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Chapter thirty-three

I counted to three hundred. That was how long I let myself cry.

Then I wiped my cheeks and eyes with the sleeve of my green sweater and focused forward. Straight south with no stops. Hopefully I wouldn’t have to search long for the camp. Best to get this over with before I changed my mind.

The gelding was old, smaller and slower than our black mare, but he galloped as fast as he could.

Fast enough that peppering sleet from the dark, overcast sky felt like tiny pointed blades on my skin.

For most of the journey, I thought of my loved ones happy.

It was the only way I could stifle the fear and keep from turning around.

An hour passed, maybe a little more, before I found flame torches casting an eerie glow in the distance. The horse slowed without needing to be told, sensing the impending danger.

Dark figures and their shadows slinked in and out of tents so black I couldn’t make out where one started and another began.

I shuddered. The bitterness in the air around me was unnatural. It stole the breath from my lungs and turned it to ice as it passed from my lips. Bitter cold rooted in my core and released starving tendrils of evil that reached to devour every remaining pocket of light within me.

I gripped the hilt of my dagger to provide myself with some sliver of assurance. Some, not much. I wasn’t here to fight.

The Insidions on guard gathered around a fire on the north side of the camp. I decided to leave the horse a long walk away, hoping they might never find it. Or if they did, spare it. One of us should make it out of here. Each step toward that fire was an effort, but I took each one.

A tall, beautiful female with an ebony mane saw me first. Her black cloak was hooded, but the hood rested over her shoulders.

Her long legs and torso were clad in fighting leathers, and she had a sword sheathed at her side.

I figured Gavin’s wife looked like her—statuesque and alluring.

I prayed the gods might spare me from seeing her, just so that part would hurt a little less.

The raven-haired woman strode out in front of the fire, her four comrades standing to attention at her movement. A few others meandering about their tents sniggered and stayed put. I wasn’t enough of a threat to warrant their attention.

Infusing false confidence into my voice, I announced to the raven-haired woman, “I’m here to make a deal with Molochai.”

She cocked her head at me. It was too dark to decipher her eye color, but they looked… evil . Her bright-red lips peeled back to reveal a disturbingly beautiful smile.

“And why shouldn’t we kill you on the spot? Walking so willingly into our camp. Quite… stupid.” She folded her long, slender fingers at her waist. “Though Lord Molochai will certainly… enjoy you.”

“Because I am Simeon Whitlock’s daughter.” I forced my shoulders up, back, and hid my trembling lip. “I am the one Queen Christabel foretold.”

A few more Insidions—equal to her in rank based on the insignia on their black lapels—sidled up to stand with her .

Her smile vanished. “You?” she uttered icily, her eyes drifting to my long silver braid still tousled from bed. She laughed—a shrill, grating cackle. “You’re her? How… underwhelming .”

“Now, now, Kiana, don’t envy the pretty little thing,” purred the Insidion beside her. Another woman—short with pale lips, a long, thin face, and dull brown hair tied into a tight bun. I glanced to their left, where there stood three men with brutish features.

“What deal do you propose?” asked the brunette woman.

“I want to make a trade. Myself for Smyth’s wife.”

The raven-haired woman scoffed. The men beside her looked at each other and laughed. She held up a slender hand to silence them. “ You would sacrifice yourself for Smyth?”

I gritted my teeth, not deigning to answer, and said, “I want to speak to Molochai.”

The brunette sidled up to me and stopped before me, too close. Her nostrils flared with a deep inhale, and something hungry flashed in her black eyes. “So young,” she crooned. “So… willing . I can smell your desire on you.”

“No games,” I gritted out. “Take me to Molochai.”

The woman ran a finger along my jaw as her pale lips curved into a vacant smile. “You’re no fun,” she sighed.

She struck a sharp blow with her fist to the center of my jaw.

I hit the ground and saw dark.

***

I woke up tied to a tree and stripped of my clothes, the ground beneath me frozen.

I sat at the base of the tree, arms spread fully open, bound by rope—unyielding around each of my wrists—stretched around the trunk of the tree.

I could use the strength of my core to stand but couldn’t turn, hide, or cover a single part of my naked body.

The icy forest floor, at least, numbed the soles of my feet and bare bottom.

The cold burned the rest of me.

My vision cleared to reveal at least ten Insidion men admiring my naked form, a few of them… rubbing their erections over their leather pants.

