Page 26 of Legendary

Soul Seether.

My shadows caressed me as they snaked up my legs and around my arms. An armor I didn’t know I needed. I stopped walking and looking around, just waiting. I heard the sound of crunching leaves and twigs as the others came up behind me.

“Dani, what’s going on?” Nicholas asked, but I didn’t look at him. I didn’t have an answer for him. I did hear him slowly slide his sword out from behind his back. He may have been concerned about me, but he wasn’t an idiot. It was so fucking dark I couldn’t see—

A hand was around my throat, squeezing hard, before I could reassess. I was lifted off the ground and thrown to the side. My body slammed against a tree which shook violently, causing some of its leaves to drop down on my head.

“Woah, what the fuck!” I heard Reese yell as the sound of arrows now entered my ears. I couldn’t make anyone out and I didn’t even know who we were fighting. I used the tree to steady myself and felt a hand on my arm, twisting it. The pain was bad, but not bad enough for me to get distracted by it.

I grabbed whatever had me and felt a familiar demonic energy. We were fighting demons. Beetee had said this area was safe, yet she did say Lilith followers could make an appearance. I maneuvered my body so that I had them pinned to the tree and quickly slid my hands up to their neck, easily twisting until they stopped squirming. I was suddenly being pulled back by more hands, slamming me down on the ground and dragging me across the forest floor by my hair.

I heard grunts of fighting around me, telling me that I wasn’t alone in my endeavors. I begrudgingly turned to my side and grabbed the demon's ankle, snaking dark shadows around it. The darkness took hold of its other ankle as well. They let go of my hair as my magic pulled them to the ground. I let my shadows tell me where they were in this darkness, and I let my dagger establish itself in my palm as I brought it down into the chest of my assailant. I looked up to see light moving back and forth. I squinted my eyes to see better, focusing.

It was his sword. Maurice had told Nicholas that he had made sure that both their weapons were already infused with angelic magic. This was one way to prove he wasn’t lying. Not that I ever doubted Maurice Cassial. His sword was glowing, pulsing with the kind of light that I knew was somewhere inside of me, but I just couldn’t reach it. I watched as Nicholas swung and jumped back from the demons. He slashed down one and twirled his sword in his hand, spinning around and facing yet another. I caught glimpses of what he was fighting.

They looked just like the demons from the briefing room. The ambush.

This was Lilith’s doing.

Nicholas seemed to give his all to this fight, as he did every fight I assumed, and he plunged his glowing sword into the demon. The creature writhed and as he removed his weapon, swiftly taking a few steps back. The demon disintegrated into dust, too weak to withstand angelic magic, just like all of Lilith’s experiments.

Three arrows, glowing just like Nicholas’s sword shot out, one of them headed straight for me. But it didn’t. It was aimed behind me.

I got up from where I was kneeling over the dead demon and heard a thud. Two more thuds followed, but they were closer now. I kicked my foot out feeling a limp body, right before it was nothing but dust on my boot.

Dani.

Soul Seether.

What the fuck? My head was reeling with the noise.

I felt something scratching at my side, hard. The sound of skin tearing had me screaming, but I rallied. I used my dagger to ram the silver metal into the arm of whatever was clawing at me, damn near stabbing myself in the process.

“Fuck this!” I heard Elise shout. I blinked once and then saw a bolt of flaming red fire being tossed into the air and towards the trees. The ball of flame raged once it hit the foliage. The area around us was stricken into light. All the demons came into view as did Beetee who had two by the throat in each of her hands, practically shaking them.

Elise had let her tail out and was whipping them around as best she could. She released her red tinted smoke in waves as more demons approached. Elise shot out her wings and ascended towards the sky, likely hoping to get the advantage of higher ground. I may have severely hated her right now, but she had a good idea.

I was about to head towards the sky myself as I released my wings, but I was yanked back down by my shoulder. I was pushed forward and rammed into the ground, my face skidding against the small rocks embedded in the dirt. I placed my hands flat on both sides of my head, flipping over. My eyes widened and then immediately became tiny slits of rage when I came face to face with the one person I severely hoped Lilith would see was pointless to keep around.

“Oh, where do you think you’re going, huh,” Isabel said in a voice that was so smooth, but full of venom. “Did you miss me, Soul Seether?”

Her shoes crunched on the ground as she stepped closer to me. I quickly looked around me and saw that everyone else was occupied. It was like theywere oblivious to her even being here. It was just me and her. She looked the same as before. Same blonde hair, same blue eyes, but the fire light made her look less innocent and gave away her true colors.

I felt my need to ravage and seethe deep in my belly. Just looking at her made me see red. Blood red. The kind of red that blinds you. The shadows filtered around my hands as I prepared to lasso it around her neck and squeeze so tight her eyes would bulge out of her pretty fucking face. I lashed out and she grabbed my black shadow rope in one of her hands. As fast as I could blink Isabel let out a rainbow color of magic down my shadow and it felt like it went into my veins, like my insides were burning. My darkness was screaming, and the wisps of shadows were rippling inside of me as I tried to cast out the foreign sensation.

She yanked me over to her with my own magical rope in one movement and shoved me onto my back as she straddled me. “Does that hurt? Do you feel pain?” She leaned down near my face, lifting up her hand that was covered in white gauze. “That little High Priestess bitch of yours did this to me! That’s no matter though, I can take out my anger on you can’t I!” She pulsed that volt of magic into me again, the pain nearly increasing. She pressed her good hand to the side of my face, and I had to bite my own tongue to try to not pass out from the burning sensation I felt.

I groaned loudly as I flexed my hand out, feeling my dagger reform into my grip. I would end her fucking life. Natalia would have to find some other way of retribution because this one was mine.

“Lilith wanted to welcome you home properly. Of course, you don’t appreciate it.” I tried to buck her off of me, but she wouldn’t budge. “You heard her in your head, didn’t you? Strong enough to kill poor Cullen and Markus, but you aren’t strong enough to wean yourself out from under mommy’s thumb.” She cackled with laughter at her own words. I used that as my way to strike her across the face with my dagger, the lingering effects of her magic making my head pound. She sucked in a breath, but not before I pushed out from underneath her just enough for me to kick her in the stomach, sending her flying back on her ass a few feet away from me. I bolted over to her, grabbing her shoulders and slammed her body into the ground once more.

“She doesn’t own me.” The words were coming out through my teeth. I felt the sweet hum of pain and no mercy fill my system. It gave a delicious burn to my soul. Being in Heaven’s Gate, I didn’t want to let it out if it wasn’t needed. I didn’t need to give them more of a reason to see me as an enemy.

Isabel merely laughed at my remark. “Oh, you stupid, stupid girl. Stupid demon, with your stupid friends. She owns you whether you like it or not.This placeownsyou.”

The second the words left her lips; I felt an odd familiar strength fill me. I could do what I needed to do in Heaven’s Gate, of course, no question about it. In Purgatory,fuck, in Purgatory I could pull from so much to find more darkness, more shadows, more magic. I felt the weight of my dagger in my hand as I grabbed the hilt so tightly my fingers started cramping.

Isabel’s eyes widened in interest as she took in what I knew was a dark cloud of magic surrounding me, my eyes had likely divulged into pools of inky black. A demon tried to ram into me from the side, but I sunk my blade into its stomach before it even had a chance to touch me. I summoned heavy, thick black ribbons from the ground to clamp around her throat and chest.

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