Page 15 of Wicked Vows (Cursed Darkness (DarkHallow Academy) #1)

Verik

U sing my power, I pull Lysithea and Evren into the combat hall, slamming the door behind them. She opens her mouth to scream, but no sound comes out.

“No one will hear you,” I murmur.

She chokes on her own blood as whatever heavy magic surrounds this place snaps back onto her. I’d heard the rumours of what it does to her, but now I see it for myself. It looks painful, and I force myself not to go to her to comfort her.

I grimace. What in the fucking hell has this bitch done to me?

I shake off the unwanted flicker of empathy. It’s a weakness, an impurity in the design. I am the architect. Not her fucking saviour.

Lysithea stumbles to her knees, clutching her throat. Blood spots the stone floor, a dark offering. But when she looks up, her eyes are not filled with terror. They burn with a hatred so pure it’s almost beautiful.

“Magnificent,” Dathan breathes, his silver eyes glowing. He’s practically drunk on the cocktail of her pain and betrayal. “The flavour is so complex.”

I ignore him. I walk towards her, my bare feet silent on the floor mats laid around.

I flex my muscles as I hit the wall of her power.

They bunch under my black tee, my cock going hard in my joggers as I meet her red-hot gaze.

This is going to get messy, nasty, even.

I crouch down, bringing myself to her level.

“This isn’t what you think,” I say, my voice low. “This isn’t an execution.”

She spits a mouthful of blood out onto my foot. A direct fuck you.

I’m impressed.

“This is a contract,” I continue, ignoring her defiance. “A binding. We’re offering you a crown, Lysithea. All it will cost you is a little pain.”

Her glare is a physical force. She doesn’t believe a word. She thinks we’re here to break her.

She has no idea we’re here to build a throne, and she’s the one who will forge it.

I burn the blood from my skin with a flick of my will as I straighten up, moving to the edge of the circle. The hellfire runes I inscribed pulse with a hungry light, waiting. Evren takes a step forward, his expression unreadable, but I feel his silent dissent like a drop in temperature.

“Get in the circle, Lysithea,” Dathan says. It’s not a request.

She shakes her head, pushing herself to her feet. She’s unsteady, but her eyes are pure defiance. She takes a stumbling step back, away from us, away from the circle.

“Don’t make me touch you.”

She hisses, making blood stream from her nose.

The floor beneath her feet shifts, flowing like liquid rock. It rises behind her, creating an impassable wall, then ripples forward, a slow, inexorable wave carrying her towards the centre of the pit. She scrabbles for purchase, her fingers finding no hold on the smooth, shifting surface.

The wave deposits her neatly inside the circle of fire.

The moment she crosses the threshold, the runes flare to life, a cage of light erupting around her. The ambient magic of the Blood Pit focuses, converging on her like a lens. Her power, suppressed by the wards, is now being amplified, pressurised.

She throws her head back. A silent scream tears from her throat, a shockwave of pure power that makes the stones of the academy groan under the force of keeping it at bay.

Her eyes are wild as I approach. “Shoes off,” I say, and kneel at her feet. “Lift your foot by your own free will, or I will do it for you.”

She glares at me, keeping her feet planted firmly on the mats. She leaves me no choice.

I lift the hem of her floor-length dress and reach for her ankle. She kicks me, making me hiss out a curse.

“Don’t make me flatten you,” I growl.

Evren appears and pushes me, gently moving me out of the way.

He kneels in front of her and holds out his hands.

She glares at me and then him, but lifts the hem of her dress and offers him her foot.

It’s a sight to behold, even if I don’t trust her.

This is her purpose. This is what she was thrust into his life for.

To be a fucking queen. Our fucking queen.

I see it now, even if I didn’t at first. I was focused on what she could give to us instead of what the four of us could give to each other.

She stands barefoot before us, shorter than us by quite a few inches.

It makes her seem fragile, delicate, even though she could kill us with one well-aimed note.

I knew not to trust her. She launches for the side of the circle, ducking between me and Evren.

She lashes out, but I tower over her. I kick out at her ankles, and she hits the floor mats hard.

“Naughty girl,” I murmur, flipping her over with my magic, tendrils of fire seeping out of my fingers to wrap around her ankles and wrists.

She struggles, silent as the grave due to her bloody, raw throat.

She grunts as the fire burns her skin. The tendrils pull outward until she is spread-eagled on the mats, face down and vulnerable.

