Page 58 of Destined to the Reaper

Kali waved a dismissive hand. “Your threats are no more than a fart in the wind. You will not live past this night. I will enjoy watching you beg for mercy before none is granted.”

“Thanks to that pathetic Reaper, I will live forever, you cunt. Forever! And when I’m done using you in every conceivable way, I’ll make you the local town whore and even have you entertain what’s left of your brother. After all, he hasn’t had pussy in a while.”

Blinded by fury, I began moving forward towards the inner courtyard.

“Pharos, stop!” Kali shouted.

Her voice pierced through the red haze that had descended before my eyes. I froze. For half a beat, I almost panicked, thinking I had come out of my Wraith form in my anger. How else could she see me? And then it struck me that as my bonded mate, she could always feel where I was within a certain radius.

Cornelius perked up, his head jerking this way and that, looking for me. Even altering his vision did not allow him to detect me.

That pleased me tremendously.

However, Kali slicing her palm open, then spreading her arms wide, palms facing up, reclaimed my attention. She began uttering an incantation. Within seconds, the largest magic ring I’d ever seen came into focus in the courtyard, the pale pink glow quickly intensifying into an angry shade of red.

My blood turned to ice as I recognized some of the patterns of the first circle he had trapped me with in Hemdell Crypt. It wasn’t identical. That one was far more complex with a slew of symbols I’d never seen before. A series of lines, swirls, and runes had been etched in a pattern that seemed to point towards the altar. Although I didn’t know much about Blood Magic, I recognized the section that served as a trap deeper into the circle.

This whole thing screamed of the type of ancient magic that very few people would dare to even attempt. And without my woman stopping me, I would have crossed the outer edge of the circle in only a couple more steps.

“Well, well,” Kali said, echoing Cornelius in a taunting fashion. “Up to your good old dirty tricks again, Cornelius? Too bad they’re not going to work this time.”

An endless string of curses tumbled out of Cornelius’s mouth to have his trap thus exposed.

Totally unfazed, my mate resumed speaking words of power. A wave of Death Magic emanated from her, laced with a hefty amount of Blood Magic. I couldn’t even pretend to comprehend what kind of spell she was casting, but its effects quickly became obvious. I stared in awe as the edges of the circle began to unravel.

“You wretched cunt!” Cornelius screamed.

To my shock, he launched two dozen blood darts at her. I shifted out of my wraith form, becoming visible again and sucked the life force out of the darts. They faded into ashes blown away by this soft evening breeze long before they could reach my woman. Without missing a beat, I cast a death strike at Cornelius, knowing it wouldn’t be that easy. Sure enough, the spell struck the blood shield they had erected to protect him and his two female apprentices.

Anyway, even without the shield, my death strike would have caused insignificant damage. The ring was dampening my magic as it traveled through it, weakening it further as it crossed the distance.

Cornelius burst out laughing, his eyes sparkling with malicious glee upon finally seeing me.

“There you are, my little pet. Now, the real fun begins. Prepare to suffer like you’ve never suffered before,” the necromancer shouted.

He pronounced a series of words of power. My stomach dropped when the blood shackles pinning Piers to the stone covered ground fell off and he shot to his feet—twisted though they were—in one swift movement. The handsome, lanky young man he had once been no longer existed. In his stead, a monstrous, bloated creature stared at me with bloodshot bulging eyes. He appeared much too big for his skin, which looked like excessively stretched fabric over whatever was wiggling beneath it, seeming like it was on the verge of bursting open.

Piers lumbered forward, his mouth opening impossibly wide to release an ear-splitting screech. Endless rows of teeth filled his mouth.

To my shock, instead of coming for me, he turned to look at Kali before spitting a stream of black, oily substance towards her. Like I had done with Cornelius’s blood darts, I drainedthe energy from whatever that substance was. It once again dispelled in a shower of ashes. However, I could feel the acid and virulent toxin that had been in it.

“What have you done to him?!” I exclaimed, horror and disbelief filling my voice.

“I’ve made him incredibly lethal and immortal!” Cornelius boasted.

“I don’t think so,” I retorted, a challenge in my voice.

Invoking all my power, I cast a potent death strike on Piers. To my dismay, the abomination he had turned into didn’t instantly die as he should have. He merely screamed and stumbled a few steps forward before regaining his bearings. However, his skin stretched further as he gained more mass. Somehow, the damage he sustained made him grow.

I repeated the attack a couple more times, frustrated not to be able to just charge in. But the wretched dampening effect of the circle kept thwarting my efforts. Kali was diligently unraveling it. However, it would take a while, considering its massive size and the power of the sorcerers who had cast it to begin with.

Aggravated by Piers’s continued advance towards my female, I summoned my ghostly scythes, straightened the bone chain linking them to turn it into a double-bladed staff, then threw it like a boomerang at the lumbering abomination. As soon as my weapon left my hand, I realized I had made a mistake. Cornelius’s triumphant expression terrified me. I extended my hand towards the blade to recall it to me, but it was too late.

It found its mark and cut through Piers.

The moment the blade made contact, the apprentice exploded into what I initially assumed to be a shower of the same blackish oil he had spit at Kali. But they turned out to be giant shadow tentacles with vicious spikes at the tips. They shot out in every direction, two of them racing straight at my woman.I barely had time to shove her aside with an elemental strike. She’d been too focused on unraveling the circle to properly react to the threat.

But a few more tentacles racing towards me forced me to dodge out of their path. Without pausing, I cast another death strike at the giant shadow creature Piers had turned into while catching my returning scythes. To my shock, the creature faded into dark shadows, my spell passing right through him and fizzling over the distance due to the circles dampening effect.

---