Page 153 of Living Legend

I heard shuffling around me as people started to move even further back. I quickly looked around, noticing that right after that comment, Reese and Nick were running towards the buildings and disappeared. A few of the Enchanters were following them. I assumed they went for shelter, since Elise wanted to play ugly. Her tail meant she was on the cusp of unleashing everything she had on someone. I was edging at her restraint lines. Maybe it wasn't restraint, maybe she just didn't care and actually just considered this playtime.

"You make things so fucking hard for no reason, when you can just be honest with me and explain yourself." I was trying, but I knew it would do nothing. I had teased her with violence, and she'd been wanting some good old fashioned fighting like she used to do back in Purgatory. She wasn’t about to back down now.

The reddish colors in her eyes grew bigger. "It won't matter what I say, because you'll never really understand. I'll be the bad guy for not telling you regardless, but hey, I'm fine with being bad. You on the other hand–" She curled the end of her tail, "you always knew something was off, but you wanted to please the creatures around you. You molded to what Lilith wanted, to what I taught you, and then you come here and you listen to pretty words from an even prettier angel. Telling you would have been a waste because you will always be what you've always been since the day you got to Purgatory…" She whipped her tail around my waist and jolted me over to her. "A pathetic little bitch."

My face scrunched up in discontent when suddenly, I felt a whip at my face from the spikes at the end. Stinging from the open wound tingled against my cheek. I felt myself being lifted and then thrown upward, just to be grabbed again and thrown into the side of one of the buildings. My back vibrated with pain when it connected with the brick, and I let out a grunt of pain. Elise shot up into the sky, her wings extending, the sun making the red at the bottom of them look even redder than normal. She came down at a diagonal with her right foot out and shoved me in the chest, causing my back to yet again collide with the brick exterior. She slapped me across the other cheek with the end of her tail, creating another open gash.

When she stepped over to me, close enough for me to reach her, I grabbed her face with my open palm, pushing out heavy dark mists as I shoved her back. She clawed at her face when I put most of my weight on my right foot and thrust my left foot out, kicking her straight in the stomach, watching her double over. I quickly went to grab her shoulders as she hunched over and brought my knee up to her face, hearing the crunch of a broken nose. "I'm pathetic for trusting you!"

I moved to do it again but felt the velvet texture of her tail wrap around my foot, whipping me to the other side of our makeshift arena. I skidded across the ground, creating an indention with my body in the dirt. My leggings were ripped, and my elbows were raw and bruised. I heard a ringing in my ears and touched my index finger to my earlobe, puffing out an annoyed breath when I noticed blood on my finger as I pulled it back.

I watched Elise crack her neck, while blood spilled down to her lips from where I'd broken her nose. She licked at the blood and seemed to savor it in her mouth. "You really are an ungrateful little shit, aren't you?" Yet again, she wasn't looking for my response. I squinted at her, confused by her words.

My legs felt wobbly, but I pushed off the ground and stood, eyeing her as she let her magic tail swing back and forth behind her. I let my wings out and started to ascend towards the sky, wanting to get a better advantage. Elise snapped her tail upward and wrapped it around my wings, letting venom leak into them. I felt them shudder at my back, recoil. She brought her tail down and I plunged back down, causing my teeth to clamp together. I could taste the blood in my mouth, and it made me want to ruin her all the more.

"I think I like you better on the ground, in pain and so weak." Elise wiped at her bloody nose and uncoiled her tail from my wings, allowing them to disappear. "I tried to make you into something worthy when you got to Purgatory. I tried to teach you things and mold you after Lilith practically threw you at my feet." She walked slowly towards me as I looked up at the trees and tried to settle my breathing, I tried to muster up all my anger, hurt, and vengeance. Her voice and words were like gasoline on an already lit fire.

She looked me up and down, making a face like what she was seeing was not worth her time. "You really should be thanking me for everything I've done. Like I said, completely ungrateful!" Elise let the inky venom seep out of the spikes at the end of her tail and the reddish whirls in her eyes pulsed. She was going to scratch me with that thing and watch me suffer. My back was throbbing from my wings being fucked with, but pain wasn't my enemy here.

