Page 111 of Beyond the Temptation: Vol 2

His startled gaze darted to mine. “No. Absolutely not! You are not dying on me! Do you hear me?” he shouted, bolting to his feet. “Try again, dammit!”

Certain I was only delaying my certain fate, I looked at the body of the man whose soul I’d collected earlier in the night.

I concentrated on it until my face was tight. I shook from head to toe with the effort, and perspiration poured off me. Nothing was happening.

Just as I was ready to give up, a tiny tendril of smoke spiraled up. I was vaguely aware of someone in the room gasping. Suddenly, there was a bright burst and blue flames consumed the body. It burned hot but didn’t scorch the area around it. Then it slowly died out, leaving nothing but a pile of ash.

Titus quickly padded over and gathered it in a wooden box. He brought it over to the table and set it next to his supplies. The witch, Octavia, joined him. She quietly worked alongside Titus—him preparing and gathering ingredients which he handed off to her. With each step, she softly spoke a portion of the spell, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying.

“Why couldn’t you just burn the body yourself?” she asked Haidyn without looking up from her task.

“Because with every death we deal and with every body we dispose of, a tiny piece of our essence is left behind. I didn’t want to risk that my essence would contaminate everything or weaken the link to Séamus. It needed to be as purely him as possible,” I heard Haidyn explain.

My pain intensified with each heartbeat that passed. I fitfully dozed off and on, lulled by the easy cadence of her words. Finally, they finished and Haidyn woke me.

“Sire, it’s time.” He helped me to a sitting position, and I gritted my teeth as each movement was like being ripped apart from the fibers of my being.

Octavia presented me with a steaming mug. No way could I raise my arms to take it from her, so she lifted it for me to consume. The first sip was gods awful. I nearly retched.

“Fucking hell,” I groaned with a curl of my lip. “That’s worse than Titus’s brew.”

“If you don’t want to live—if that’s even what you call your existence—then by all means, don’t drink it,” Octavia snapped. “But I wasn’t woken from my bed to slave until sunup on a spell that could mean my death, for nothing. Now open up and chug it for Lilith’s sake.”

I found it in me to cock a single brow at the feisty little witch who dared to speak to the king of demons in such a tone. Yet, I allowed her to return the abhorrent potion to my mouth, and I chugged every disgusting drop.

Then they all helped me lie back down. “My bed would be nice,” I muttered.

“Yeah, well, it’s occupied at the moment,” Haidyn quietly muttered. The memories of taking Aurora and bringing her back to my home flooded me, and I made an attempt to get up to go to her.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Haidyn reprimanded, and he and Titus stopped me. It wasn’t like I was in any condition to fight them, though surprisingly, I began to feel better.

“Rest up for a bit first, sire,” Titus encouraged with a slight warning in his tone.

“Very well,” I sighed.

“I’ll be going now,” Octavia announced as she fastened her cloak and lifted her hood.

Haidyn rushed to her side, and I watched them with a narrowed eyed gaze as they spoke in hushed undertones. Normally, I could’ve heard what they said, but recovering as I was, my usually highly refined hearing was damn near like being underwater.

Haidyn opened the door and met my stare. “I’ll be back after I return Mistress Octavia to her home.”

I gave him a curt nod that took more out of me than I cared to admit. Then spoke. “Octavia?”

She glanced back at me as she waited for me to continue.

“I offer my sincerest thanks. If there is anything in my power that I can do for you in the future, I am forever in your debt,” I told her.

“Make no mistake. This wasn’t done for you, Séamus, but for Haidyn,” she stonily announced before exiting my residence with one last crackling zap of her power before she left.

Haidyn shot me an apologetic look, then followed her out the door, closing it noiselessly behind him.

“At least help me to the guest bedroom, Titus.” My body ached as if someone had taken a club to me. Titus helped me move to the guest bed. It wasn’t as luxurious as my bed, as it was much smaller, but it was better than the fucking table.

As I closed my eyes, I realized the sun was indeed coming up and beginning to cast its light through the balcony archways. I would rest until Haidyn returned.

“Titus?” I mumbled.

“Yes, sire?”

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