Chapter 24 Fenrik #2
The parasite, that leech made of Kelda’s ambition, shrieked as I turned the flow.
It had been siphoning me dry, feeding on my suppression.
Now, I reversed the polarity. I inhaled.
I claimed every scrap of magic in the room, every ounce of the ley-line’s wild potential.
I was afraid the shadows would consume this new light, thankfully the light scorched the shadows from existence.
The water around me evaporated in a hiss of steam.
There was only the fire now. The beautiful, terrible, silver fire.
I opened my eyes in the real world, and the room turned white.
I took that silver inferno, that torrent of potential I’d spent so much time suppressing, and I turned it inward.
I aimed it straight at my own chest. The parasite panicked.
For a decade, it had been the apex predator in my body, a fat spider sitting in the center of the web, sipping on my misery.
It tried to clamp down, to strangle the flow of power before it could consume us both.
It tried to sound like Kelda. Be careful, Fenrik. You’ll hurt them. You’re too much.
“No,” I snarled. “I am enough.”
I drove the silver fire into the black mass coiled around my heart.
The pain was blinding, white-hot and absolute.
Get out. I grabbed the shadow-thing with claws made of mind and will, and I squeezed.
The parasite shrieked. It was the screech of metal tearing under immense pressure that rattled my teeth and vibrated through the marrow of my bones.
I felt its tendrils whipping frantically, trying to anchor themselves in my fear, in my shame, in the gaps of my memory.
But there was no purchase left. Lysa had filled those cracks.
“LYSA!”
The name ripped out of my physical throat, a thunderous roar that shattered the silence of the void and, I knew, shook the very stones of the manor above.
The scream of the parasite reached a fever pitch, dissolving into a high, thin wail as the silver fire incinerated it.
I felt the weight lift, literally felt the pressure evaporate from my chest. With the sound of a thousand windows breaking at once, Kelda’s illusion shattered.
The shards of false memory and twisted guilt rained down, dissolving into mist before they could touch me.
I inhaled, expanding my lungs fully for the first time in such a long time, without anyone’s help or healing.
Then, I slammed back into my physical body in the ley-chamber with the force of a falling star.
The calcified bindings which had turned brittle and grey under the assault of my awakened magic shattered, but not without a price.
Pain seared through my right side as I tore my arm free.
My shoulder dislocated with a pop that reverberated in my skull, but the agony was distant, muffled by the roar of the beast claiming my skin.
I dropped from the suspension, landing in the silver sludge of wasted magic.
My vision swam, a kaleidoscope of grey stone, violet light, and the terrifying image of Kelda raising a spear of magic, aiming at Lysa.
I didn’t have any more time for thought, I launched myself across the floor.
I hit Lysa a fraction of a second before the spear did, curling my body over hers.
The explosion detonated against my back, a sledgehammer of heat and force that drove the breath from my lungs and embedded shards into my scales.
I collapsed to my hands and knees, my body shuddering in a half-shifted state.
Silver scales rippled across my chest, itching and burning as they fought for dominance over human skin.
My claws scraped sparks against the stone floor as I dragged myself forward.
My vision was tunneling, restricted to the heat signature beneath me.
I was terrified. Terrified that the explosion had killed her.
Terrified that she was another one of Kelda’s cruel marionettes, waiting to dissolve into smoke the moment I offered my heart.
I reached out with a clawed hand to touch her face, needing proof of her existence.
My talons grazed her cheek, stopping short of drawing blood. She was warm.
“Lysa,” I rasped, my voice distorted by a throat reshaping for fire. “Real. You’re real. Please be real.”
“Fenrik?” She said, her hands fisting in my torn shirt.
The sound of my name on her lips shattered the last of my restraint. “Mine,” I snarled. I meant that as a claim, and a warning to the universe. “She does not touch.”
But the danger wasn’t over. The ley-line beneath us screamed, vibrating through my knees.
I was a vessel overflowing, the waste magic boiling my blood, demanding a release I couldn’t give without leveling the mountain.
My chaos lashed out, silver threads seeking purchase; her magic rose to meet it, golden and steady.
The collision of our powers was agony. My back arched, the pressure inside me reaching critical mass.
If we didn’t ground this, I would burn out, and I would take her with me.
“Fenrik,” she gasped, her nails digging into my shoulders. “Stay with me.”
She yanked me down. Our hips collided, grinding together against the unforgiving stone.
The friction sparked a hunger that hurt more than the dislocated shoulder.
I groaned, the sound vibrating through my chest into hers, and pressed my weight down, pinning her.
I needed to be closer. I needed to excise the memory of Kelda’s lies from my skin and replace it with this.
I ground against her, the ridge of my arousal hard and painful against the barrier of our clothes. She bucked up to meet me, her rhythm matching the irregular beat of the fractured ley-line.
“Yes,” she panted, her head thrown back, exposing the fragile line of her throat.
My control snapped. I needed to anchor myself before the magic tore me apart.
My hand, half-clawed and shaking, tore at the waistband of her trousers.
I shoved my fingers inside, finding the slick, molten heat of her clit.
She screamed my name—a broken, desperate sound that was music to my beast. The moment I touched her, the circuit closed.
The chaotic silver fire raging in my blood found a conduit.
I wasn’t burning anymore; I was flowing.
“Let go,” she cried out. “Fenrik, don’t fight it.” I didn’t. I couldn’t. My free hand scrambled for my own fastenings, desperate for the friction of her skin. Her hand found me, wrapping cool and firm around my length, and the sensation blinded me.
I surged into her touch, my hips snapping forward in a rhythm dictated by survival. With every stroke of her hand, she pulled the poison from my soul. With every movement of my fingers against her, I grounded her wild, golden light.
Mine. The word echoed in the roar of blood in my ears. Real. Here. Mine.
We moved together in the dust and the dark, forging something new from the wreckage. The pressure built, a rising tide of silver and gold, until it crested. I threw my head back, roaring her name as I poured everything I was—magic, man, and monster—into her hand.