The scent of her burnt skin is a sharp, acrid perfume. Her muscles are coiled springs of pure hatred beneath my fiery bonds. No fear. None at all. Just a promise of annihilation that makes my blood sing.

Dathan circles her like a shark, his eyes dilated with hunger. “Exquisite,” he hisses, breathing in the thick air of her defiance. “She tastes of revolution.”

Evren moves to her head, kneeling beside her. He doesn’t touch her hair or face. Instead, his palm hovers an inch above the base of her skull. A cold, silent anchor in the coming storm.

Standing over her, I plant my feet on either side of her hips and tug at her dress.

She squirms furiously and croaks, “Get your fucking hands off me.”

“That sounded like it hurt,” I murmur. “Besides, my hands are on your dress.”

She growls, her body rigid with the pain it causes her.

Pulling out the obsidian dagger from the back of my joggers, I make a tear in the hem of her dress and run the wickedly sharp blade through the fabric, tearing it in half.

I drop the sides and bend down to run the blade under her bra strap.

It tears, and I flick the sides away, so her back is fully exposed.

Her skin is exquisite. I want to run my fingers down her spine and cup her arse before I part her cheeks and claim her from every angle, in every hole she possesses.

She fights, pulling into the tendrils, her fear tinging the air now.

It’s a new, delicious texture in the air.

A sharp, high note in the symphony of her defiance.

I press the tip of the obsidian dagger against the flawless skin at the base of her spine.

Her entire body goes rigid, and she whimpers raggedly. “Please,” she begs.

It makes my cock jump, but I ignore it.

I drag the tip of the blade upwards, at an angle, towards her ribs.

It’s not a cut. It’s a rewrite. Hellfire and demon magic flow from the blade, carving a line of pure black into her flesh. She arches against my fiery restraints, a silent, guttural sound ripping from her raw throat.

The line of the Midnight Soul Scar doesn’t bleed blood. It bleeds darkness, a living ink that spreads from the cut like a growing constellation. Tendrils of black and silver spiderweb across her skin, a living map of our combined power. Our brand.

Dathan groans, a sound of pure ecstasy. He’s feeding on her agony, on the terror that is finally, beautifully, breaking through her rage. Evren’s hand remains steady above her head, his cold power a counterpoint to my fire, anchoring her soul as I tear her physical form apart to rebuild it.

I change direction, etching the brand into her flesh as her body vibrates with the need to scream, to kill us, me most of all.

She is powerless even as she fights against the fire holding her in place.

The pattern is complex, a geometric masterpiece of agony.

Each line I carve is a word in a new language, a language that binds us together.

Power surges from her, a raw, chaotic storm, and the circle channels it.

Her back arches so violently, I think her spine will snap.

The tendrils of hellfire tighten, holding her fast, searing her skin.

The Scar blooms. Black lines of my intent, silver threads of Dathan’s hunger, and a chilling, almost invisible frost from Evren’s silent power spread from the wound. It’s a living thing, a parasite feeding on her pain and our magic.

I press the blade to her skin again, my hand steady despite the power thrumming through my veins.

Time for the final, binding rune. The one that will make her irrevocably ours.

The one that I was fighting against, but I know better now.

This is the one that will make us hers. Before I complete the connection, I pull the blade back and slice it over my palm.

I bleed out on her back, my blood mingling with hers.

I hold the knife out for Dathan, who does the same and then Evren.

He hesitates, but then adds his blood to the mess on her back.

It sizzles, and she thrashes against the pain.

I take the blade back and press it to her skin again.

Dathan puts his hand over mine, and Evren’s over his. Together, we complete the brand.

As the top of the blade slices through her flesh and connects the last line, the air around us rumbles.

I lock gazes with Dathan, recognition flaring in his eyes.

“Fuck,” I mutter as her scream rips through the air.

It catches us up in an apocalyptic wave that doesn’t just break the wards in the Blood Pit, but completely annihilates them.

I fly backwards, my feet lifting off the ground before I smash into the weapons rack as a searing heat erupts on my skin.

I glance down at my arm when I hit the floor.

The Midnight Soul Scar is blooming there, a mirror image of the brand on her back, etched in black fire and silver light.

A living blueprint connecting me to her.

Lysithea is on her feet; the fire tendrils snapped and disintegrated. Her back is to me. The Midnight Soul Scar is a living constellation of black fire and frozen starlight, dancing across her back as her scream echoes around the arena, making blood pour from my eyes and ears.

She is fucking magnificent.