Page 113 of Feral Possession

Mystical fingers clamped around her ankle. Not a new experience given her time with Marcus, but there was nothing fun or sexy about Zion’s grip. His oily shadow wrenched her leg. “No!” Her hands scrabbled for purchase on the slick marble. Another hard yank, and she found herself pulled free and flipped on her back.

She peered up into Zion’s demonic visage. His menacing, black horns gleamed beneath the overhead lights. He leaned over her and clamped his hand round her throat. “Time to fly, little bird.”

Twenty-Nine

Marcus slammed the last of his assailants headfirst into the wall. The bastard crumpled and didn’t move. “Shadow, where’s Dove?”

“Above us. I sense her fear.”

“Above us?” Marcus scanned the room. “Shit. Zion is missing as well.”

He raced out the door into the lobby. Dove’s scream echoed from the stairwell.

“He’s gone to the roof with her.”

Two stories later, he charged outside onto the fiftieth floor.

The sight before him seized his heart in his chest. Zion stood at the edge of the roof. Perched on the stone ledge beside him was Dove. Shirt clenched in Zion’s fist, she clung to his forearm, eyes wide with fear.

Marcus stalked closer on leaden legs.

“Close enough,” Zion barked, shaking Dove, making her gasp.

While Marcus’s physical body obeyed, shadows whirled around him, his demon agitated.

“He dares to threaten what is oursss?” Shadow snarled inside Marcus’s head.

Marcus bared his lengthening fangs. “Harm her and my face will be the last thing you see on your way to hell.” His flesh burned, muscles swelling in his torso, claws tipping his fingers.

“There he is.” Pride lit Zion’s demonic visage. “There’s the male I always knew you could be.”

“After all of your lies and the destruction you’ve wrought, now this?” Marcus nodded at Dove, avoiding the look of terror on her face for fear he’d lose control. “What more do you want?”

His uncle’s features smoothed, his expression darkening. “What I’ve always wanted. For you to live up to your full potential. To be a male who is worthy of standing by my side.”

Marcus gritted his teeth. “Doesn’t your cult have enough underlings capable of kissing your ass?”

“What I need isn’t a disciple but a partner. Someone to fill the void your father left. We’d made many plans together, only he didn’t live up to his end of our deal. After he claimed your mother as his Bride, he was distracted, his focus divided. All our plans fell by the wayside. I thought if I removed that distraction, he’d come around. Instead, he became a shell of a man. An embarrassment to the family name. Instead of a partner, he was an obstacle standing in the way of progress.”

Marcus’s mind raced, filling the gaps between the twisted half-truths. His mother’s accident followed by his father’s assassination. Pain speared him, hard enough to make him double over. He braced his hands on his knees. “It was you. You killed them. Both of them.” Emotions welled, filled him with hate, flooded the dark places in his soul.

“Sadly, killing your mother, while warranted, affected me in ways I didn’t expect.” The shadows around Zion darkened, drawing inward. “Too late, I realized my feelings for her were real instead of a passing attraction born of our affair.”

Tiberius put his filthy hands on Marcus’s mother? Disgust threatened to empty his stomach.

“After your birth, I’d dared to hope that you were mine. All too soon, it became apparent you were his. Still, I believed if I raised you, I could make you better, more like me.”

The depth of his uncle’s betrayal was a bottomless pool of poison, sucking Marcus under. “It was you who headed the investigation of his death. You who discovered the male responsible. You who encouraged me to kill my father’s murderer and claim his place as lord.” He’d believed he’d avenged his father when in fact his murderer had stood at his side, pulling Marcus’s strings, watching him dance.

Zion raised his chin. “It was through my guidance that you bettered yourself. Seeing you slaughter your opponent and become lord, it was a proud moment.”

“You’re the snake,” Dove choked out. “The snake in the garden.”

Zion leveled her with his glowing red gaze and canted his head. “Where did you hear that?”

“Josephine Steele told me,” she said, voice trembling. “She recognized you for the charlatan you are. I spoke to her at her mansion.”

Zion curled his lip, sneering, “Of course you did. Necromancers love all things dead, rotting, and forgotten.”

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