Page 50 of Chaos Carnival

She spoke softly about the threads, her free hand occasionally lifting to trace their invisible paths while I held her other hand anchored to the table. Time slipped by as she described the intricate patterns, the way they pulsed and shifted with each breath and heartbeat around us.

The waiter arrived with our plates, breaking the tension. Steam rose from Tess's jambalaya, but she hardly noticed, too focused on the filaments dancing around us.

She took a few mechanical bites, her skin growing paler with each passing moment.

“I need to understand them.” Her voice carried an edge of desperation. “Ivan's wraithshade is too strong, and I need—“

“You need to slow down before you become what we're fighting.”

She ignored me, raising her hands. The air around her fingers rippled like heat waves, dark veins writhing beneath her skin. “Just watch. I can show you how they bind—“

I grabbed her wrists, pulling them down to her lap. The contact sent sparks through my palms—her energy felt wild, tainted with dark energy. “Not here. Not now.”

“You don't understand.” Her pupils had expanded, nearly swallowing the iris. “These threads... they're the guide. To breaking Ivan's bond with the wraithshade, to understanding our own connection.”

“Yesand…I want you alive.” I lowered my forehead to hers, trying to ground her in the moment like in our nightly healing rituals. “Please, monstre. Just eat your damn jambalaya.”

The strands were taking root in her, fundamentally reshaping her from the inside out. The same forces that bound wraithshades to their hosts were now weaving through my mate, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do to stop it. My hands itched to grab her, to pull her away from this ancient magic, to keep her safe and unchanged. Mine.

As if sensing my darkening thoughts, she nudged my shoulder but maintained that cautious distance. “I'm being careful, Maverick. Lilith's showing me how to understand these bonds without being consumed by them.”

“That's what worries me,” I growled.

She gave me a look that was more warning than affection. “We need this if we're going to save Addie. You know that.”

“That's not—” I started, but she cut me off with a quick kiss that felt like a distraction rather than intimacy.

“Here, let me show you,” she said, her expression set with a determination that took my breath away. “It's not corrupt. It's beautiful.”

Like a serpent, I thought, watching as she closed her eyes and reached for something I couldn't see. Glorious and bloodthirsty, and changing her in ways I couldn't control. The air around us thickened, heavy with wrongness.

Then I saw them, not gossamer strands, but writhing, serpentine tendrils of energy that made my seraph nature recoil.

Something twisted sideways. Tess's face contorted, fear replacing concentration as the streams attacked like predators scenting blood. They violently coiled around her throat, ceaselessly pulsing with sickly colors before burrowing into her flesh like parasitic worms.

Tess's eyes flew open, wide and unseeing. Her breathing turned to desperate gasps, each one more shallow than the last. Blood vessels burst beneath her skin where the lines had entered, creating dark rivers under her flesh.

“Can't—” she choked, clawing at her throat where the marks spread like poison. “Can't breathe—“

I moved with inhuman speed, yanking her from the booth and away from prying mortal eyes. Her legs buckled, and I caught her, my grip probably too tight as I pressed us both against the hallway wall. The demon magic crawling through her burned my hands where I touched her.

“Focus on my voice,” I commanded, letting some of my true nature bleed into my tone. “You're okay.” It was a lie. Nothing about this was okay. “You can breathe.” Another lie, but I needed her to believe it. “The threads are gone.” The biggest lie of all—I could still see them moving under her skin.

She shook her head violently, tears cutting tracks down her face as she fought for air. Her fingers dug into my arms hard enough to draw blood, and I welcomed the pain.

“Tess, listen to me,” I growled, taking her face in my hands with more force than gentleness. “Feel my breathing. Match it.” I pressed her hand to my chest, where my heart raced with barely contained rage at what this alchemy was doing to her. “In through your nose, out through your mouth. With me.”

Her eyes found mine, wild and filled with a terror that made me want to hunt down every thread of magic and destroy it. But underneath that fear was something else. A hunger, a fascination with the forces trying to unmake her.

Slowly, painfully, she started to follow my lead. Each breath seemed to cost her, like the webs were fighting to keep their hold.

“That's it,” I murmured, wiping tears from her cheeks while checking for any other signs of damage. “You're safe.” As safe as she could be with demon arcana literally threading through her veins. “I've got you.”

And I wasn't letting go, no matter what she became.

Minutes crawled by as I talked her down, maintaining that rhythm until her breathing steadied. She collapsed against me, but that transcendent energy still hummed beneath her skin, changing her bit by bit. Whatever was happening to her, whatever she was becoming, she was still mine. I'd make sure of that.

“What—” her voice was raw, like something had scraped it bloody from the inside. “What happened?”

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