39. Chapter Thirty-Nine
I kiss Evelia awake, and she greets me with a smile. The last few weeks since we arrived home from her castle have been nothing but bliss. Not only do we spend nights in bed deepening our bond, but the days are spent improving my kingdom and making her happy.
She rolls over on top of me and kisses me until I’m hard against her naked body. I grab her to slide her onto my cock, but she grins and runs for the bathroom.
I catapult out of bed after her. “Temptress!”
She giggles as she escapes me into the bathroom, and when I catch her, I back her into the shower, turning her to face the wall.
“Are you ready, love?”
“You’re taking too long.”
I kiss down her neck. “Should I draw this out?”
“We have places to be, husband.”
“Do we now?”
“You’re the one who has yet another surprise for me. If you make me wait, we’ll have to put this on hold.”
I pound into her, and she gasps as I thicken inside her and worship her body with my tendrils.
Only when she can no longer stand do I carry her over the edge for the fourth time and let go with her.
Her knees wobble, so I set her on the shelf carved out of the shower and wash her, taking time to massage her scalp.
I carry her out of the shower after drying her with the towel.
She snuggles against me and hums. “Such a happy life we’ve finally made it to.”
I kiss the top of her head and rest my forehead against hers. “I love you. More than the birds love the sky and the fish love the sea, I love you.”
We hold each other until Basim knocks on the door to tell me the surprise is ready. Servants enter the room to help her into her gown and fix her hair. She puts on the crown she is finally wearing, and I get myself ready .
We leave together, and she keeps her hand in mine until we reach the middle of the castle. The temporary walls that have been hiding the surprise are down, and she gasps.
“It’s beautiful! I love it, Lazzus!” She hugs me and steps into the garden I had built for her.
In the center is a magical tree the witch told me how to obtain. I asked her how to obtain the rarest tree, and she sent me on a quest. The tasks were rather annoying, but I needed the perfect centerpiece for my queen.
Evelia touches the gems that hang from the tree. “Are those real?”
“Yes.” I tell her the story.
She laughs and shakes her head. “No more grand gestures. All I really need is you.”
“I will consider that, but I need everyone who comes to my throne room to know that my devotion to you is as grand as the rarest garden. All the plants are from throughout the realm, and the most cherished as you are to me. You deserve to live in the most beautiful place.”
“My life is beautiful because I have you. You’re what makes me love it here, and the generous and kind heart you have grown for our citizens.”
I push the drooping branches of gems aside, so we can have privacy. She is what makes my life wonderful too, and as I kiss her, I embrace the happiness we have finally found.
I snap awake to the profound cold and heaviness. The emptiness weighs down on me as I writhe in the pain it brings. It’s the collective’s hell, and they let me writhe in it. I scream, but my mouth is gone, replaced by something few living things can understand.
They fill me with hate, violence, and indifference.
Exactly as before, they attempt to strip anything good from me, and the process is agony.
There is no ability to fight them and keep my soul.
They are intent on taking anything I’ve gained from the humans.
Any ability to feel is cracked and exposed to something raw that leaves me defenseless.
The last thing they go to destroy is my love for Evelia, and I burn them with my fire.
They reel back and come for it again. They have no choice but to retreat.
“He is so young. There is nothing he should be able to keep from us!” the voices growl at one another with the same thoughts.
“We warned you, Lazzus, that you were to devour the realm we placed you in because there are much greater things you are needed for.” The collective speaks at once and as a single voice.
“You attend peace talks instead of destroying all the rulers and taking their kingdoms!
We did not create you for peace. We created you for death and destruction.
It's written into your very design, and there should be no other choice but for you to obey it.
The humans are as nothing. Their destruction is insignificant.
They don't matter, and it should not bother you to slaughter them. This is your final warning, or we will abandon you to the world you seem to love so greatly. We will let you become as they are.”
I build a shield around my heart and will destroy us all before I let them touch anything to do with Evelia. “That is all I want. For you to leave me alone in the human realm.”
“And if we take her, what will you want then?”
“To end your existence, and I will succeed.”
