“We have a problem,” Kalan announced. She was one of the witches sent to murder an entire village to add to the grid, spreading wide into the Nine Realms.
Ilsa tilted her raven-colored head, glaring at the newcomers. She nodded toward the shadows while her magic flowed endlessly through the room, slithering against our flesh. It was a warning, the power raw and smothering to those within its reach.
“I don’t feel the power that should have added to the grid, Kalan.” Ilsa turned toward the corner, nodding her head again slightly, and my eyes narrowed as I inspected the empty space.
A tremble of unease trickled down my spine as magic pulsed thicker in the room until my body threatened to bend and yield to the woman before me. Kalan’s blackened eyes turned, noting the witches who stood silently while Ilsa decided our fates.
“That’s the problem, Mistress. We were interrupted before we could seal that grid and add the magic to your amassing powers.”
“By whom?” Ilsa hissed, her blackened teeth clenching as my stomach churned with the grotesque visual her character and person had become.
“We don’t know who she is, but her power was… different. The magic she unleashed as a warning was unlike anything I’d ever felt.”
Ilsa turned her dead eyes toward Kalan. Sweat beaded on my nape from the coldness of her stare. Hatred boiled to the forefront, and Kalan’s failure sent my lips twisting into a wicked grin. Ilsa’s mouth pulled back into a tight snarl that vibrated from her with displeasure.
“Explain to me what happened, you idiot!” she screeched, her hands balling into fists as her body slithered, turning to face the group of witches who had failed her.
I buffed my nails on my skirt, watching as Kalan and her group tensed from the force of Ilsa’s full attention directed at them. Magic suddenly filled the room, a sign that more bodies were added to the grotesque grid that stretched all around the Palace of Magic. Steeling against another shiver, I watched as the blackening ooze of putrid magic pulsed through the witch’s veins.
“We added the dark magic, just as you instructed, Mistress. I’d just finished the last of the spell when King Karnavious entered the area, moving through it, seemingly oblivious to our presence. I grabbed his wrist, and the moment I did, another witch sent her magic rushing through us with what I assumed to be a warning that he wasn’t to be touched. It would have ended there, but her magic unraveled the grid’s power, and something happened to the souls.”
Ilsa tipped her head, turning to look over her shoulder as power pulsed faster and harder through the room. Anger and pain rose in my throat, and I forced it down with a veneer, giving nothing away that would show the fear and trepidation that arose. The anxiety of what was to come wrapped around my heart, tightening my throat with emotion.
“You said she took the power of the grid, easily? You allowed her to cast without guarding the grid?” she snapped, her spittle spraying over Kalan’s face.
“It was unlike anything we’d ever felt. I figured it was more important to return to you and report back with what we had found first and foremost.”
“You thought wrong,” Ilsa growled. Her hands unclenched as she stepped aside, moving back to the window that overlooked the grid.
“We have failed you, Mistress,” Kalan whispered, her obsidian eyes narrowing to slits as Ilsa turned toward the shadows once more, tilting her head as if she could hear something that none of the rest of us could. “We will move to attack another town and finish the grid.”
“No, you will not.”
Dark magic rushed through the room, causing nausea to swirl within me. My body clenched, and I fought to keep from spewing up what little food had been given to me as one of Ilsa’s disciples. My attention moved to the witches, noting the eerie, utter silence that filled the air as panic and disbelief crossed Kalan’s expression.
Kalan’s hands lifted before her, and her mouth opened as blood expelled from her lungs. My body trembled with the atrocity of horrors unfolding before me. Hands became ashes, black lines spread through them as flesh turned to flecks of embers that flowed through the room. Ilsa opened the window, moments before Kalan’s fiery parts slid past us to escape upon the wind.
One witch from Kalan’s group howled, her body a mass of glowing lines that looked as if she’d drunk lava, and it was escaping through her veins.
A witch beside me screamed, her fear overriding her need to survive. Everyone in line stepped back to reveal the guilty party in our ranks. The witch who’d shown her fear, jerked forward by invisible hands, her body making odd scrunching noises before it dropped to the floor, ripped apart as her deafening scream echoed in my ears.
