Page 223 of The Chains You Defy

Calling them back, all minus the one slithering past me through the shield, where he’d comfort my heart and soul.

Adharcan.

Harc.

How fitting.

My precious goddess shouldn’t be so close, yet never further away from me, with danger lurking behind every corner.

But now that she had a chunk of me with her again, I’d bring her to safety.

With a flick of my wrist, I converted my spawn into something eternal.

How I achieved that was intrinsic.

And so I followed the hovering black bubble with my eyes, ordering Adharcan to soothe my precious. He gladly complied with my wishes.

As expected, Danartha tried to flee to the nearest light once she was unbound.

That had been my intention, granting her the hope that she could reach a way to escape.

But there was one fact she had to learn the hard way—her light was no match for my darkness. My power would swallow her whole, extinguish her glow until the last drop. With my head covered in dark energy cocked to the side, I studied her like an insect as she bolted toward a sunny patch at the riverbank, her heart beating hard with tasty fear and desperate optimism.

I allowed her to reach the border between shadow and light. One more step, and she would have attained salvation, but before she could vanish, I dragged her feet down into the inky pool underneath her feet, holding her hostage as I approached her with measured steps.Each movement was calculated, my pace designed to create maximized terror.

“Little Danartha, so terrified of the one you desired to marry?”My voice was distorted, just as warped as my features. I’d arrived in front of her at last, and shadows wafted around my hand as I extended my fingers to pat her cheek in a mocking gesture.

“Don’t touch me, abomination.”

“Tsk. You’ve changed your mind quickly.”

“I didn’t know about—that.”

The laugh rippling from me was cold as ice as I stroked down her cheek, marring her skin with specks of the onyx liquid coating my fingers. “Are you aware of how many mistakes you recently made? A hint—the last one was coming here to terrorize my one true love.”

“Release me, Scriosta. I’ll leave, and I don’t want to see you ever again.”

“Oh, your wish will be fulfilled real soon.”

“You’ve made your point.”

“No, it’s you who made her bed and has to lie in it, for as short as this will be.”

Patience was wearing thin, and I’d made up my mind, even though this primal part of me still demanded to terminate the petrified female this instant. But I had a better idea. One to appease my goddess and to teach everyone else not to mess with what was mine.

“Stop, let me go, monster. I was just delivering a message in the name of the High King.”

As if that was a reason to cease my assault.

I stopped listening to her screeching.

She bored me.

Instead, I inhaled her fear as I picked her up into my coated arms. She felt wrong in there, but the contactwouldn’t last long. “See, vile Danartha. My uncle had once mouthed the theory that someone can only survive shadowwalking unharmed when they are attuned to darkness. Let’s see if that’s true.”

“Where do you want to bring me?”

“Not far.”