Page 35 of Soul Bound (Cursed Descent (MistHallow Academy) #2)

35

LUC

Crouching to the side of the training gym, flicking a small orb of Hellfire between my fingers, I watch Matilda in combat training with Draven. Morrigan is right to insist that Matilda needs to build physical strength. The Praxian is too powerful. It needs a stable and strong host.

After yesterday’s revelations about Tilly being Anu’s daughter, everyone’s on edge, especially her. Her movements are sharper, more aggressive, and there’s something that makes my darkness stir uncomfortably.

“Again,” Draven commands, circling her like an apex predator. His Hell-ish darkness ripples visibly around him, more pronounced than usual. Especially to me.

Matilda strikes, her form almost perfect, but what catches my attention isn’t her technique. It’s the way her magick seems to reach for Draven’s death magick. Like recognising like.

Our presence is affecting her power.

Matilda lands a solid hit on Draven. His darkness flares, and for a split second, her aura absorbs some of it, turning that rainbow tinged with black into something deeper, more dangerous.

“Fuck,” I mutter, straightening up. “Draven!”

He’s already noticed, stepping back with a frown as Matilda sways slightly, her eyes flickering with shadow, her hair streaking with more black locks.

The orb flickers out as my Incubus nature surges forward without warning. Fuck. The Praxian isn’t just responding to Matilda anymore, it’s reaching for me and Draven, pulling at our Hell essence like a lover’s caress.

I rake my fingers through my hair, fighting the urge to let my true form emerge. Usually, I can control the shift, but something about the way the Praxian is creeping around the training gym makes my skin crawl with need. With hunger.

Draven feels it, too. I see it in the way his movements become more fluid, aggressive. His darkness isn’t just visible now, it’s practically singing, reaching for Matilda’s aura like she’s sustenance.

When she lands that hit on him, I see what’s really happening. The Praxian magick doesn’t absorb the darkness, it devours it, uses it to transform itself into something new. Something that makes my Incubus nature salivate.

“Draven,” I call out, my voice rough with restraint. “Step back.”

He does, but reluctantly. The look he gives me is pure Hell-born hunger. Shit. The Praxian is drawing our Demons closer to the surface, and Matilda’s power is adapting to feed off our darkness. Like I feed off sexual energy, and Draven off death, the Praxian is learning to consume Hell essence. The black streaks in her hair are physical manifestations of ancient Earth magick fusing with something it was never meant to touch. Something that it has had a taste of and wants more. Hell and Earth power work on separate frequencies, as we’ve already established. This is… this is forming something that could possibly be an abomination.

“Tilly,” I warn, but my Incubus thrashes beneath my skin, wanting to get closer, to taste this new power. “The Praxian is evolving.”

Her eyes meet mine, and I see shadows dancing in their depths. She is fully aware of what is going on. It makes my cock stiffen painfully. There’s a hunger in her gaze there that mirrors mine. The urge to devour her body and soul is too much. I can’t stop it. I can only hope that whatever protected her the other day in the forest is still there because Draven won’t stand a chance. I lunge for her, gripping her upper arms as my mouth crashes to hers. Her hands come up to grip my shirt, and with a strength that has been itching to come out, she rips the buttons open and they go pinging off in all directions. With a low growl, I force her back to the climbing bars screwed into the wall behind her, one of my hands dropping to cup her pussy, squeezing it roughly.

She gasps into my mouth as the Incubus reaches out, starved of souls and desperate for a taste of hers.

The shield I throw up blazes black and crimson, cutting us off from Draven’s attempts to intervene. His shouts become muffled, distant and forgotten as I focus on the pull of Matilda’s soul calling to my Demon. I’ve been starving for this, denying my true nature since I met Matilda, that the hunger has become a living thing inside me.

“Luc,” she gasps against my mouth. The sound of my name on her lips makes my darkness more profound. Her soul tastes like nothing I’ve ever encountered before. It is raw power threaded with something ancient and wild. It is even more intoxicating because the Praxian doesn’t just lie there and let me feed on it. It feeds back, creating a loop of utter depravity that makes my cock rage to get inside Matilda while I consume the very essence of her.

My fingers dig deeper into her hip, and she moans. I should care about the pain flickering across her face, the way her body trembles against mine. But the Incubus is beyond caring now, beyond any pretence of control. Each pull of her soul-force sends a jolt of pure black power straight to my core.

Black veins spider across her pale skin like ink in water. Her nails rake down my chest, drawing blood, and the sharp copper scent mixed with her soul-taste nearly sends me over the edge. This is what I’ve been craving since that first moment I saw her get out of the car with Draven. This is a feral, primal connection and it never felt so fucking good.

“Luc,” Draven warns, but I ignore him. I can feel the tendrils of death all around us, but the Hellfire shield is being reinforced by the tainted Praxian. It wants this. It wants to feed from me as much as I am from it.

Matilda whimpers in my arms as I unzip my pants and pull my cock out. She grips it, fisting it tightly as I groan into her mouth. Her soul refuses to break free, refuses to fade like all the others before her. The Praxian protects her, using my own Hell-essence to strengthen her even as I feed. It’s a perfect circuit of power and it’s fucking addictive. My darkness flows into her, and her soul-force flows into me, creating something that shouldn’t exist, but if it ever went away, it would kill me. I strip her with my magick, eager to get inside her hot cunt.