Their cackles echo everywhere. "You think you could destroy the power of billions so much greater than you"
"If you touch my wife, I will devour every last one of you. That is my greatest oath." I send out my fire to demonstrate, and they shrink away from it.
"How is that possible?"
"Don't underestimate my love for her. It is a much higher motivation than the power you exist for."
They leave me to flail in the pain of nothingness for a very long while before returning me to the bed with Evelia.
Hate and rage are all I feel. I’m possessed by a violent entity that grows until I’m not sure I can control it.
The need to kill any human in my way burns inside me, more powerful than the fire I can destroy galaxies with.
There was never any hope I could be good as Evelia wishes for me.
The hate and wrath the collective forced into me doesn’t build as the desire to conquer.
It builds as a rage over my wife’s short lifespan.
It’s a fury over how happiness was given to me only to be stolen by too few years, leaving me with an eternity without her.
The darkness they want me to conquer the realm with is what I will use to conquer human mortality.
I slip out of bed to protect my wife from the danger becoming too difficult to control.
I perch on the open window and take one last look at her beautiful sleeping form. Protecting her from everything, even time, is all that matters to me. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. “I love you,” I whisper and leap into the wind.
After giving Basim orders on what to do in my absence, I lock myself in the library with the stone dragon.
The dragon yawns and opens his eyes. “What do you want?”
“I am not leaving here until you search all your knowledge on how to give a human immortality. An immortality so great that not even the most powerful beings can take it from her.”
“And if there is no way?”
“I will chisel you to dust.”
He rolls his green, reptilian eyes. “A spell like that will require the most powerful magic. Maybe even a magic that doesn’t exist yet. Do you know how new magic is created?”
“No.”
“You need to put old magic together, like ingredients for any potion.”
“What ingredients do I need?”
“I have done research since we last spoke and told you taking abilities from others would only give you more power. It seems I was wrong. If you harvest magical energies just right, you can keep the same powers as them. You can already spark life from things not alive. It’s a skill of your kind, but you can’t bring back the dead.
You will need someone who can do that. The prince can’t attach souls, but he can keep decay away from mortal bodies.
His mother won’t like you using him, so I recommend you get him last. You need a mage who can find souls and keep them from leaving to the afterrealm. ”
“How do I combine all these abilities?”
“You have to slice it from them as an essence and take it into yourself, so that it becomes your magic.” A book flies from a shelf and lands on the pedestal. “This will tell you how to do that.”
We spend countless hours figuring out what I need to do to create an entirely new magic.
I need different magic from the realm’s most powerful mages.
I can hoard their power, and the last thing I’ll need is one gifted in keeping the dead from decay.
The prince will be the last ingredient to give his mother no time to stop me.
The dragon seems to insist that she can.
It makes me laugh that any human could, but I can’t afford to be wrong.
I spear the man through his chest and rip out his heart.
Blood oozes from the top of the organ and spills over as it continues to pump.
He falls to his knees and clutches his chest as I squeeze harder.
“Your heart would be better had it been stone.” I take the mage’s magic from him and slam his heart back into his chest.
He screams and falls onto his side. “Please!”
“Did you show any mercy when your victims pleaded like that for you to stop? While you were stealing souls and keeping them in jars, did you consider their pleas?”
“I will die without my magic. Please!”
His power flows through me, magnifying the twenty others I’ve stolen from the most powerful mages around the kingdoms. There are only two more mages I need. One I am finally powerful enough to stop, and the other is the necromancer prince, who will give me the final ingredient.
I return to my castle to let the new magic fully attach, and once it does, I have a witch to visit.
Evelia turns away from me when I climb into bed. “You’re late again.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugs. “You missed my performance.”
“There wasn’t a choice.” I go to pull her close, and she flinches.
“There’s never a choice anymore. You’re cold to everyone again. I don’t like it.”
“It’s who I am!”
She gets out of bed and puts on her robe. “As the person who knows you best, it’s not who you have to be.”
“Where are you going?”
“Back to my room.”
“This is your room.”