I didn’t move or even blink as Ilsa watched us from her vantage point beside the window. My fingers remained flat at my sides, showing no reaction. No emotion whispered through me, or any outward sign of the screaming echoing through my head as the body before me continued to bend until only the crunching of broken bones sounded. The screams died away, and then Ilsa moved, slowly walking to stand directly in front of me as the scent of burning, rotted flesh singed my nose.
“Fearless, and yet so beautiful,” she whispered.
Blackened fingertips touched my chin, forcing my heart to thunder in my chest. I held it together, praying for my heart to slow to a steady beat. I thought of the meadows where I’d once played with my sisters.
We’d spent hours on our backs, gazing up at the sky, guessing the shapes that each of us could find within the puffy clouds that filled the blue skies. The rapid beating tapered off, slowly returning to a steady beat as Ilsa’s lips curved into a smile. The scent of decay and death caused my eyes to burn as the stink from her heated breath fanned my face.
“What is your name?”
“It is whatever you wish it to be, Mistress,” I announced, standing statuesque straight.
“I didn’t ask you what I wanted to name you. I asked you what name your mother graced you with, Witch.”
“Soraya, Mistress,” I stated without looking into her eyes. I looked through her, knowing she hated it when her acolytes looked into her decaying form.
“Tell me, Soraya, what do you see out there?”
She smiled at me as more power entered the room, jerking our bodies from the sheer force of magic to find that Ilsa had removed the dead witches from the room, adding them to the power grid outside. Ilsa grabbed my hand, forcing me to the window as my heart jackhammered against my ribs, worried about her intentions.
Oily shadows appeared around the victims comprising the grid. We called them The Dark Ones. They were creatures completely consumed by dark magic that had taken control of them in life, flowing through them in death. Venomous clouds of magic oozed around them, poisoning the air as they moved the corpses around, connecting hands or other body parts to the next in line.
It wasn’t just a toxic cloud surrounding them, though. Damned souls and the souls of those added to the grid lived inside the clouds of mist. Revenants created the macabre fog with the dead’s graying faces, reaching toward the witches tending the human power grid. To those of us close enough to the darkness, we knew what crawled within the blackened cloud.
The Dark Ones had nearly captured me once. Their twisted gray corpses with poisonous teeth and long, grasping claws were created to capture the living. The dead’s withered husk had seized my leg, leaving poison that seeped into my pores, fighting to subdue me so the dead, mindless beasts could feast upon my living cells.
The condemned souls of The Dark Ones exist trapped within perverse, dark magic, forming swirls and wisps that drift in the thickening fog, reaching out toward their victims like smoky fingers. Still, I could hear the unholy eeriness of their voices as they screamed and cried out for us to join them in their void of nothingness.
Witches that had displeased Ilsa wore coverings over their faces to hide bits of bones revealed from the boiling of their flesh. Their punishment was to stand close to the revenants, allowing the wispy fingers to care
ss their skin. Bile pushed against my throat, burning. I fought to conceal my weakness so I wouldn’t become her next victim, adding my magic to her power grid.
The odor released from the cloud surrounding The Dark Ones consisted of death and rotten flesh that clung to their souls in the afterlife, of which they could never escape or know peace, so long as Ilsa lived. That was the fate given to the acolytes who had displeased her, no matter how minor the offense.
These witches thought they served Ilsa well, but revenants would consume them in that unholy mist if they displeased her again. Their corpses spat out and added to her power grid, making the ultimate sacrifice, forced to serve her for eternity.
Many others had displeased her or failed to answer her summons to give in to the dark magic. Ilsa slaughtered them for their unwillingness to take what she so freely offered. You helped the mistress either by becoming a dark witch or by adding your power to her grid.
Focusing on the scene below, I saw that the grid spread out miles beyond the horizon, further than my eyes could see. Bodies covered the ground in circular patterns, even where the sun rose over the mountain, and in the sweeping valley that settled into a wide-mouthed gorge. All the grids were directing power to the Palace of Magic, no longer called the Palace of Light, once Ilsa had assumed control. No light reached these walls, shrouding the palace in darkness and offering only a cold, restless death.
