Chapter 38 Weapons & Wanting #2
Fury shot down my limbs and they moved of their own accord.
My leg snapped out and side-swept his, while I reached up to try and twist his arm around his back.
He had insisted on teaching me basic hand-to-hand combat skills too, but neither of us had counted on me being better with those than with my magyk.
Devil said it was because I was small and full of rage, and I couldn’t disagree.
A lifetime of working the Abbey’s garden had strengthened my muscles to the point where it only took me a few seconds to get him on his knees, arm twisted behind his back.
But I knew he wouldn’t let me win that easily, especially not with a free hand.
He whirled and grabbed me under one arm, flinging me to the side, where I landed hard in the grass.
After blinking up at his stupid smirk for a moment, I rolled, hitting his calves and shoving hard with my shoulder so he toppled onto his side.
He tried to kick free, but I scrambled up, pinning his thighs between mine and then seizing his wrists and slamming them onto the ground above his head.
I knew he was letting me win, knew he could have the situation reversed before I could blink, but I didn’t care this time.
Knocking him around a bit had gratified the angry creature in my chest, even if my victory wasn’t perfectly earned.
“Now, this would be the perfect time for you to solidify those shadows,” Devil panted with a broad grin.
“I am at your mercy. You could have me trussed up like a pig in no time.” I let my magyk out, let the vines crawl along his arms and twist around his wrists, then tried to form them into shackles.
But I still could not convince them to change from smokey shadows into solid things.
Devil held my gaze, then shifted his lower body, pulling one of his legs up.
“What are you doing?”
He answered by pressing his thigh between mine, then rubbing it up and down. “Trying to teach you something about your magyk.”
“What exactly is this going to teach me?” I asked, my breath hitching involuntarily as the hard muscles of his leg made contact with the most sensitive part of my body. Even through the layers of clothing we both wore, it felt far too good.
“How to let go,” Devil murmured. “How to stop holding yourself back. You aren’t taking what you want. That’s why you cannot wield the power properly, because it will not obey someone who still doubts herself so deeply.”
“And this is how you would cure me of my self-doubt?” I spat.
“You want this,” he whispered, yanking one of his arms free from my grip and seizing the back of my neck.
He pulled my face down so our lips barely grazed, breath mixing into each other’s mouths.
“But you do not think you should take it. Just like your power. You are still afraid of becoming what you were meant to be, and of taking what you want—what you know you deserve.”
He pressed harder and I let out a ragged sigh, then let my body sink into his, consumed by the feeling of intimacy.
The air around us stood still, balanced on a knife point as I wavered, half of me desperate to believe that taking what I wanted and damning the consequences was the right path.
But the other half held back, afraid to leap, afraid of what I might lose, or what I might find…
“No!” I gasped, wrenching myself out of his grip and rolling to the side, then onto my feet. Devil let out an animalistic snarl and pulled himself up too.
“Gods be damned, May!” He stalked toward me, hands pressed on either side of his head. “You are still so…so—”
“So what? Spit it out!” I cried, suddenly angry again.
“So fucking human! Pious and prudish and preoccupied with whatever virtue you imagine you have left. Let it go!”
“Yes, I am human! I cannot simply snap my fingers and become something other than what I am.”
“You are not human!” Devil shouted. “The sooner you accept it, the sooner you will make some kind of progress with your powers, and with the Rot!”
“I have made progress.”
“Not enough. When will you stop pretending? Stop following rules that no longer apply to you! Face your emotions and desires! Embrace them! Wield them!”
I called up my shadows in the shape of a short sword and held it in front of me. “A blade used merely for decoration isn’t a blade at all. It cannot be expected to function as a weapon until it is…taken down and sharpened and used.”
“So, you would like to be used?” Devil asked with a smirk.
I ignored the perverse joke, but a sudden weakness in my limbs forced me to drop the shadow-sword, and it faded immediately.
His tone softened and he put a hand on my shoulder.
“I know you do not wish to live your life as a mere decoration, May.”
“I’m afraid…that I do not know how to be anything else,” I admitted softly, tipping forward to lean against his chest. He put his long arms around me and rested his chin on the top of my head.
“What is it you are so afraid of?”
I let out a shaking breath. “Losing my humanity, I suppose. Being powerful…it feels too good. I am afraid of losing myself to it, of becoming something…else. Something dangerous. Sissi taught me that power always corrupts, no matter how good your intentions.”
“Is that what you feel when you use it?” Devil asked. “Corrupt?”
“Sometimes I feel angry…angrier than I ever did before I had it…”
“Anger is not always evil, May. It can be righteous too. You feel angry when someone mistreats the people you care about, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Wield your power as righteous anger, then,” Devil said. “Turn it into a weapon of justice to protect your home and those you love.”
“Anger is not the only thing,” I murmured into his chest.
“What else? Tell me.”
“I…I want things…”
“Well, that is just plain unreasonable,” Devil snorted. “How dare you want things!”
“Do not tease me! You forget I was raised by the Church of Holy Martyrs. Martyrs are not supposed to want anything for themselves. They are supposed to be unselfish at all times.”
“And now you feel guilty for wanting anything that does not serve others?” Devil asked, a bit more gently.
I nodded and he held me tighter. “If you deny yourself things simply because you believe that wanting is evil, then you will never learn to trust yourself. You are a good person. Power and indulgence will not change that if you don’t allow them to. You are in control.”
“So…” I said slowly, pulling back to look at him, “wielding the magyk will be easier if I…learn to trust my own instincts, and I can do that by indulging in things I would normally deny myself?”
“Yes,” he laughed softly.
No sooner had the word left his mouth than I slapped him hard across the face.
He staggered backwards a pace, holding his cheek and looking shocked. “May, what the—”
“I have been denying myself that particular pleasure for some time now,” I said, giving him my wickedest smile.
As I expected, he recovered quickly, magyk fireflies swirling from his body and dancing around me.
He moved back in, standing in that small space between us that always felt too close, and yet… just a bit too far.
“What other pleasures have you been denying yourself?” he asked in a low voice. “What else have you been too afraid to demand because you still see yourself as a Sister of Locksley, rather than a daughter of the Arden?”
I raised my hand between us and called up my shadows again, using them to encircle his throat.
“Having the means to keep you under control would be quite a gift,” I muttered. He didn’t move an inch as I formed the shadows into a thick, black collar with a short leash attached. “The night of the revelry, you asked if I would prefer you collared and leashed…”
Devil’s eyes widened as I curled my fingers in toward my palm, and he reached up to his neck. As soon as he confirmed that the shadows had become solid—that I trusted myself enough to know what I wanted and to take it—he wrapped a hand around the back of my head and pulled me into a punishing kiss.