick like I’m a blow-up doll. It’s filthy, it’s insulting. It’s fucking hotter than hell.
I bite down on his shoulder hard enough to make him hiss.
The energy coursing through me finds its outlet in the sharp, electric pleasure building with every thrust. It’s like static electricity finding ground, a circuit finally completing.
Water leaking from the ceiling pours down on us, soaking my hair and clothes again, but I barely register it as my pussy clenches tightly around his monster cock.
“You’re coming all over me,” Voren grunts.
“And?” I pant as my thighs clamp involuntarily around him.
“Keep doing it. It feels…” He groans as I shatter, milking him with an orgasm that rips through me like lightning.
“Fuck, slayer,” he growls and spins us again, so my back is pressed against another wall, this one reeking of damp and crumbling behind me.
I ride him through my orgasm as he pounds into me, his pace never faltering from the savage fucking.
He doesn’t even seem to be close to a climax yet, which is good.
I can keep riding him until my pussy is raw and there is nothing left of this violating energy he gave me.
His fingers dig into my hips hard enough to leave bruises, and I welcome the pain.
It’s grounding, real, cutting through the supernatural haze that’s been clouding my judgment since I woke up in this decrepit house.
“More,” I demand, my nails scoring down his back. “Harder.”
“Fuck, slayer,” he growls. “I’m fucking you as hard as I can.”
“Not… enough…”
He lets out a frustrated roar and spins us again, striding through a double doorway and slamming me onto a table that feels solid enough. He crawls up me, adjusting his angle, pulling my thigh up so he can bury himself even deeper.