Page 42 of Dark Desire
Huh?My eyes darted between these two monstrous men, unable to comprehend what was happening. Why would I give Zoran my soul? He was a vampire seeker, sent to kill me by The Fates. Wasn’t he?
“She’s mine,” Zoran repeated, raising his voice with more possessiveness. My stomach flipped again at those words. Theinsane thought he actually meant ‘mine’ as in his woman, his lover, his everything, entered my mind, and I wanted to slap myself silly. Of course, he meant ‘mine to kill’. I was his mission. But was he willing to take on a demon of the Underworld for it?
“Yet she summoned me,” the demon sneered, clearly finding this entertaining as he turned to face Zoran. “You must not be pleasing her well enough.”
Okay, this was starting to feel weird. I glanced back at Zoran as he curled his lips over his razor-sharp fangs and hissed. Very weird. Whose side was I on? Zoran wanted me dead. This demon was going to help me in exchange for my soul. I knew which side I should be on, yet my heart and my head were screaming at me to choose Zoran, to race into his arms and tell him to send this horrifying demon back to hell. I’d made a fucking mistake. I could feel it in my bones.
“I don’t want to kill you, Demonski Upir,” the demon taunted, rolling his shoulders. “This isn’t personal, just business.”
What the hell did he call Zoran?
“It’s personal to me,” Zoran growled. “You’ll have to fight me to get to her.”
The demon laughed vindictively, and I moved away from him, feeling the hair on my skin standing on end. Zoran’s eyes tracked my movement as if he could sense my creeping fear. He exhaled deeply before glancing back at the demon, who was pacing back and forth with an evil smirk.
“I’m a pure demon. You’re a hybrid. You think you stand a chance?”
Fear and horror gripped me as I realised that Zoran fully intended to fight this demon to the death. I suddenly stepped forward towards him, causing both of their attention to swerve to me.
“Zoran, don’t!” I shouted but the demon grabbed me around my waist and yanked me into his body. I screamed and triedto pry myself out of his iron grip hopelessly. It all happened so fast. One moment, Zoran was standing there, and the next, he’d morphed into the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen. He looked a lot like the demon manhandling me, but his body and face remained more human-like, just larger and more muscular. His red hair had vanished, replaced by black spiralling horns with a red sheen to the scales, and his eyes were pitch-black. Scaly vines and demonic tattoos rippled across his skin and huge feathered black wings with red tips flared out behind him. My mouth dropped open as I stopped struggling, mesmerised by the sight of him. My heart leapt into my throat when I realised I had seen this demon before. The raven.
“Let her go,” Zoran hissed, his voice sounding so ancient and ethereal I almost didn’t recognise it. Was this even Zoran? Only the burns and scars on his body, his defined jawline and plump lips gave any indication that this was the same man.
“Here he is,” the demon sneered. “A demon willing to die for his soulmate? It almost makes my black heart ache. But you’re too late. You should have claimed her soul when you had the chance.” My eyes widened as I heard that word again. Mate? I was Zoran’s soulmate?I was the raven’s soulmate. Everything suddenly slotted into place. It felt like my soul was being ripped from my chest when I saw those witches burning him alive. The need to go against my oath and save him from death. The way I’d been literally drooling and going completely insane for my masked assassin and so-called Zachary. The mind-blowing sex. The odd emotions it triggered.
“Mate?” I gasped, my eyes finally meeting Zoran’s demon.
“Now she’s mine,” the scary demon hissed. Those words triggered Zoran to lose it. In a flash, he’d bounded off the ground and into the air at such insane speed that it was a mere second before he crashed down on top of us, causing the demon to let go of me as I rolled away in the dirt. I glanced up, my heartbeatpounding in my ears, but not loud enough to cover the sickening sounds of their bodies colliding. Fists, legs, and arms were flying with such violence, and each impact caused bones to crack, roars to echo and trees to shake. I scrambled back, watching on with horror as they rolled and fought like two elements battling for destruction.
Zoran was propelled through the air, slamming him into a tree, which caused the trunk to snap from impact and the whole thing to tumble to the ground. I screamed, fear and terror taking over as I worried he was dead, but he immediately got back to his feet and threw himself back into the fight. I tried my best to call on my magic to help, but I was too weak. That fight with the vampire seeker and completing the summoning spell had completely drained me of magic.
Zoran got a grip of the demon’s neck and threw him over his head. The demon crashed onto the ground on his back, giving Zoran the chance to grab a broken branch and stake him through the chest. I nearly whooped with relief, but then remembered a demon can’t die from staking.
Zoran’s head whipped around to find me as the demon ripped the stake out and pulled himself back to his feet.
Zoran bellowed, “Run!”
I shook my head, whimpering, because I really didn’t want to leave him.
“Darcie, run! I need you out of here!” Zoran roared his command so loudly, it made me jump to my feet and scramble away. I startled when the sound of their bodies bulldozed into one another again, every fibre of my being telling me to go back, but I forced my feet to keep moving. Sweat coated my skin and tears lashed down my cheeks but I didn’t stop until I saw my church come into sight. Throwing myself through the gate, I fell onto the porch, holding the pillar for support as I tried to catch my breath and stared out at the forest.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck! What have I done?” I cried, slamming my hand into my head multiple times. I felt sick. Physically sick.Zoran was the demon I cursed into a raven? How?I shook my head.And I’m his soulmate?I couldn’t comprehend it. Or what any of the last few days between us meant. All I could think about was the fact that he might not make it out of that forest alive, and it would be all my fault. Could a demon even be killed? Weren’t they already technically dead? How the hell do you send it back to the Underworld? I had to do something. Anything.
I rushed inside the church, frantically hunting around for the books I had taken out about demons months ago. Flipping one open, I searched the chapters until I found what I was looking for.
Destroying a symbolic representation of the demon’s soul.Too complicated.
Hellfire.Like I have any of that lying around.
A sealing ritual to trap the demon and starve it to death.Long game.
Decapitation…oh.
I hurried out to the porch to grab the shovel, planning to use the small amount of transfiguration magic I could muster to turn it into an axe. I stopped suddenly when it wasn’t where I left it.
“Nooo! Those fucking cops!” I shouted, stamping my foot when I remembered it had been taken as evidence. My gaze landed on a hedge shear. Grabbing it, I tried to transfigure the scissors into something a bit more deadly and just about managed to make them more pointed and spear-like. It would have to do. I ran out of the graveyard, pushing my way past branches and back in the direction of aggressive sounds. The fact that they were still fighting filled me with hope. It was better than the alternative.
When I saw them, I stopped dead in my tracks. Zoran was covered in blood, completely battered beneath the hellishdemon as they both had one claw wrapped around the other’s throat while their other hands were on each of their horns. Oh fuck. They were trying to rip each other’s heads off. Adrenaline rushed through me as I aimed the hedge shears at the demon’s head and found some desperate magic from deep inside me to send it flying through the air with perfect accuracy. A disgusting squelch pierced the air as they embedded in the side of his head, and with one almighty tug, Zoran ripped his head from his body.
