Page 107 of Forging Darkness

Her bloodless lips are peeled back from her teeth, the snarl revealing two sharp fangs. Claws extend from her fingertips and her skin carries a familiar pasty hue. Her blonde hair hangs in dirty clumps down her shoulders and over one eye.

She’s a Forsaken. They turned an innocent into a monster.

With a child-like scream, the Forsaken rushes me. My mind trips over itself to reconcile what I see with what I know—that it’s truly possible for Seraphim to be monstrous enough to have allowed a Fallen to invade the body of a child. That Thorne would have allowed it.

Fallen can’t possess humans without permission. What had been done to the girl to make her give them permission?

With a flap, I launch into the air. The Forsaken barrels past me. She spins unnaturally fast and charges me again the moment I land.

Without forethought my arms whip out, grabbing the creature by the throat to keep its claws from raking across my face.

It doesn’t take any more than that to end it. The flames on my skin lick over the distorted child-like features immediately. The Forsaken screams in my hold as its body becomes engulfed in flames.

Its throat disintegrates under my hands until I’m left with only char and ash dirtying my palms.

Oh my gosh. I killed . . . a child.

Not a child, I remind myself. A beast that took possession of her body and killed her.

It’s not until that moment, in my state of semi-shock, that I stop to consider how I look. Am I the same person I’ve always been, just with super-sized powers, or am I now a Forsaken?

I do a quick assessment of what I can see. My arms are pale under the blue and orange flames, but that’s not unusual. They don’t appear to have the chalky pallor of a Forsaken.

Inspecting a chunk of my hair is useless. It’s covered in a mix of red and black blood and coated in sand.

I don’t release a sigh of relief until my tongue slides over my blunted teeth, my incisors only coming to a normal, dull point at the end.

I don’t know how it’s possible, but I’m still me, and Seraphim is gone.

I push the recent horrors out of my mind, scrubbing Angeline’s remains off my palms.

My senses buzz as I twirl. Legion swings at me wildly with a broadsword. I duck and roll, narrowly missing the sting of the blade.

Popping up, I send every ounce of my power at him in a super-charged stream of fire, fueled by fury.

It ignites immediately on contact, and the impact sends him flying. He skids, flopping lifelessly over the sanded ground for twenty feet, bouncing like a stone skipped across water. He’s encased in a ball of fire, burning whatever—or whomever—comes within ten feet of the blaze.

I drop to my knees. My hand goes to my mouth with the realization of what I’ve just done.

Steel was still inside that creature, I know he was.

If presented with the opportunity, strike fast and true.

The blaze coating Steel’s body continues to burn. The flames go from red to orange to green as they work to devour every bit of him.

I know it’s what he wanted, a definitive end rather than eternity as a prisoner, but regret still rips me apart.

What have I done?

This act can’t be taken back and there’s nothing I can do but watch his corpse disintegrate to nothing.

But . . .

His body isn’t turning to ash like it should under the fire’s intensity. His clothes aren’t even burning.

My eyes widen as the wounds I caused on his back knit themselves together. Golden skin forms over the ugly ridges before it smooths completely.

His body shudders before it twists and bows. His spine arching into a U-shape, arms flung out on either side, head thrown back and mouth open in a scream swallowed by the inferno raging around him.

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