Page 178 of Taken By Touch and Torment

Rosalind smiled. “See you on the other side.”

The doors to the throne room were wide open. Inside, brawling vampires had gone silent, frozen in place. My shadows returned to me, more dead vampires lying in heaps at our backs.

A boom from outside racked the palace’s foundations.

I was one step ahead of Scarlett, and we stopped a foot past the doorway. I glanced up at the dais—the empty throne, the floor littered with dead vampires, and the born who’d been engaged in fights but had halted as soon as they’d laid eyes on me.

Then I regarded the mass of bodies on the main floor. I caught a glimpse of blonde curls in a far corner, a woman in a poofy pink dress ushering humans her way.

But the born stared at me, Scarlett by my side.

After they got a good look, I tossed what I’d been carrying into the space.

Durian and Brennan’s heads made a rather unappetizing cracking noise when they met the marble dais.

Before the born could react, I bathed the room in darkness.

I was the only one who could see, and I watched with satisfaction as the slaves linked arms, and Rosalind led them out the back entrance.

“Baby,” I whispered. “I’m going to have some fun, now. Stay close.”

“Yes, Rune,” she answered like a good girl.

I scented her reawakened arousal at the sheer magnitude of my power.

I let it fuel me, the same as her powerful succubus blood in my veins. My gaze narrowed, my senses heightened. I was merely a predator homing in on prey.

The born had already been driven to madness by a cunning succubus who’d entered their ranks. But with their most powerful men’s heads on the floor while they bathed in the shadows of Lillian’s bastard son—their sanity was obliterated for good.

Scarlett broadcasted her power, and a wave of bloodlust consumed the born scrambling like beheaded chickens.

Some of them managed to resume the fights they were already involved in, doing my job for me as they finished off their rivals. I made short work of the closest group of born, letting my shadows reduce them to mangled body parts.

Toward the far end of the room, where the slaves had escaped, I sent a hellish cyclone of rot and decay. The walls and floor blackened where my magick touched, and hordes of born fell in piles of ash and bones.

Someone wielded light, illuminating where Scarlett and I stood.

I beheaded him next, deftly lifting Scarlett and dodging the blades thrown our way. I flattened us against a wall, my shadows feasting on flesh as I let every last buried emotion and desire burst free from my careful control.

When I’d been captured, I’d been forced to watch Brennan touch Scarlett. I’d been forced to study her poor body covered in bruises and gashes, unable to lift a finger. I’d kept all that rage, horror, and heartbreak carefully tucked behind my guarded armor.

All the while, I’d known this moment would come. When I could finally let my true impulses roam free.

I sensed Scarlett’s magick aiding mine, amplifying the room’s chaos and hiding us behind a wall of glamour.

Now this was true love.

I stole a quick kiss, her lips melding with mine for too brief a moment.

“Shh,” I soothed, her little heart ramping up as she shifted her thighs together.

I spun my web of destruction, wielding magick with a ruthlessness I hadn’t been able to use in years. I killed a born for every bruise I’d counted on Scarlett’s body the first time she was here, and then I killed a born for each mark I’d seen today.

At a certain point, I found myself laughing at the way their magick and weapons sought me uselessly, the way they fell pitifully to the gaudy rugs and marble. Their shitty art was eaten up by shadow, their tasteless sculptures and furniture shriveling and crumbling to rubble.

By the time a fire had started, I’d already gotten more than enough of my fill of violence.

I wasn’t sure who’d lit the match, but at the sight of leaping flames licking up the side of the wall opposite us, I pulled back my straining veil of shadow magick.

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