Page 109 of Last Gift: Supernatural Battle

She flexed within me, and our muscles tensed in response. She could control my body. Though I’d experience that during the cage incident. She’d taken over then too.

Nearly, my demon hissed. Her black smoke swirled in my chest.

Why are our scales and smoke black? I haven’t seen another black-scaled demon yet.

Our father was of the crimson caste, she replied. But demon blood mixes with light blood.

My magus heritage had turned the color black. How do you know?

She replied after a beat, I know.

And didn’t want to tell me how. I shrugged. What happens from here?

That depends on your weakness.

Which one? I laughed after.

She didn’t. The topic of possessing weakness was not a funny one for her. Good to know. Good to know.

The one where you don’t accept me as part of you, she stated.

I swallowed, and fresh guilt swamped me, though she seemed factual rather than hurt or angry. My demon was inside me and had witnessed the problems arising from her presence here. I feel right with you in me.

Yet me being here makes everything else wrong.

Not everything else. You being here makes things with Wild right. That was no word of a lie. I’d started to feel another urge this morning in the mating ritual. The mating ritual is still going.

You are about to enter the final and most important phase.

We were? It’s the last one?

I couldn’t deny feeling relief. I also couldn’t deny the trickle of fear that accompanied it. The final step in our ritual? The most important, apparently. How would Wild and I change this time? I couldn’t fathom being any closer to him. With so much uncertainty in our lives and future, this added uncertainty wasn’t totally welcome, even though I’d learned our mating ritual couldn’t come after all the other factors in our lives.

I wanted to put us first.

The last, she repeated. Same number as demon mating.

Do you believe the Mother used the demon’s ability to mate to allow me to mate with Wild?

Perhaps. Your mating is different, though. Weak.

Weak? Not how I’d describe the process that damn well drove me near insanity at every turn. What’s a demon mating like then?

More violence. More pain. More snapping and gnawing.

I’m gonna be grateful for the magus version, weakness and all.

We were silent for a time.

Please tell me that you’re here for good, I begged her in the quiet.

She smiled inside, and I smiled back.

I am here, lightness. I will stay with you until death. I will not sacrifice myself again. He would not allow a second escape, and once the mating ritual is complete, my absence would destroy us and our mate.

Her words chilled me.

After feeling her panic at the cage and seeing her crumpled in a heap inside the demon realm, I would never, never expect her to go back there in a bid to save us. I’m stronger now. We can make it through this together.

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