Page 42 of Cursed Shadows

I’m victim even as I shove my erection into each of them, loving the feel of their slickness and the way their flesh wraps around my stiffness. I take them all three together, I take them separately. I fuck them numerous times a day. As soon as I feel my strength returning, one of them is there to suck it away from me again.

The king I had once been, lowered to the rank of a glorified fuck doll.

They use me, torment me... humiliate me until shame is all I know and all I believe I will ever feel.

And, though I hate them, I love the feel of their flesh as I push into them. I love Lamia’s mouth and the way she sucks out my seed. I love Glodonia’s pert young breasts and the tightness of her slick entrance, the way it clings to me. I love how Santrewa palms my cock and strokes it up and down, even as she whispers to me that I’m weak and hardly a man.

Their power cradles me in tender submission, muffling the memories of watching our legions diminish.

But, this day, all of that changes…

***

A surge of epiphany, or perhaps fate, holds me in its clutches as the warm spray of blood covers my face. I’ve been prisoner too long and my hatred has grown to such a point that it, alone, provides my strength.

Like an Old Norse berserker, I’m nothing more than the ire that drives me. I’ve shed any remaining vestiges of kindness or mercy. Now, the only force within me is one of pure malevolentdarkness. Pure wrath. And this darkness feeds my shadow magic, fueling me with a strength I thought long dead.

I pull my blade through Santrewa’s throat and watch her struggle against death as her life-blood empties from her body. I step out of the way of the river of red, lest it soak my feet in her putrescence.

The dead Succubus tumbles to the floor as I free myself from the confines of the fine silk bedding—bedding which was once the color of a peacock’s plumage but is now as red as Glodonia’s hair.

Speaking of the red-haired witch, her horrific screams fill my ears, rattling around my brain and causing me increased agitation. She attempts to flee, but I easily grab her wrist and yank her towards me. Her eyes are wide as the blade enters her sternum, and I rip it upwards, puncturing one of her lungs and her heart.

The bloodlust within me is thrilled. Yes, I want her to suffer, I want her to feel the same pain she, her mother, and her sister inflicted on me all these endless fucking years.

Lamia throws the bedroom doors open wide and screams when she realizes I’ve murdered her daughters. Fury colors her features, followed by dread, which is quickly replaced with sharp focus. She approaches me as she begins to spin her beguiling sexual web, all the while venom drips from her eyes.

Before she can touch me and lay waste to my plan, I throw the blade at her. It sinks into her belly with the sound of a knife carving into a melon. She falls to the ground and reaches for the hilt of the sword, attempting to free it.

I approach to stand above her before throwing all of my weight into my right foot as I slam it down atop the pommel of the blade. The sword further sinks into the Succubus and blood begins to drip from one side of her mouth.

I feel a smile take hold of my mouth as I watch Lamia die and with her, all of the memories, the shame, the humility, the pain. A laugh escapes my lips as she splutters, choking on the blood coming up her throat. And when she turns her lifeless gaze to the side and focuses on nothing, I step away.

Scarlet liquid spreads across the floor, connecting the three corpses in a triangular shape.

I laugh harder and the sound echoes through the room, loud enough that Thoradin appears in the doorway. His eyes widen momentarily as he takes in the scene of devastation. He says nothing but simply nods for he understands.

“The last of the Succubae,” I manage on an exhale, steping away from the river of red. “The extinction of a vile, demonic race,” I finish. And that extinction has come to be at my hands.

That bitter numbness that’s lingered for so long finally begins to fade. And in its place, I feel hunger. A hunger for Variant’s blood, for retribution of my own.

I raise my arms, allowing the blood on my hands to drip down the lines of my arms. I open my mouth wide and yell: “I am the King of The Realm of Shadow... and now, I am free!”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

BARON

Mortal Realm

My companions’ legs are weak and their stomachs rumble.

Luckily for the two gargoyles, they don’t turn to stone even though they’re no longer in the Shadow Realm. As I understand, the angel is the reason they’re able to travel through the Mortal World and not succumb to what would otherwise be a stone imprisonment. But, though they don’t surrender to the curse Variant placed upon them, they do play prisoner to their own growling stomachs.

As I am vampire, I don’t feel the pain of hunger or muscular exhaustion. The only hunger pangs that call to me are of the bloodlust variety. But, even my bloodlust has been and remains silent. I imagine this feeling of satiation has everything to do with the woman, Eilish. I’m feeding off her somehow…yet, I’ve never sampled her blood. It’s her life energy that somehow fuels me. I can’t pretend to understand, so I don’t.

Before setting off on this quest to create aTransmutation Stone, I’d taken a few provisions from Master Ash, but the tart apples and stale bread have done little to sustain my companions. Still, I’m grateful to the man.

A century ago, when I was roused from my grave, Master Ash was the one to find me in my half-awakened state. With no knowledge, no possessions, and no connections, I was helpless.

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