Page 20 of Blood Court (Cursed Darkness #2)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

LYSITHEA

“I turned into a snake?” I hiss and then breathe in deeply. That was far too reptilian for my liking.

“You did. Your familiar,” Verik points out.

“And I bit you?” I direct this question to Evren.

He nods.

“Are you okay?”

He holds his arm up to show me that the wound has healed.

“What’s going on?”

“We have been locked in a cage, and we are being tested,” Dathan says. “Evren had to let you bite him, had to trust that it wouldn’t kill him. He did. He passed. The four-way lock unlocked one.”

“Oh.” I sit back and pull Evren’s shirt tighter around me. “So, we sit and wait for the next test?”

Evren nods.

“Great. Blackgrove is going to lose his shit if we are stuck down here and missing classes.”

“Pretty sure he has lost his shit with us already,” Dathan mutters and then we all go silent, eyeing each other up to see who might strike next.

At least it won’t be me. But I still have to be struck, so that doesn’t make me feel much better.

The silence stretches, thick and suffocating. We are four predators in a box, waiting to see which one bites next.

The air crackles.

The temperature in the cage plummets, a sudden, biting cold.

Evren.

He stands perfectly still, but the shadows at his feet twist and deepen.

Skeletal hands erupt from the stone floor, clawing their way into the air. They are skeletal constructs, animated by his will. One after another, they pull themselves free, their empty sockets fixed on me.

“What the fuck is this?” Dathan snarls, stepping in front of me.

“The next test,” I mumble, scooting back away from them as the constructs amble forward, a small, clattering army of bone.

“Fuck this,” Verik growls, hellfire flickering to life in his palms before the cage snuffs it out.

The bony fingers reach for me. I flinch, but Dathan shoves one back, the bone cracking under his hand. “Don’t touch her.”

“You have to let them,” I pant. “We have to trust!”

The skeletal hands grab Dathan, dragging him away from me. He fights, a whirlwind of fury, but there are too many. They pin him against the bars. Verik is next, overwhelmed by the sheer number of them.

It’s just me and Evren’s army of the dead.

The hands are on me. Cold, sharp bone digging into my skin. They flatten me to the cold ground, pinning my arms, my legs. One skeletal hand wraps around my throat, its thumb pressing against my windpipe.

I look at Evren. At the agony in his eyes.

I close mine and let it happen. I trust. I trust. I trust.

The pressure on my windpipe increases. My lungs burn for air that won’t come. Black spots dance behind my eyelids. I can hear Dathan roaring, the sound of his fists hammering against the metal bars. Verik is cursing, a low, guttural sound of impotent rage.

The bony thumb presses harder. Every instinct I have screams at me to fight, to unleash a sound that will turn this cage and the skeletons in it to dust. But I don’t.

I focus on the image of Evren’s face in my mind.

The look of pure agony as his magic was turned against me.

Against us. This isn’t him. It’s the trial.

I have to trust him, just like he trusted me.

My world narrows to a single point of suffocation. Just as my consciousness starts to fray, a loud, metallic click echoes through the cell.

Instantly, the pressure vanishes. I gasp, dragging in a lungful of cold, damp air that feels like salvation. The skeletal hands holding me down crumble away, turning into a fine grey powder that settles on my skin.

I push myself up, coughing, my throat raw. Dathan is at my side in an instant, his hands checking me over. Verik is right behind him, his hellfire eyes practically spitting flames. But my gaze is on Evren.

He nods, breathing raggedly.

Two down. Two to go.

Before the thought has finished forming in my mind, we are at it again.

A low hum starts to build, a vibration in the stone beneath us. My gaze snaps to Verik. He groans, clutching his chest, his knuckles white.

“Verik?” Dathan asks, his voice tight.

“Something’s wrong,” Verik grits out through clenched teeth.

Hellfire licks out from between his fingers, wild and uncontrolled.

It’s not his usual contained inferno; this is a blaze burning him from the inside out.

He stumbles back, hitting the bars of the cage.

He roars in agony as the metal glows, syphoning his magic and amplifying the torment.

The fire erupts, sheeting over his skin like a second, burning layer.

“Don’t touch me!” he snarls as Evren moves towards him.

The test is clear. He has to let someone get close. He has to relinquish control. He has to trust us.

“Verik,” I say, my voice steady.

His eyes, burning embers in a face contorted by pain, snap to mine. “Stay away, Thea. It’ll burn you.”

I ignore him. I walk into the inferno.

