Page 59 of Lord of the Lone Wolf (Bonded Hearts #3)
Nasume’s eyes gleamed with sadistic pleasure as he raised his free hand, fingers moving in precise gestures. The necromancy within Maseo’s wounds responded to his father’s command, flaring to life with renewed malice.
Death magic twisted through his flesh like barbed wire, obeying Nasume’s will as it burrowed deeper into muscle and bone. Maseo’s back arched as the corruption writhed beneath his skin, following the pathways his father had carved with deliberate cruelty.
Nasume clenched his fist, and the death magic responded by searing through Maseo’s nerves.
“You feel that, don’t you? The necromancy inside you belongs to me and burns with the righteous fury of the Divine.
” He twisted his fingers, shredding pieces of Maseo’s soul with surgical precision. “I can make it feast.”
The necromantic anchors pulsed in unison, gorging themselves on Maseo’s life force at their master’s command. Each heartbeat created new pathways for the death magic to explore. Maseo could feel his father’s invasive consciousness that delighted in his suffering.
“You see?” Nasume taunted, pressing his advantage. “This is what happens when weakness faces strength. I have transcended the limitations of mere shifters. Not only have I touched the Beyond Realm, but I have returned with power you cannot comprehend.”
“You’ve touched lunacy,” Maseo replied through gritted teeth, struggling to stay upright as his father’s magic carved new channels of torment through his flesh. “And it has consumed you.”
Nasume’s face darkened. “You know nothing of power. Of sacrifice. Of what it takes to achieve greatness.”
“I know enough to recognize when someone has lost themselves,” Maseo said, straightening despite his injuries. “Look at what you’ve become. You’re not even a shifter anymore. You’re a puppet of necromancy, a hollow shell of the king you once were.”
Nasume’s next attack came with blind fury, his technique sacrificed for the power of corrupted wrath.
Maseo countered, his sword slipping past Nasume’s guard to open a gash on the wolf king’s chest. Black blood gushed out, carrying the stench of decay, but the wound closed almost immediately, thanks to the rapid healing granted to him as a full shifter.
“Do you think you can defeat me?” Nasume demanded. “You, who cannot even shift or use magic? I could kill you with a single thought, using the necromancy already inside your body.”
“I don’t need magic to defeat you,” Maseo replied, though he knew it was bravado.
The necromantic anchors throbbed with increasing intensity, each pulse stealing more of his life as the death magic harvested his wounds.
“All I need is the determination and the knowledge that I’m fighting a battle worth winning. ”
“And what is that?” Nasume sneered. “Fighting for love? Freedom? Peace? Childish fantasies, all of them.”
“Justice for all the lives you’ve destroyed in your selfish pursuit of what was never yours to claim.”
Nasume barked out a bitter laugh. “There is no justice in this world, boy. Only power and those too weak to seize it.”
He attacked again, his corrupted sword moving in patterns designed to overwhelm and force mistakes.
Maseo defended as best he could, but his injuries slowed him.
He could feel himself being hollowed out as his life drained to feed his father’s power, dying from the inside out.
It turned every movement into an act of defiance.
Maseo stumbled, almost falling as fresh agony shot through his wounded back. The necromantic damage had spread throughout his torso, creating a web of corruption that pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat.
Nasume pressed his advantage, his corrupted sword sweeping in for what could be a killing blow.
Maseo parried, the impact jarring his arm and making him cry out as the necromancy inside him responded to his distress with ravenous hunger.
It was clear he would lose to his father in an unfair fight.
But perhaps there was another way to defeat his father by exploiting his father’s greatest weakness.
“You know,” Maseo said, his tone casual despite the condemnation coursing through him, “Kitsuki and I have discussed what will happen after this war is over and you’re dead and buried.”
Nasume’s suspicion warred with his curiosity. “What nonsense are you spouting?”
“He and Auslin have offered me a trinity bond.” It was wishful thinking at best, but the effect was immediate and violent.
Nasume’s eyes blazed with such intense hatred that it seemed to radiate from him. The corrupted blade in his hands flared with vindictive light, Divine authority twisted by personal fury. “Liar! He would never lower himself to mate with filth like you.”
“And yet he gave me his ring,” Maseo countered, holding up his hand to show the diamond encased by a protective silver dragon that flickered with Kitsuki’s dragon fire. “It’s the first step in a trinity bond.”
It was a complete fabrication, but the wolf king’s entire body trembled with rage, his control slipping with every word Maseo spoke.
Maseo continued pressing his advantage. “When this is over, I’ll have everything you wanted but could never have. Because Kitsuki wants me , not you.”
“Enough!” Nasume roared, launching himself forward in blind fury.
His powerful attack was driven more by emotion than strategy.
Maseo dodged, prepared to use his father’s momentum against him.
But at the last moment, Nasume changed tactics.
Instead of striking directly, he feinted and swept his corrupted blade upward in an arc.
The sword sliced across Maseo’s face, cutting deep from his left cheek through his eye.
Divine judgment flayed him open, allowing death magic to establish its most vicious foothold yet.
A flood of shadows invaded the breach, seeking dominion over their new conquest. Necromancy claimed his ruined socket as its throne, establishing it as the capital of an empire of pain.
Nasume cackled, the sound distant through the roaring in Maseo’s ears. “Not so confident now, are you? Let us see if Kitsuki still wants you when you are blind and scarred beyond anything an auramancer can heal.”
Through the haze of pain and blood streaming down his face, Maseo saw his opportunity. Nasume had stepped closer, his guard lowered, confident in his victory. The sword hung at his side, shadows still writhing around its length.
Maseo lunged forward with the last of his strength. His sword, guided more by instinct than sight, found its mark, sinking deep into Nasume’s stomach with a sickening wet sound that echoed through the chamber.