She was. She was my concern. Elise slid her tail up my leg and I winced. I clamped my teeth together. I was seething with anger, my pores oozing with hate and betrayal and rage. I closed my eyes and felt my arms and legs tense up, but not in a painful way. They were tensing with the feeling of power gliding through them. I could feel my hands vibrate and my body start to feel warm. Even behind my closed lids, I could sense the darkness I was letting out start to envelop me. I felt that tiny tug and heard that lithe voice I had heard so many times before.

I wanted so much to move in that direction, but I just didn’t care right now. Despite all the idealistic words that came from Nick’s pretty mouth, it was still so unfamiliar to me, and I couldn’t see myself just abandoning this feeling of power for the unknown. He had made it clear that what I wanted for myself right now was a deal breaker, and I personally couldn’t waste my time waiting for him to decide otherwise. I wanted this familiar feeling of heady darkness, and it wanted me just the same. The light would have to wait.

The darkness sealed itself into my skin and bones. I could feel it even in the smallest places in my body. I pressed my palm flat on the ground, letting the grainy dirt and flecks of grass graze my palm. Elise and I didn’t have the same kind of dark magic, but I could feel hers the same as she felt mine, so without opening my eyes, I knew she was seeing what was happening. I knew when she started to snicker and gave a quick sigh, before I felt her lift her tail up, ready to strike me.

She brought her tail down, the black ink dripping down on my hand, causing a small sting. I opened my eyes right as I caught her tail. The smoke from the larger half of her tail whipped and thrashed itself around my fingers, but I started to squeeze, pressing my fingers around it harder. Elise narrowed her eyes at me and started to pull away. When that didn’t work, she started to cast a red-tinted flame in her palm. When I looked at her, things were contorted, colors muted, everything dulled so that I wasn’t distracted and could focus my energy on what I wanted to do. What I would rip my own heart out to do.

I let my own magic flow into her tail, and it buzzed and undulated under my touch. She tried to pull away from me again, but I wouldn’t let her. “I’m pathetic?”

I curled my fingers tighter around the tail and I tugged roughly. It was effortless. She let out a shriek, a sound I’d never heard her make, as I ripped her stupid fucking tail right off of her. There was no blood since her tail was a manifestation of her own powers, but it was still a part of her. Our powers flowed through our veins and would display themselves however we wished, but they can still be harmed. It was a thing I never quite understood when I had first gotten to Purgatory, especially when I had first expressed my wings. They were a part of me, but they didn’t come from cords and tendons in my shoulders. Yet that didn’t mean I couldn’t feel when venom like Elise’s sunk into them and made them weak.

The shadowy tail and its spiked end thrashed on the ground and recoiled in on itself like a dying snail. She staggered back, her palm still out and flaming with her power, but it was like she was in shock. I swiftly got to my feet, not feeling an ounce of the pain I’d felt a few minutes ago. I circled my neck, hearing the small cracks it made. “I am so far from pathetic. You made sure of that.”

I shot out a black rope that wrapped around her flaming hand, snuffing out the flame at the same time. She started to create a flame in her other hand, but I expelled my wings and shot into the air, dragging her up with me. I watched as the branches and leaves scratched at her arms and face. I gave her a taste of her own medicine and let her go, raising an eyebrow as she fell. I wasn’t going to let her get her wings out and continue this. That would be no good. I descended towards where she was falling and grabbed her, then turned to the right and slammed her body into a tree. The trunk vibrated and all I saw was her and the fact that I hadn’t made her bleed enough. Whoever was still watching this unfold needed to see what I could do to her. Their feelings of fear would taste just as good as the celebration from the lesser demons in Purgatory.

Elise tried to push back, but I placed my hand on the tree, the bark rough against my skin. Ribbons of silvery black escaped from the open holes in the trunk and snaked themselves around her wrists, pulling her arms behind her and forcing her upright. I forced the ribbons to hold her wrists so tightly, the circulation would slow. I had the ribbons do the same with her ankles, securing them so tightly, I knew the magic would leave an imprint. I leaned into her body as she breathed heavily, pulling against the restraints. I could see the ribbons pulsing and tints of silver slither from ribbon to ribbon. My magic wasn’t menacing like hers, although I suppose it could be, but I had never gotten that far. I liked my prey indisposed, not totally useless.

