Page 95 of Another Damned Storm
Oh, I remembered. The wind shifted abruptly, and I held up a hand to shield my eyes from the biting rain as I squinted up. Everything above us was in chaos. The rain was going one way. Shredded leaves and twigs from dying trees were flying another. Even the clouds seemed to be at war.
Lightning illuminated the sky and searing pain shot through me, nearly bringing me to my knees. Only that pain wasn’t mine.
Did that old piece of shit just hit my pirate with lightning?
The agony lasted just a few seconds, but it was enough. I glared at the ancient demon in front of me. “Take her.” The sky lit up again. “Please, Emerson.”
Fuck, I barely sounded human.
He pressed his lips into a thin line and nodded. Then he lifted her off the ground, cradling her small body close to his chest, and flashed her away.
And not one goddamn second too soon.
The sky erupted in a series of blinding bursts. More pain raced through our link, but I didn’t have to focus on Hook to find him. One thought of him brought me to a circle of blackened earth where Thrain stood, wearing a vicious scowl that distorted his face into something worthy of a Disney villain.
And Hook…
Fury erupted inside me at the sight of him. He was pinned, his body half-sunk in the mud, and his clothes and skin smoldering as one bolt of lightning after another pummeled him.
The wild animal inside me surged. I barely registered the nip of pain as my fingernails elongated and sharpened to deadly points. Even the crimson tint to my skin wasn’t enough to bring me back down.
If anything, seeing the change just fed the monster inside, and in a blink, the last of my control snapped.
I turned my fury on Thrain, throwing myself at him with a roar that shook the air. I swung and slashed, tearing his ancient robe and gray-blue skin to shreds. Even the crippling cold of his blood pouring over my hands and splashing my face didn’t slow me down.
I was one thing and one thing only in that moment: destruction.
He tried to fight, to claw his way to escape, but I just dragged him right back.
Then I shoved my fist into his chest, through cloth and skin and bone, until I found the withered muscle that pumped that noxious blood of his. A ripple of satisfaction washed over mewhen my shiny new claws popped through the outer membrane, and I squeezed.
And squeezed.
Until his desperate pleas were nothing more than bloody spurts and gurgles.
31
NEVER
The look on Thrain’s face held me rapt. His fear was a drug that tasted like triumph and rolled over me, leaving an intense euphoria in its wake.
It would have been so easy to sink into that feeling. To keep squeezing until the light in his cruel eyes faded to nothing.
But the world around me took a violent turn. It flipped and twisted, and I found myself in a great stone rotunda that looked like it was something out of Ancient Greece. I had to crane my neck all the way back to see the pinnacle of the ornately painted dome high above me. Flowering vines spilled over the railing of the endless balcony, filling the room with a scent so sweet it made my teeth ache.
A whimper snapped my attention back to the pathetic gray god in front of me. Thrain flailed weakly as I clutched his heart in my hand. It didn’t matter where he flashed us. He could take us both to hell for all I cared, as long as he suffered.
“Young lady?” I whipped around with a snarl, spotting the source of that buttery male voice in an instant. “Would you be so kind as to release your hold on that withered heart?”
I blinked, trying to process the words.
Release? He wanted me to let go of this… monster? Not a fucking chance. But for all the snark coursing through my mind, all I could manage was a defiant grunt.
“In that case…” The man with hair the color of Onyx and eyes an impossible shade of green stood, snapped his manicured fingers once, and suddenly I was on my knees.
Thrain groaned nearby, and I snarled as I tried to get to my feet. I wasn’t done with him. I wouldn’t be done until I’d carved him into a thousand pieces a thousand times. But I couldn’t lift my knees off the rough stone floor.
What the fuck?That was what I tried to say, but all that came out was a growled, “Fuck.”
