Page 56 of Lord of the Lone Wolf (Bonded Hearts #3)
Nasume went still, his eyes narrowing. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.” Kitsuki stepped forward, allowing his anger to show. “He has more honor, more decency, more worth in his little finger than you have in your entire body.”
“You dare to defend him?” Nasume’s voice rose. “After everything I have offered you, you would rather stand up for that worthless halfling?”
“Yes.”
Nasume’s features contorted with rage. “Why would you choose him over me?”
“Despite your best attempts to kill him, he has become a good, handsome man who deserves better than your abuse.”
Something snapped in Nasume’s eyes. The seductive mask fell away, revealing the monster beneath. Shadows gathered around him, writhing like living things in the amber light of the room.
“You cannot have him,” Nasume snarled, his voice distorted. “I will tear his soul from his body and feed it to Ishibiya before I let you have him.”
Kitsuki’s dragon surged forward, his eyes filling with molten silver but remaining under control. “I will never allow you to touch him again.”
Nasume laughed, a harsh sound devoid of humor. “Where were you when he screamed as I shattered his knee? When he begged for mercy after I ordered my men to take him to the woods and have their way with him?”
The dragon roared within Kitsuki’s mind, demanding vengeance. Kitsuki struggled to maintain control, to avoid shifting and tearing Nasume apart where he stood.
“And yet, despite everything, you still could not break his spirit,” Kitsuki’s dragon taunted. “He survived and is stronger than you will ever be.”
“My men should have finished the job,” Nasume hissed. “But they will not fail again.”
“I will kill you before I let you harm him again.” Kitsuki drew his sword, the blade glowing silver with his dragon’s power as he cut through the attack, dispersing it into wisps of darkness. “Have you lost all reason?”
Nasume laughed, the sound unhinged. “Reason has no place in love, Kitsuki.”
“This has never been about love,” Kitsuki countered, circling as Nasume gathered more shadows.
“Call it what you will.” Nasume’s shadowmancy swirled around him like a cloak. “But you will be mine, or you will be no one’s.”
The wolf king launched another attack, sending a wave of shadows sweeping across the floor at Kitsuki. Where it touched, the obsidian cracked.
Kitsuki vaulted over the shadows, landing behind Nasume. He swung his sword in a deadly arc toward the wolf king’s neck.
Nasume avoided the blade. “There he is,” he purred, his voice thick with perverse pleasure. “The dragon I have always known lurked beneath that cold exterior. Show me your fire, Kitsuki.”
The words, dripping with inappropriate desire, made Kitsuki’s stomach turn. Even in combat, Nasume twisted everything into his deranged fantasy. “You mistake my rage for passion.”
Nasume’s grin widened, revealing too many teeth. “Rage, passion, what does it matter? Both burn.” He licked his lips, his yellow eyes gleaming with flickers of green necromancy.
Instead of responding with words, Kitsuki’s sword blazed with silver fire as he launched a series of precise, powerful strikes that forced Nasume to the defensive.
The wolf king summoned shadow barriers to block each blow, but Kitsuki could see the strain it placed on him. Necromancy had granted Nasume’s shadowmancy new power, but it came at a cost. Each time Kitsuki’s blade struck the shadows, they hissed and recoiled in pain.
“Your magic is corrupted,” Kitsuki observed, pressing his advantage. “Just like your soul.”
Nasume snarled, abandoning defense for a reckless counterattack. Shadow tendrils erupted from the floor, wrapping around Kitsuki’s legs and climbing upward. Where they touched, a chill spread that went beyond physical sensation and grasped for his very essence.
Kitsuki channeled his dragon’s fire into his body, burning away the shadows before they could inflict damage.
“Do you feel it?” Nasume asked, his voice husky with excitement. “Shadow and necromancy, united in perfect harmony?”
Kitsuki broke free. “There is nothing harmonious about an abomination of the natural order.”
Nasume laughed. “What do we care about the natural order? We are magic incarnate. We make our own order.”
The surrounding shadows solidified into a pack of wolf-like creatures, their bodies composed of darkness and their eyes glowing with the same verdant light. They growled, circling Kitsuki with predatory intent.
“Your new pets?” Kitsuki asked, adjusting his stance. “Hollow creatures of darkness, animated by stolen power. They suit you.”
“Not stolen,” Nasume corrected. “Claimed. As I will claim you.”
The shadow wolves attacked as one, leaping toward Kitsuki from all directions. His sword became a blur of silver fire as he cut through them, but for each one he dispelled, two more formed from the ambient shadows in the room.
