Chapter 18
CHAPTER
Morning found us before we were ready for it.
Malakai’s arm was locked around my waist, his hand splayed low on my stomach, fingers curved like he owned every inch of me. His breath ghosted along my neck, slow, controlled, and far too calm for someone who had spent half the night pretending he didn’t want me.
The fog curled thick around us, cold enough to bite through my clothes… except for where he held me. There, I was burning.
“You kept making those little sounds,” he murmured against my skin, voice still rough from sleep. “Did you dream of what you wanted from me last night?”
Heat surged straight to my core. I elbowed him gently, which did exactly nothing. He only tightened his hold, pulling me back flush against him.
“You’re intolerable,” I muttered.
“I am merciful,” he countered, lips brushing my shoulder like a threat. “You were seconds from begging.”
He said it like it was a secret victory. Like he enjoyed the power of denial.
I turned to face him, ready to fire back something sharp, but his crimson eyes caught mine, molten and starving beneath all that practiced restraint. My heart forgot its rhythm.
He smirked, satisfied with the chaos he had stirred inside me. “I eagerly await the moment your patience crumbles, kitten,” he purred.
I blinked as we lay beneath a canopy of skeletal branches, their twisted silhouettes lost in a wall of pale fog.
The forest hadn’t changed during our travel through it, but that was precisely what put my nerves on edge; the same dead trunks, same chalk grey sand swallowing our footprints before we even finished taking the next step.
It was like the ground refused to remember we were ever here.
We should have cleared this forest yesterday.
Malakai finally let me go reluctantly, and I sat up, trying not to miss his heat like an idiot.
Lionel was already awake, scanning the identical dead trunks with a frown. “This makes no sense. We should’ve reached the end of the forest a long time ago, yet we don’t even appear to be close to the edge.”
Eve rose close by, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “Unless distance doesn’t mean the same thing here.”
Ashley yawned as she got to her feet, steadying herself when Nate instinctively reached for her arm. She pretended not to need the support, but didn’t pull away from him either.
The rest of the unit began stirring at the sound of voices.
“We should pack up and get moving,” I ordered.
The deeper we walked, the less the world made sense.
The fog never eased up around the ground, but a few times we were able to spot the sky above. Every direction looked the same, dead trees like rotting ribs, grey sand swallowing our tracks. It felt like each step took us nowhere.
No birds. No wind. Only whispers.
They slipped between the trees, soft voices shaped like secrets none of us wanted to hear again.
Ashley paused first, suddenly rigid. “It’s… saying my name,” she whispered, voice breaking. “It sounds like her.”
Her twin, Mauria, who she lost and missed more than life itself.
Malakai gave me a warning look, blood threads flickering around his fingers, protective and unamused.
“Ignore it,” he growled into the fog. “They want us divided.”
But the whispers kept hunting for soft spots.
Lionel’s jaw clenched as he stared into the shadows. “They’re using memories… Information they shouldn’t have.”
And then the shapes appeared.
Movement flickered on the edges of vision, hiding in the fog, urging us to chase after them as if they were playing tag.
No thanks, I’d rather not die by childish games today.
My heart hammered as two shapes walked out of the fog at once.
Caleb.
And Caleb…
“What… I was just behind you guys?” one of the figures exhaled and looked panicked.
“What is happening?” the other asked confused.
They had the same stance, same brown hair, same hand gripping a dagger like they’d been born with it.
Both looked furious, frightened, and alive.
Jaden swore quietly, while Eve raised her rifle but didn’t shoot, her hands steady despite the confusion, eyes darting between the two Calebs. She hesitated, fully aware that she had already been traumatized by shooting the wrong person before…
“Don’t you dare pick the wrong one,” one Caleb snarled.
“That’s exactly what a demon would say,” the other spat back.
Malakai’s posture prowled with irritation, threads pulsing around us like a blood red spider web. “I could've ripped the demon apart,” he offered, voice low and hungry. “But the fog is making it hard to smell which one it is.”
“No,” I snapped. “We can’t go in blind.”
One Caleb surged forward suddenly, shoving me away from Malakai. “What if he’s behind this?”
Nate sighed. “We’ve talked about this before—”
“Right, we ‘talked’,” the other Caleb snorted.
Shit, the demon version was really blending in good this time. They glared, and pointed at one another. “That’s the wrong one.”
It was as if they had practiced it, words slipping at the same time, the same shocked expression afterwards.
“Demons spread doubt, fear, hatred and greed,” Faelin mumbled over, and over.
“This is stupid!” one of the doubles hissed. “I’m right here! Shoot us in the foot or something if you don’t believe me! Look at the blood, like the map-reader said!”
“One minute he can smell other demons, but when we really need it, he can’t? How convenient.” the other one spat towards Malakai as steel flashed in the fog.
A wet, ugly sound cut through the hush. Jaden had lunged forward, burrowed his dagger into the back of the Caleb who blamed Malakai.
“The one holding on to hatred,” Jaden breathed out, pulling the dagger out again.
The stabbed Caleb fell to the ground, coughing up red blood.
It was the real Caleb.
His eyes went wide, betrayed, terrified, before they dimmed.
The other Caleb dissolved into black rot and teeth, screeching as Malakai’s threads tore it apart.
But the damage was already done.
Silence fell heavier than rock.
Ashley whispered, trembling, “Oh Gods… oh Gods, we killed—”
“Don’t,” I forced out, voice cracking. “What… what the hells.”
It was exactly like yesterday, when the shapeshifter who had looked like Malakai had encountered us, yet he had arrived before the real one. I think? Or had he been watching from the sideline?