I screamed and fought against my binds. As I jerked, silky warmth brushed against my bare nipples. I glanced down to see my long hair was loose from its braid and covered both my breasts and most of my chest and shoulders. One small mercy.

“Where is Molochai?” I demanded, crying, spitting at them. “I’m here for him .”

They laughed at me.

“For me? ” purred a deep male voice. A tall, middle-aged man, flanked by shadows, emerged from behind the wall of lechers. “Don’t mind them. They can look, but they can’t touch.” I blinked back my tears and remained still as he approached. “That’s enough, gentlemen.”

They scattered on command but watched from afar, leaving me alone with a man whose darkness flowed behind him like a celestial cape.

For just a moment, it reminded me of Nyxar’s soothing midnight, only this darkness was no glittering onyx, no companion to light.

This darkness suffocated and devoured everything good.

It felt corrupted .

He wore a black tunic jacket embossed with gold on the lapels.

Elegant designs—nothing like his Insidions’ sinister blood-red, bull head sigils.

His eyes were a deep, beautiful brown, and his black hair—thick and streaked with gray—was slicked back over his head.

A perfectly groomed goatee framed a disturbingly handsome smile.

“I’m Simeon’s daughter,” I rushed out through chattering teeth. “I can prove it to—”

“You don’t need to prove it to me, Ary.” His hands were tough and attractive, had they not belonged to the devil.

Had those long fingers not been tipped with black talons and his skin ice cold.

I sucked in a sharp breath when he reached for my face.

“Somehow, you’re even more beautiful than my Christabel.

” He gripped my chin between his clawed fingers. “And the resemblance is… uncanny.”

My stomach lurched with terror and relief in equal measure. Because if that was true, then this would probably work.

“It is a shame I’ll have to kill you,” Molochai sighed.

I refrained from pulling away. For him to agree, I needed to be compliant. “You don’t want to kill me.”

“Why is that?”

“Because I have an offer I think will interest you.”

He smirked and tightened his grip on my chin. “I’m listening.”

“You loved my Aunt Christabel.” I flinched when he brushed his nose against my temple and inhaled my scent. “I look like her, like you said. I’m young. I’ve never even been with a man. I can be what you want.”

His lithe shadows danced around us, hungry and thrashing.

“And what would you require in return?”

“Let Smyth’s wife go. I know you have her.”

His cold finger traced my collarbone. I bit my tongue to stifle a cry.

“Take me and my power, and we’ll leave Nyrida and never return. Free the people on this continent, and I will be whatever you want.”

He brushed a cold thumb over my breast.

“That is my offer. Agree to it, and I… I will be yours.”

His eyes, eerily bewitching, studied me. My stomach lurched when I recalled how recently another pair of eyes had drawn me in like that. Eyes I loved.

“I don’t have his wife, Ary.” Molochai grinned. “I’m not even sure who she is. But it was a good little trick, wasn’t it?” Gesturing around, he added, “So where is he? ”

My eyes burned hot with tears for Gavin. For my failure. But part of this could still work.

“If you don’t have his wife, then free my people.” I forced my chin up defiantly. “Take me, end this fight with Simeon, and leave this world in peace.”

He chuckled. “Very enticing, Ary. More than you know.” His shadows—cold, like ropes of icy wind—snaked around my naked, shivering body, over my bare breast and around my torso, where they squeezed .

“But…” His cold, taloned finger slithered along the base of my neck.

“There’s a larger war to be won than the war between two old friends.

The power Simeon and I bargained for is nothing compared to the power of the Selvaren.

The power…” His finger moved over my navel…

to my hip… to my thigh, a venomous snake waiting to strike. “That is meant to be inside you. ”

A gasping shriek tore out of my throat and faded into broken sobs when the sharp tip of his taloned nail impaled the meat of my thigh.

My blood iced over. Darkness shrouded my vision. And when I looked at my veins, they were swelling with black, beginning at the place he’d cut me. His darkness was inside my body.

He was everywhere, invading me.

I could barely breathe.

“I have it!” I gasped, fighting the panic and terror that clamped down on my throat. “I have it—the power you want. Accept my offer. I’ll do whatever you want, just leave this world alone.”

“I’m inside of you, and your people are all you can think about?” Molochai hissed out a laugh. “I’ll have to give it some more effort.”