Kitsuki’s dragon pushed harder against his restraints. Free us so we can show him our true power.
But Kitsuki hesitated. The risk of his dragon losing control was too high when emotions ran so hot.
A shadow wolf slipped past his guard. Kitsuki pivoted, using the momentum to fling the creature against the wall, where it burst into wisps of darkness.
He channeled more of his dragon’s power, igniting his entire body with a silver aura that repelled the shadow wolves when they tried to approach. “Your corruption cannot touch me. My dragon burns too bright for your shadows.”
Nasume’s expression darkened. “We shall see about that.”
The wolf king raised both hands, and the scattered shadows throughout the room coalesced into a swirling vortex around him. The air grew heavy, charged with the wrongness of necromantic energy.
“I did not want to resort to this,” Nasume said, his voice distorted by the power he channeled. “I had hoped to take you willingly. But if I must break you first, so be it.”
The shadow whirlwind expanded, engulfing the entire room in darkness so complete that even Kitsuki’s enhanced vision could barely penetrate it. The cold intensified, a bone-deep chill that seemed to reach for his very soul.
Nasume’s voice came from everywhere and nowhere. “Can you feel it, Kitsuki? The touch of the Beyond Realm? This is how I brought Ishibiya out of hiding. It is how I will break you.”
Kitsuki focused inward, drawing on his dragon’s fire to create a sphere of silver light around himself, pushing back the oppressive darkness. “You cannot break what you do not understand, Nasume.”
“You say that, but I know that beneath your Ice King exterior beats the heart of a dragon. Possessive. Territorial. Hungry.”
Kitsuki spun, slashing with his sword, but Nasume had already vanished, melting back into the shadows.
“Why deny your true nature?” Nasume continued from another direction. “You play at being a benevolent king when we both know dragons are conquerors, destroyers, and takers of what they want.”
“Stop projecting your own vile tendencies onto me,” Kitsuki replied, maintaining his sphere of light as he tried to locate Nasume. “Dragons protect what is theirs. We do not take what is not freely given.”
Nasume’s laughter echoed through the shadows. “Is that what you tell yourself? Is that how you justify your weakness? Your refusal to take what should be yours?”
A shadowy hand emerged, caressing Kitsuki’s cheek before he could react. The touch left a trail of numbness in its wake.
Nasume’s voice dripped with a twisted version of tenderness. “I could have given you everything. Power. Pleasure. The world itself.”
“I wanted none of that from you,” Kitsuki replied, his dragon’s fire flaring brighter in response to the violating touch. “I never wanted you.”
The hand withdrew as if stung by his fire. Nasume’s voice hardened. “No. You want my worthless failure of a bastard son.”
“Maseo is neither worthless nor a failure,” Kitsuki countered, using Nasume’s fixation to draw him out. “Unlike you, he is honorable, kind, and worthy of respect.”
A snarl of rage tore through the darkness before Nasume lunged at Kitsuki, his shadow claws extended. His face contorted with hatred, all pretense of seduction gone.
“You will not speak his name,” Nasume howled, slashing at Kitsuki with shadows that left trails of green light in their wake.
Kitsuki met the attack head-on to deflect it. “Maseo is a better man than you could ever hope to be. He deserves the love and affection you denied him in your selfish cruelty.”
With each mention of his son’s name, Nasume’s attacks grew wilder and more frenzied. The calculated seduction was gone, replaced by animalistic rage. Shadow claws raked across Kitsuki’s chest, scraping at his armor.
Kitsuki retaliated with a series of precise strikes, his sword cutting through Nasume’s defenses to leave a deep gash across the wolf king’s shoulder. Black blood, tainted by necromancy, oozed from the wound.
“Look at what you have become,” Kitsuki said, gesturing to the dripping ichor. “You have sacrificed your soul for power that was never meant to be wielded.”
Nasume snarled. “And it was worth it. I would do anything to make you feel something for me, even if it is hatred.”
The admission was so pathetic that Kitsuki almost pitied him. Almost. “You could have had my respect. My friendship, even. But you wanted possession instead of connection. Control instead of comfort.”
“I wanted all of you,” Nasume replied. “Not pieces. Not parts. Everything.”
“And in wanting everything, you ensured you would have nothing.”
Nasume’s face contorted with rage and pain. He thrust both hands forward, and a torrent of faces screaming in silent agony followed, their souls trapped by Nasume’s necromancy.
Kitsuki recognized some of the Valzernan soldiers who had fallen in yesterday’s battle. All of them weaponized against their will. Rage burned through Kitsuki, hotter and fiercer than before. It was the ultimate desecration.