Ilsa cleared her throat, and I realized I had yet to answer her question. I continued to gaze out the window.
“I see absolute power, which is yours for the taking, and rightly so, Mistress,” I turned toward her and away from the grid she forbade us from admiring too long, in the event we thought to reach for the power it exuded.
Ilsa’s smile was cold, curving her lips, sending dread and trepidation rushing through me. Her hand lifted, touching the amber curls that hung in rivulets down my shoulders. Ilsa stepped closer, her eyes holding mine while challenging me silently. I felt the need to hold her stare as if something more was happening here.
“Hecate’s line has returned.”
“So it is rumored, Mistress,” I answered firmly, somehow managing to stay upright past her rotting corpse’s debilitating stench.
Ilsa’s scent was thick and eye-watering, like a chamber pot filled with rotten shit while surrounded by the dead who had suffered an ailment, dying before emptying its contents. Unblinking eyes held mine, searching for any sign of weakness, but I’d long ago had it beaten out of me.
You didn’t expose fear to your enemies, or those you served. Her jaw clenched tightly, unnerved by the inability to cower me before her. She turned again, staring off into the corner before nodding once firmly.
“I have a job for you, Soraya. I do hope you won’t fail me. Such brazen courage before your mistress could be grounds for punishment, but I find your strength to pretend that you’re not terrified, intriguing. Come, I would speak to you away from the ears of the other acolytes who would listen to our every word. I’m about to make you a legend, sending you to a king that has a fondness for those who have yet to turn to darkness.” She peered out the window once more.
My heart slowed, trained to hide fear and emotion since the day I’d been born, half-witch, half-shifter. When my mother refused Ilsa’s dark magic, she abandoned us, leaving me alone to raise my younger sisters. She had known her life would end at that moment, and her attempt to hide us in the Realm of Light had failed since Ilsa had conquered it, claiming it as her own.
I swallowed, hating that Ilsa held power over me. My eyes slid to the line, running briefly over my youngest sister, Julia, who stared forward, eyes pooling with darkness. My heart clenched, knowing that I would lose my sister unless I found a witch stronger than the one I served. Steeling the emotion her emptiness caused me, I plastered a wicked smile on my lips, turning to look at Ilsa.
“I am yours to command, Mistress. Becoming a legend sounds wickedly nice. How may I please you?”
I’d be whatever Ilsa needed to remain close to my sister, even if I lost my soul in the process.
Chapter Five
Aria
My eyelashes fluttered as I lounged on the stone that overlooked the large hot springs in which Dimitri bathed, washing the blood off of his hands and arms. He wasn’t ashamed of his body in the least, or offended that I stared at his ass with what he assumed was hunger. Instead, I compared it to Knox’s masculine, perfectly muscular form and found Dimitri lacking.
“You could join me. You know you want to,” Dimitri chuckled, and I snorted, rolling my eyes toward the vivid blue sky above me.
Birds sang in colorful trees, snatching insects out of the sky every once in a while when they’d get too close. The forest we had hidden within was lush with greenery and colorful flowers that moved around the trees, pulsing with life. I studied one bird, a smile playing on my lips, watching as the flower behind it bloomed. The flower lunged, closing around the bird, sending feathers drifting down from the limb. Shocked, I sat up, feeling a pang of regret for the bird and making a mental note not to piss off the trees with flowers.
“You do realize you’re just going to get bloody again, right?” Frowning, I lowered my gaze to the witches we’d captured in the town just outside the forest. They had murdered all the villagers and had used their corpses to create the power grid when Dimitri and I found them.
“Unless they start talking,” he muttered, nodding toward the struggling witches and their severed limbs still twitching on the forest floor.
Strolling out of the spring, Dimitri paused and shook the water from his hair, making sure I had plenty of time to notice the impressive erection he didn’t even bother trying to hide.
Moving to where I sat, Dimitri leaned over to place a soft kiss against my cheek. Since I’d saved him from certain death, he’d fought the attraction he felt for me, but it seemed harder to ignore each time we ended up somewhere together. It wasn’t hard for me. On the contrary, I easily ignored Dimitri’s scent and presence. My body didn’t get heated, but admittedly, I found his flirting cute.