The heat is a wall of pure, unadulterated hellfire.

I stifle my scream as it licks my skin. I know deep down that their immunity to my scream is gone.

I will kill them if I use my power. Tears prick my eyes as the agony intensifies.

But I keep going, focusing on his eyes. I need him to see me.

To trust me. I place my hands on his chest, right over the heart of the blaze.

The fire screams, fighting me. He roars, a sound of pure agony.

My skin blisters, but I don’t pull back.

“I’ve got you,” I whisper.

His body is a furnace. The fire isn’t just on his skin; it is his skin. My hands sink into the blaze, the pain so intense my vision whites out. He tries to shove me away, a guttural roar tearing from his throat, but I hold on, my fingers digging into the molten muscle of his chest.

“Trust me,” I grit out, the words smoke and ash in my mouth.

For a second, the inferno intensifies, a final, desperate attempt to reject me. My flesh sizzles. But I don’t let go. I pour every ounce of my will, my trust, my claim on him through my hands. I am his. He is mine. The fire will not harm me. Permanently, anyway.

He collapses against me, his body shuddering. The flames don’t vanish. They change. They flow around me, a liquid heat that no longer burns. A protective embrace.

A third click echoes in the cage.

The fire recedes, leaving Verik slumped against me, panting and slick with sweat. I help him to the floor, my skin angry and red but miraculously intact.

Three down.

All eyes turn to Dathan. He stands alone in the centre of the cage, a storm waiting to break.

Nothing happens.

We wait, watching, alert with no idea what will be thrown at us next.

Dathan’s power manifests as a void. Shadows contort at his feet, thin and desperate, before being sucked back into him. He stumbles, a hand going to his chest.

“Dathan?” I ask, my voice tight.

“I’m… starving,” he rasps, his skin paling to a sickly grey. The predatory glint in his silver eyes turns inward, a look of self-loathing that chills me more than any monster.

The cage is draining his life source. It’s starving him of fear.

“It wants us to be afraid of him,” Evren rasps.

“No,” I correct, my heart hammering against my ribs. “It wants him to be afraid of himself. Afraid of what he’ll do to us when the hunger takes over.”

Dathan’s gaze snaps to mine, raw and feral. He sees me. Not as his queen, but as a feast of terror he’s been denied. He needs fear. Willingly given.

I take a step forward.

“Lysithea, no,” Verik growls, grabbing my burned arm. I flinch but shake him off.

I walk towards the storm. I meet Dathan’s predatory gaze. He’s fighting it, I can see the war in his eyes. The monster versus the man who needs me.

“It’s okay,” I whisper, stopping in front of him. “Feed.”

I open my mind. I offer him my fear. I offer him the source. The root. Clara. The branks. The silence. The helplessness. I give him my worst nightmare, raw and unfiltered.

He roars, a sound of agony and ecstasy. He lunges, but he doesn’t attack. He collapses at my feet, his hands gripping my ankles, his body convulsing as he drinks in the memory.

His power surges, a dark tide rising to meet the torrent of my trauma. He’s drinking the fear; he’s taking the memory itself. I feel him there with me, a silent shadow in that grey room, watching Clara press the branks to my face. He feels my helplessness, my silent, screaming rage.

His body stops shaking. The sickly pallor of his skin is replaced by a healthy flush of power. He’s strong again, sated on the worst parts of my soul. He doesn’t pull away. He clings to me, his head pressed against my shins, a monster feasting at the feet of his queen.

He takes it all. Every second of the silence. Every moment of the pain. He shoulders the burden of it, and in a way, it makes the memory lighter for me. It’s no longer just my secret shame. It’s our weapon.

A final, shuddering breath escapes him, and he lets go.

The fourth click echoes in the sudden silence, a sound of finality.

Dathan looks up at me, his silver eyes raw. He just walked through my personal hell. The hunger is gone, replaced by a devastating understanding.

With a low groan of ancient metal, the cage door swings open.

Dathan gets to his feet, his hands shaking.

“That was terrifying,” he mutters so only I can hear.

“I know,” I say, cupping his face. “I know. But we made it.”

He grips my fingers tight enough to hurt, but I let him use me as his anchor.

“Let’s get out of here,” Verik mutters, thoroughly disconcerted after this trial.

I don’t blame him. This was not something I wish to repeat. Ever.

I nod and turn to the door. With a deep breath, I take a step towards it, a queen leading her monsters to the next level of this fucked up game we are playing.