Page 53 of Lord of the Lone Wolf (Bonded Hearts #3)
Kitsuki was touched on his older brother’s behalf. “This will mean a great deal to him, Father. Thank you.” He sent it to join the sword in his cabinet.
“The three of you are the best parts of me. It was a blessing to be a father to you. I regret we do not have more time.”
“And what about Kio?” Kizoshi asked with a wicked grin.
“Like Mitsuki, we cannot be proud of a child who has hurt so many people.” Tatsuki’s attention shifted back to Maseo. “We apologize on our son’s behalf for the trauma he inflicted on you in the name of love. Do not hold Kio’s sins against Kitsuki. He is more of a man than Kio will ever be.”
Maseo bowed low. “Thank you, Your Majesty. I know Kitsuki would never abuse me in the same way.”
“Let him care for you as his dragon demands.”
Kitsuki scowled at his father’s comment directed at the half-wolf shifter.
“Do not resist your dragon, son. Not when he knows the right course of action,” Tatsuki advised. “Send our love to your mate. Our only regret about our brief return is that we could not reunite with him. He changed our life for the better, and we will always be grateful for his pure love for you.”
The peaceful moment shattered as an eerie laugh echoed across the clearing. “What a touching family reunion,” a voice said, dripping with malice.
A lichen skeleton larger than Tatsuki’s advanced in armor that gleamed with unnatural light. A green soulflame pulsed within its ribs.
“We look forward to a rematch in the Beyond Realm after our children have destroyed you, Ishibiya,” Tatsuki declared.
“We will defeat you there and banish you to the deepest circle of hell in the Blightmare Vale, once and for all.” With that, the red light of Tatsuki’s soul winked out.
His skeleton collapsed into dust, scattering on the wind as crimson embers.
Grief pierced Kitsuki’s heart at losing his father a second time, but he forced it aside to focus on the threat before them. His hand tightened around the hilt of his sword.
“You should have known he was too strong to control,” Kizoshi taunted, shifting into an offensive stance.
Her sword blazed with a fire that flickered between red and purple.
“But that is far from the most foolish thing you have done tonight. We will enjoy making you regret joining sides with the likes of Nasume.”
Kizoshi launched herself at Ishibiya, her dragon wings carrying her high above the necromancer. With a battle cry that shook the trees, she brought her Divine weapon down upon his clavicle. The bones shattered with a crack that echoed through the clearing, but they rose again to reform.
“Your Divine weapon cannot harm me,” Ishibiya mocked. “I have transcended the natural laws that bind lesser beings.”
He raised a skeletal hand, and the earth beneath them trembled.
Fissures opened in the ground, from which poured not only skeletons but also half-formed abominations, their bones fused with rotting flesh and writhing with maggots.
The stench of decay filled the air as the creatures lurched toward them.
Kitsuki met them with cold fury, his blade severing limbs and skulls, sending souls back to the Beyond Realm.
Maseo fought by his side as they cut through both bone and putrid flesh.
The half-wolf shifter moved with deadly grace, carving through the undead horde, but Kitsuki could see the strain building in his movements, the way his breathing grew labored with each passing moment.
Yet for every monstrosity they destroyed, three more rose to take its place. The endless tide of lichens threatened to overwhelm them with sheer numbers. Kitsuki’s muscles burned with exertion as he carved through the relentless assault.
“You waste your strength when I have harvested the power of tens of thousands of souls to fuel my magic.” Ishibiya raised both skeletal hands above his head. The sky darkened, reality itself seeming to warp and bend. “I command the power to rewrite the very laws of life and death.”
From his outstretched fingers, tendrils of green energy snaked outward toward Kizoshi, who deflected them with her Divine sword. The magic sizzled against the blade, leaving scorch marks on the indestructible metal.
Kitsuki attempted to circle behind the necromancer, but Ishibiya sensed his approach and blasted him with necrotic energy that struck a tree behind him, which exploded into ash that rained down as gray snow.
“I grow weary of this game,” Ishibiya declared. “It is time to claim what was promised to me.”
He extended a skeletal hand toward Maseo and lifted the half-wolf shifter from the ground to suspend him in midair with invisible forces. Maseo struggled, his muscles straining as he fought the power that held him, but his weapon fell from his grasp, embedding in the soil below.