It spoke volumes since I turned into a raging sexual fiend every time I was near Knox.
I’d discovered a lot about myself and just how fucked up I was since entering the Nine Realms. I knew that I wanted Knox and that no other male would soothe the ache I felt between my legs, or my clenching need. I hated it, but he’d dug himself so deeply within me I couldn’t rip his claws out.
Dimitri hadn’t given up hope that I’d succumb to his seduction and flirted mercilessly with me. His hands grabbed and parted my legs as he settled between them, cupping my face as he studied my eyes. I watched his tongue snake out, wetting his lips, noting the lust that danced within his pretty blue eyes.
“Can I kiss you?” he asked, watching as I puckered my lips, scrunching my face before I exhaled slowly.
Leaning forward, I let his lips brush against mine and waited for the burning need to tear through me. I craved the primal need. The violence the kiss would rip from me, reminding me I wasn’t human at all, no matter how I looked. It never came.
With Dimitri, it was cute flirting.
With Brander, there was a little heat.
With Knox, he melted the flesh from my bones, revealing the monster beneath the skin I wore. He scorched me down to my rawest form. Knox exposed bones, melting away my human genetics as he showed how deeply he intended to take me. Bare-bones, primitive need, driven by animalistic instincts that demanded we go hard, fast, and the monsters slumbering within us felt our mutual connection.
Dimitri pulled back, narrowing his gaze on me as he frowned. “You’re not kissing me, are you?”
“I was,” I muttered, using my foot to push him away. I moved to collect my knife from where it sat just out of reach beside the witches.
It wasn’t as if they could reach it anyway since I’d removed their arms. Dimitri was quiet, so I peered back at him, noting his stiffened spine as guilt washed through me. I knew he was attracted to me,
but Knox’s warning echoed through my head. If my creature surfaced in response to Dimitri’s wolf, he was burnt toast. I missed toast. The food in the Nine Realms was lacking, to say the least.
I crouched down, moving my skirt out of the way of the bloodied witch, and watched as she opened her mouth, preparing to scream.
“You could make this easier on yourself and just tell me what I want to know,” I offered. My eyes slid to another witch secured to a tree, watching me with fear etched in her expression. “You’re next,” I taunted.
Dimitri leaned against the rock I’d abandoned, watching me through thick, dark lashes. He waited for me to slice the dagger through the witch’s side, opening a large gash in her flesh as blood began seeping into the ground. She struggled to escape me, using the stumps of her cauterized elbows to scoot out of reach. There was no escape, just like there was no escape for her victims in the village.
“Could you love him?” Dimitri asked offhandedly, causing my heart to race with the answer as he scoffed. “You will be nothing more to him than an enemy with flesh in which he finds release, Aria. You deserve better than that,” he growled low, unimpressive to the monster within me.
My beast didn’t even acknowledge Dimitri, other than peeking out, rolling over, before going back to sleep. It terrified me that he was right, but then what did I want from Knox? I liked his dick. I enjoyed his touch and the rawness of him as we went to war with each other’s bodies. Did I see a future for us? No. Ghosts that he couldn’t let go of yet broke and haunted him.
Dimitri bent down as his mouth changed, revealing long canines. He ferociously tore into the throat of the witch on the ground, lifting his glowing, sapphire, alpha eyes toward the other tied to the tree. The potent scent of urine assaulted me, and I grimaced, covering my nose from the offensive stench. Death was messy and disgusting.
“Where is the Keeper of Lightning located?” he asked, creeping toward the witch on the tree as I studied his physique.
Dimitri had thick tribal tattoos on his arms, and wolves and skulls decorated his waist, torso, and back. His thick, dark hair brushed the tops of his broad shoulders, yet unlike Knox’s body, I didn’t itch to touch it or his tattoos. Dimitri was virility and masculinity mixed into how an alpha should act and look. His body promised pleasure while his strength told of security. So why wasn’t I attracted to him? I felt nothing when I looked at Dimitri, other than an appreciation for his masculinity.
Ashes of Chaos (Legacy of the Nine Realms Book 2) Page 4