The forest played with our minds, making us turn against one another, whispering about our weaknesses and desires… It had made us kill one of our own.
“I… I’m sorry,” Jaden stammered, looking at Caleb’s lifeless body. “I thought for sure… that it was the demon trying to turn us against each other again.”
“I thought so, too,” Faelin whispered, her voice shaking as she stared at the unmoving body.
But the forest wasn’t finished with us.
Because the fog moved again, and suddenly there were two Nate’s standing next to each other like it was the most common thing.
One had its face twisted in mourn, as if seeing Caleb’s body reminded him of unpleasant memories.
The other stood straight and stiff, eyes staring empty at the body.
Ashley’s breath caught as she noticed the two of them. Both Nate’s looked at each other, surprise filling their faces, before they turned back to Ashley. “Ash!”
Panic consumed her eyes which darted between them. Her body shook so violently that the dagger she clutched rattled in her grip.
The mourning one spoke first, voice soft and desperate. “Ash… you know me. I-I love you; I always have.”
The empty-looking one swallowed hard, as a half-sob escaped him, eyes wide, opening and closing his mouth as if searching for the right word, terrified of pushing her in the wrong direction.
Ashley’s expression twisted in agony.
“He… he would never say that,” she whispered, before a faint smile appeared on her lips. “No, he wouldn’t confess like that… nor love someone like me. Who in their right mind would blurt something like that? We haven’t even kissed?”
She raised her hand and plunged her dagger into him, not deep enough to kill, just a shoulder strike. Her fear stopped her hand from going farther.
The wounded Nate hissed at the pain, wobbling, slightly, yet he didn’t move away. He merely tilted his head to lock eyes with her as a faint smile spread on his lips. “Well, I’ve never been known to be smart.”
Ashley’s eyes widened, before she pulled the dagger out quickly. “Nate?” She dropped the dagger and pushed her hands against his wounds. “I-I’m sorry!”
The other figure shifted next to them, it smiled, too wide and too wrong.
And then his jaw unhinged into a scream not meant for human throats.
The shriek split the air, a razor-sharp sound that vibrated in my ears. Before any of us could strike it, the thing wearing Nate’s face faded into the fog like it belonged to the mist as well.
“I couldn’t sense it… because its physical body isn’t here,” Malakai muttered bitterly.
I surged forward on instinct, fire already burning up my arms, but Malakai’s hand snapped around my wrist.
“Don’t,” he warned. “That’s exactly what it wants, for us to split up.”
A broken gasp dragged my attention back.
Nate had fallen to his knees, Ashley right beside him, palms clamped to his bleeding shoulder.
“Hey, hey, look at me,” she begged, voice raw. “Don’t close your eyes. Just, please, stay with me. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”
Nate tried to smile for her, but it twisted into a grimace. “I’m not going anywhere… you finally stabbed me. Not missing that.”
His humor cracked apart with a cough as blood soaked between Ashley’s fingers.
We couldn’t stay here.
Malakai tugged me closer, teeth bared. “Let me and Lionel handle the demon. You stay with—”
The fog answered him with a low hiss, not entirely human, almost… liquid? A wet, dripping sound echoed around us, making it hard to tell which direction it came from.
“We need to kill it,” Eve shot back.
Ashley’s voice cracked through the tension,
“Go!”
She pressed harder on Nate’s wound, sobbing.
“I’ll keep him alive, just go find that thing and make it hurt.”
Something broke open in me. Heat roared outward, my flames swirling through the mist, a hungry beacon challenging the demon back.
“I’m going,” I said.
Malakai’s threads coiled lovingly, possessively around my wrist. “Together.”
“Stay with Nate,” I breathed out to whoever listened, as I took a step forward, Malakai following me without question.
“You belong to me… come to me…” the voice echoed, trying to mimic Malakai’s voice but it was too dark, too unhuman.
“What kind of demon is this?” I whispered, glancing up to Malakai.
But he was silent, eyes focused forward.
Had he never encountered this kind himself?
The mere thought made me nervous, and my hand instinctively reached for his, braiding our fingers together.
I feared that if I didn’t hold onto him, we’d be separated by the mist.
My foot landed in something squishy, and I froze, my eyes darting down. A pool of blood and something gooey. When I tried to pull my foot back, the weird material followed like it wasn’t ready to let go. “What the—”
My eyes caught something moving and at the same time, Malakai’s hand tightened around mine. Something red and resembling vines crawled along the ground, thick with blood, leaving a trail.
They weren’t vines.
They were arms.
“Ethalyn, we should head back,” Malakai said, voice guarded. The red veiny arm lunged, hooking like a tentacle around mine in a swift movement.
“Stay,” it hissed from the fog, the grip painfully strong. I tried pulling away, thinking the wet blood would let me slip out. Instead, sharp pain coursed through my arm as small needles pressed out of the red limb, piercing my skin.
I snarled, and Malakai lunged forward, gripping the arm with his free hand.
His threads of blood swirled around it like a rope pressing tight, trying to cut off the flow of blood.
The grip around my arm loosened reluctantly, and I saw the marks from where the needles had scratched me, but there was no blood.
I panted out a relieved breath, my hand shaking as I pulled it back.
The creature latched onto Malakai’s arm instead, and two more red arms appeared out of the fog, grabbing his legs and slithering around them.
Malakai hissed, his magic pushing back.
“Malakai?” I asked, confused.
Laughter sounded as a slithering mass of red flesh came crawling into view. The mist parted slightly to reveal—
I gasped, horrified.
Its head and torso—resembled that of a woman, the rest a black spider with red legs and slithering arms…