The wolf king’s laughter cut off with a choked gasp. His yellow-green eyes widened as black blood bubbled from his lips. The sword slipped from his fingers, clattering to the floor where the necromancy dissipated without its wielder’s life force to sustain it.
“How?” Nasume wheezed, his arrogance giving way to shock. “You are a weakling!”
Maseo drove the blade deeper until the hilt pressed against Nasume’s flesh, then twisted it with savage precision.
The steel cut through corrupted organs and bone, releasing a flood of black acid that sizzled where it hit the obsidian floor.
Nasume’s knees buckled, but Maseo held him upright, impaled on the weapon.
“I am everything you could never destroy.”
Blood streamed down his face from his ruined eye, yet he stood straighter than he ever had in his father’s presence.
“You spent my entire life convincing me I was worthless, but every scar you carved into my flesh only proved how desperately afraid you were of what I could become. You spent centuries trying to break me, but all you did was forge me into the weapon of your own destruction.”
Nasume’s hands clawed at the blade, slicing his own fingers as he tried to pull it free.
He spat a mouthful of black blood onto Maseo’s face, which burned like acid.
“You think this will kill me?” Nasume taunted, though his voice grew weaker, punctuated by wet, gurgling breaths.
“You carry my power inside you now, boy. Death may take me from this realm, but the seeds of corruption I planted within you will continue to bloom. Distance means nothing to someone who has mastered the realms between life and death. I will reach across the void to collect what is mine.”
“You own nothing,” Maseo said, meeting his father’s gaze with his remaining eye.
“You are a king who rules through fear because you are too weak to inspire loyalty. A father who destroys his own blood because you cannot bear to see strength that refuses to bow to you. A creature so empty that you had to fill yourself with stolen power to feel worthy of existing.”
He twisted the sword again to grate against bone as it carved deeper.
Nasume’s body convulsed, a strangled cry escaping his lips as the necromancy within him flared in violent protest. “You are nothing,” Nasume gasped, blood flowing from his mouth, staining his teeth black.
“You will always be a worthless mistake.”
“And yet here I stand, while you die on my sword.” He leaned closer until their faces were inches apart, his red blood mingling with his father’s on the obsidian floor.
“When I leave this room, I will walk into the arms of a man whose love and respect you could never earn through all your stolen power.”
Nasume’s eyes widened with impotent rage, the jealousy that had consumed him for centuries flaring. He tried to speak but only managed a groaning hiss as blood filled his lungs.
Maseo continued, his words cutting deeper than any blade. “Kitsuki will love me not because I conquered him, but because I proved myself worthy of his trust. And every night when he makes love to me, I’ll savor knowing you lost everything you ever wanted to the son you called worthless.”
He yanked his sword free in a spray of corrupted blood. The lethal wound gaped as his skin cracked like dried clay, toxic light shining through the fissures. The necromancy that had given him power now consumed him from within.
“This is not over,” Nasume warned. “Never forget that death is a realm where I rule. It is only a matter of time before my corruption drags you screaming into the depths of Shadowfall Vale, where I will have my revenge.”
Maseo stepped back, standing tall despite his wounds, his father’s blood dripping from his sword.
He looked down at the creature writhing in its own corruption and smiled with the serene confidence of a man who had broken free from a lifetime of chains.
“You failed to break me in life. Your threats mean nothing in death.”
Nasume’s body exploded into dust, the necromancy that had sustained him consuming what remained of his physical form in a final, violent release of energy.
A silent scream seemed to linger in the air as the last particles of what had once been the feared monarch of Kunushi scattered over the obsidian floor.
Nothing remained but a fine layer of ash and his royal wolf pack ring, the ancient silver band marked with the crest of Kunushi that had adorned his finger for centuries.
The necromantic barrier surrounding them collapsed, and the bonds holding Kitsuki to the bed disintegrated into wisps of green light that faded into nothingness.
But as Nasume’s magic dissipated, the corruption in Maseo’s wounds remained. While it no longer clawed at his soul with the frenzied hunger it had shown during the battle, it continued its insidious invasion.
Maseo stood for a moment, swaying, his sword slipping from numb fingers to clatter against the black stone floor.
Blood poured freely from the gash on his face, his ruined left eye a well of torment that threatened to consume him.
The socket wept a mixture of crimson and greenish fluid that burned tracks down his cheek, each drop carrying pieces of his soul away with it.
His legs gave out, but strong arms caught him before he could collapse, cradling him with a tenderness that belied their immense strength. The scent of icicles and ancient magic enveloped him as he was pulled against a powerful chest.
“Maseo, stay with us,” Kitsuki’s dragon pleaded.
Through his remaining eye, Maseo looked up to see Kitsuki’s face transformed. His eyes blazed with molten moonlight as his pupils narrowed to draconic slits. His inner dragon had taken full control, every trace of the composed king replaced by primal protective fury.
Kitsuki’s dragon drew Maseo closer, one hand gently cradling the back of his head while the other hovered over his ruined eye. “You were strong and defeated him when we could not.”
Maseo tried to respond but could only manage a pained groan. The corruption had slowed its assault, yet it continued its relentless work, each measured pulse nibbling away another fragment of his essence with the patience of something that knew time was on its side.
The dragon made a sound of distress deep in his throat, pulling Maseo more securely against him. “You are safe in our arms, where you belong.” He pressed his forehead against Maseo’s in an intimate gesture of connection. “He can never hurt you again.”
Maseo wanted to tell Kitsuki that losing an eye was nothing compared to the agony of seeing Kitsuki violated by Nasume. But the words got trapped behind the wall of pain and the growing certainty that his father’s ultimate victory was still unfolding, one stolen piece of his soul at a time.