“No!” Kitsuki shouted. His dragon roared within him, ice magic exploding outward in a desperate surge of power . He dares to touch our mate.
“Let him go!” Kitsuki snarled, charging forward only to be repelled by an invisible barrier that sent shockwaves of pain through his body. He struck it again and again, his knuckles splitting against the magical wall as blood ran down his hands.
Ishibiya’s evil laughter cackled through the clearing. “Nasume was so eager to trade his son’s soul for my services. He had no idea of its true value. What a fool he was to give away his greatest treasure so carelessly.”
Maseo’s body went rigid as black magic, crackling with green lightning, snaked toward him. The first tendril wrapped around his throat like a noose, and Maseo’s scream of agony split the air. More followed, binding his arms, chest, and legs.
When Maseo opened his mouth to cry out again, the black spirals surged forward like shadowy serpents, forcing themselves past his lips and down his throat.
His eyes widened with terror and violation as the necromancy invaded him, choking off his scream and making his body convulse as if he were drowning on dry land.
His throat bulged as the invading power searched for his soul’s anchor point.
Blood streamed from his nose, ears, and eyes, running down his face in crimson rivulets as the necromantic force tore at him from within.
To Kitsuki’s horror, a blue light emerged from Maseo’s stretched mouth, the luminous essence of his soul being extracted.
“Extraordinary,” Ishibiya breathed, his green soul flaring with avarice.
“Who knew there could be such power in a half-breed? I can taste the dormant but potent magic in you, boy. Neither your father’s shadowmancy nor your mother’s wishmancy, but something far more unique that will make me unstoppable. ”
It devoured Maseo’s voice next, leaving his mouth open wide in a soundless wail. The welts on his skin smoked, the flesh blistering and weeping. His limbs spasmed so violently that Kitsuki could hear joints popping. He feared Maseo’s spine would shatter under the brutal assault.
Kitsuki’s attacks grew more frenzied as he watched Maseo’s torment. His dragon clawed at his mind, demanding to be freed, but even in his shifted form, he could not breach the necromancer’s defenses. We are failing him. Our mate suffers while we stand helpless!
“Your father sold you cheaply,” Ishibiya taunted. With each strand of Maseo’s soul that emerged, his body jerked as if he were being flayed alive. “He called you worthless. Weak. If only he knew what magic flows in your veins. The power you could wield if only you knew how to access it.”
As his soul shredded, Maseo’s spine bent backward as he fought against the extraction, every fiber of his being screaming in rebellion against the violation. Each torn fragment left him less whole, less alive, as if parts of his memory, his love, his very identity were being devoured.
Welts continued to spread across his skin like a plague, angry and oozing pus, while his eyes rolled back until only the whites showed, veined with burst blood vessels.
Foam flecked with crimson bubbled from around the dark magic choking his throat as his soul clung to its mortal shell, each fragment ripped away, sending fresh waves of torment through his frame.
“Death would be a mercy, but you are not so lucky,” Ishibiya said with cruel satisfaction. “This is so much more exquisite. The more you resist, the more delicious your agony becomes.”
The sphere of soulflame above Ishibiya’s hand swelled larger as he wrenched away more of Maseo’s essence.
With each passing moment, the half-wolf shifter’s struggles grew more frantic and desperate, his body rejecting the extraction with primal terror while being murdered in pieces.
His welts turned black at the edges, spreading like gangrene across his flesh.
“Once I consume your soul, I will be unstoppable,” Ishibiya declared with triumphant laughter. “Not even the Powers will stand against me. And you, my dear boy, have the honor of being the catalyst for my ascension.”
With another surge of necromantic power, Maseo’s resistance crumbled, his body going slack as the last of his strength drained away. Only the thinnest strand of blue light tethered his soul, leaving him hollow and dying.
Desperation clawed at Kitsuki’s throat. Nothing he did seemed capable of breaching Ishibiya’s defenses. In mere moments, Maseo would be gone forever, his soul devoured by the abomination before them.
The thought of losing Maseo before they could claim him sent a wave of anguish through Kitsuki so profound it almost brought him to his knees.
With trembling fingers, Kitsuki reached beneath his armor and grasped the wish pendant Maseo’s mother had infused with her soul. The small orb was warm against his palm, pulsing with Corina’s life force blending with the power contained within it.
“ Please ,” Kitsuki prayed to Mireya, “ let my next strike save Maseo’s life .”