My ribbons were constricting her movements so much, I could tell that her magic was coming out in puffs and spurts. I wanted to double over at the way she looked right now, but I just leaned into her, feeling her breath and getting a front row view of her pissed off furrowed brow. I brought my hand up to her eyebrow. I curled my fingers, placing the tips of my nails to her skin and pushing in, dragging them down her face. Once I was at her cheek, I brought my other hand up and did the same thing to the other side.

“Tell me why you lied, Elise. Tell me why you felt the need to keep this from me and then have the fucking audacity to call me ungrateful? Ungrateful for what? For you pushing me to be thisthing, but always keeping a little secret from me?” I felt the darkness drip out of me, folding and contorting itself into the form of my dagger. I was so fucking stupid for letting Nick keep it….so fucking stupid.

I wrapped my hand around the hilt of it, feeling how foreign it felt. It clearly wasn’t the leather of my dagger, and the weight wasn’t there, but it would do what it needed to do. Elise’s gray eyes followed the way the smoke wrapped around itself to keep its shape. The point of the hooked tip glinted against the sun, as if to make a point that it was just as sharp as any physical weapon.

“You don’t need to show off for me, Dani. Lilith might have brought you into our world, but I made you. Do your worst.”

I didn’t let her say another word and plunged my smoking dagger into the side of her thigh. I heard bones crunch as I shoved it in further, her leg buckling with the pressure and pain. Elise let out a groan so loud, her throat contracted. I pulled the dagger out and plunged it right back into the same spot, my heart thrumming at the sight, the darkness joyously spreading throughout my body. Elise struggled against my restraints, but I only told them to hold her tighter. I cocked my head to the side as I pulled out my dagger, the wisps of smoke coiling around the blood that clung to it. I lifted my empty hand and watched a gleaming black and silver ribbon of magic weave itself out of my palm like a hypnotic snake. I flicked my wrist and the ribbon secured itself around her throat, covering her switchblade tattoo, tight and unmoving.

"You should be so proud of how much you've taught me. Am I worthy of your honesty yet,friend?" I said, looking right in her gray eyes. I could see myself reflected in them. I could see my black eyes, no colored iris to break up the dark. I could see the smoke and fluttered flames of darkness stenciled around me. It looked as if it was protecting me, but I knew it was just holding me, egging me on, and I was letting it. I was feeding it. Elise's eyes told me she was unafraid as always, but there was a twitch in her eye that told me she could be moved to speak. How long until she cracked was something I didn't have the answer to.

I brought the dagger up to her stomach, letting the tip touch the slither of exposed skin. The blood from her thigh gushed down her leg, creating a pool at her feet. Our faces were so close, I could feel her staggered breath. "I will ask you one more time." I noticed her wings trying to push themselves out, so I shoved her back into the tree, watching as they retreated in their version of a whimper. "Why did you lie?"

Elise narrowed her eyes and tipped her eyes down to where I was prepared to push into her skin. Her bloody lips turned up in a small smirk as she leaned in as much as she could. "I should have let Lilith kill you." Elise swallowed, just to carefully open her mouth, spitting blood directly in my face. I growled, making a sound that came from somewhere I didn't know existed. I shoved the dagger forward, the tip driving into her stomach. I pushed it further, further…

My hand had stopped moving and started vibrating. Then came the pain, the electrocuting pain of what felt like pure lightning in my wrist, up my forearm, towards my bicep. The air around me thinned and I felt like my lungs couldn't expand enough to breathe. I let go of the dagger and staggered back. It dissolved into a puff of mist and my vision started cracking, the darkness surrounding me screeching and screaming from the pain of the jolts. My head was thundering from the lack of air. I couldn't think, I couldn't collect my anger in heaps anymore. It started to dissipate. The pain wasn't enough to completely debilitate me, but itwasenough to create a separation between me and my lethal darker half. I whirled around, trying to find the source of my pain.

Enchanters backed up and eyed me with alarm and panic. I skipped over each and every one of them as my knees started to buckle. The darkness within me searched the crowd, slithered and scanned until it found its target.

Natalia.

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