“More,” she whispers, her voice thick with pain and something darker, hungrier. Her eyes meet mine, and they’re swimming with shadows now, reflecting my desperate need. The knowledge that the Praxian is learning from me, adapting, and evolving hits me, and I fall into it, letting it take everything I’ve got. Everything I am.

This is the height of danger. This is addiction in its purest form. Every pull of her soul makes me crave more, makes my Demon dig deeper, searching for the core of her power. And still, she doesn’t break. Still, she feeds me even as I try to devour her whole. I guide my cock to her pussy and ram it inside her roughly, painfully. She raises her arms and grips the climbing bars above her head, using her magickal strength to lift herself up so she can wrap her legs around me. I bury my dick deeper, feeling her drench me with lust.

Matilda gasps as I thrust into her. Her cunt clenches around my cock. The pleasure is exquisite, heightened by the continuous exchange of power between us. With each shove, I feed from her, filling the emptiness inside that I’ve carried for so long that I didn’t even know was there. Nothing will ever be able to satisfy me ever again.

“Fuck, Tilly,” I growl, my voice distorted by my Demon nature when I shift. My cock expands to fit my form and she screams as it tears her apart. “You’re perfect. So fucking perfect.”

The black veins spread further across her skin, a physical manifestation of how our essences are intertwining. It should terrify me, but all I feel is an overwhelming need for more.

I increase my pace, slamming into her with Demonic strength. The climbing bars creak and groan under the force of our fucking. My wings spread out, flapping in time with my thrusts.

Through our connection, I feel the Praxian magick shifting and adapting. It’s learning from my Demon nature, my Devil nature, and incorporating aspects of Hell into its primordial power. But I’m too far gone to care.

I drop my mouth to her neck and clamp my teeth down, sharp and feral. She cries out as I rip her jugular open and drink her blood straight from her vein. It gushes into my mouth, and the power in it makes me dizzy.

“Luc,” Matilda whimpers, her voice thick with pleasure and something darker. “I can feel you... everywhere.”

I growl against her throat, gulping back as much of her blood as quickly as it will let me. Her soul is stripped bare for me, and usually, at this point, the creature would be dead in my arms. But not Matilda. She is more alive than I’ve ever felt her. Her cunt milks my cock, dragging me further inside her until I’m balls deep with nowhere left to go. I can’t withdraw from her, it’s too painful to remove even a millimetre of my cock from her pussy. So I rock my hips roughly, rutting her instead of fucking her. She convulses in my arms as I release her neck, my mouth dripping with her blood. It should surprise me, but it doesn’t, to see black blood oozing from the bite mark.

“Fuck,” I groan as she comes so hard on my dick, it triggers my climax.

My orgasm hits with devastating force, crashing over me in waves of dark ecstasy. I roar as I empty myself inside Matilda, feeling her cunt spasm around my cock. The exchange of power intensifies, creating a feedback loop of pleasure and corruption that threatens to consume us both. The euphoria shoots through me like a bolt of lightning, white-hot and searing, as I come deep inside her. Her tight pussy clenches around my cock, milking every drop of my cum from me.

“Can never go back,” I pant when I feel another climax hit me. “Never go back.”

“Never,” Matilda moans. “Never.”

As we both ride out our multiple orgasms, our breathing is ragged, and our bodies are slick with sweat. The Hellfire shield flickers and then dies.

“UnHoly shit,” Matilda pants, making me chuckle. Her eyelids are heavy, but her expression is sated. “What just happened?”

I can’t find the words. What just happened defies explanation. We’ve just shared more than our bodies. We shared magick, the very essence of who we are. Her soul has given me a manic boost, which rumbles under my skin and makes me twitch every so often. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next. Usually, the soul is delivered straight to Hell, but Matilda’s soul is still intact, even though I’ve fed on her. It’s bizarre, but it’s the ultimate claiming. I’ve never felt more alive in my immortal life than I do right now.

“You utter cock,” Draven says.

I laugh as Matilda lowers her arms, and I grab her around the waist to lower her gently to the floor. “Jealous, brother?”

“You wish. You are fucking lucky she is immortal.”

“It’s not just that,” Matilda pants as I dress her again with magick before stashing my cock back in my pants. “The magick is twisted, it wanted to taste Hell. It…” She looks at me for an explanation, but I don’t really have one.

“It has evolved.”

Matilda nods and stares at her hands. The black veins have faded now, but the shadow of them lingers. She fists them when they shake, and she looks up at me and then Draven. “I have to go,” she mutters and bolts from the training gym before either of us can stop her.

Draven glares at me, but then his expression turns curious. “What was it like to devour her soul but have her still live?”

“Like fucking nirvana,” I groan, throwing my head back. “She is a drug, and I’m addicted to her. This isn’t a one-off, Dray.”

He nods understandingly. “It doesn’t have to be if she is okay with it.”

I look at the door where she disappeared, feeling her cum cooling on my cock. The trouble is, even if she isn’t okay with it, I can’t live without her now. If she denies me the chance to do this again, I will hit withdrawals, and it won’t end well for any of us.