Page 103
Story: Devoured By Shadows
Slowly, she felt herself separate from her body. She watched as the creature knelt above her. Shadows rippled around the stone altar, coming off the demon in waves as it reached a hand up, sinking clawed fingertips into her chest.
She watched as her body convulsed and tendrils of shadow filled her veins, moving out from where the creature’s hand was. The darkness bled up her throat until she felt it caress her mind, her memories.
For a terrifying moment, she was back in the cottage in the woods as the witch entered her mind and tore her memories away. The memory assaulted her senses, and she felt herself tremble above her body, nearly descending back into it.
No,she thought as terror rippled through her senses.I’m not in that cabin. I’m no longer helpless.
But the demon didn’t flip through her memories. Instead, it moved around them to the deepest recesses of her mind, to a corner she hadn’t even known was there. Where there was a single box of shadow that was encased in bands of twining silver.
There,the Everdark purred.
His voice was everywhere and nowhere all at once.
The searching darkness formed a key before her mind’s eye. A single dark key with an onyx stone. In a flash, the key was before the box, entering the lock. With a single click, the box opened.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Both she and the Everdark’s magic waited in silence, eyeing the dark box that had creaked open. Then a shaft of shadow lashed out, and a torrent of magic burst forth like a dark tornado. It lashed onto the Everdark, clasping the shadows and forcing it back, back,back.
Suddenly, she crashed back into her body.
A power unlike any she’d ever known swelled within her. Inky tendrils extended out from that recess of her mind, filling her thoughts, her chest, her entire being until it was all she was.
Then the magic of the Everdark was forced out.
There was a flash of motion, and she blinked, finding herself atop the demon. The creature lay on its back, the stone altar cracked beneath it. Her fingers were wrapped around its neck. And at the tips of her fingers were long, sharp nails the color of night. There was a strange heat behind her eyes as blackness swallowed them whole. She felt her canines sharpen and let out a low growl.
Welcome, granddaughter,came the voice of the Everdark.A princess of fae and demons.
As the demon magic swelled inside her alongside the shadow fae power and the earthen magic of the enchantresses, she knew what the Everdark said was true.
Like her mate, she was a demon now, too.
And that demon would be what saved both him and Shadowbank.
Chapter Twenty-Three
ARABELLA
As Arabella rose from the stone altar, she felt the Everdark’s impenetrable dark receding, slipping into the cave walls.
You are the key, the Everdark said into her mind.To open the gateway.
“What?” she asked over her fangs.
Only a greater demon or a being with greater demon blood can open the gateway, and only for its own kind to go through. I could not let the shadow fae out because I am not fae. But one of my offspring can open it for the fae, he said.Only the royal line is strong enough.
In an instant, she understood why the shadow fae had never been able to leave the Abyss even with the help of the Everdark. And since she was human, fae, and demon, she was the only one who could open the gateway to let Hadeon, Jessamine, Breckett, and the shadow fae through.
“Where’s the gateway?” she asked, needing to confirm whether her suspicions had been right. As she spoke, she could feel the Everdark’s voice grow strangely quiet, as though slipping into some faraway darkness.
Follow the map.
Then the Everdark was gone.
She ran a hand over her neck. Where was he going? Had he become tired from awakening her magic?
Before she could dwell on it long, Arden appeared in the cavern.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103 (Reading here)
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128