Page 63 of Satanic Shadow
Instead, I kiss him with a hit of desire, tilting my head for better access and to feel the softness of his lips more. He tastes like the dark he weeps in, frantic as he sucks on my tongue and takes my bottom lip between his, then the top one, pulling back to look at me when we pass the sixty-second mark. Only we go in for another kiss as I let out a pleading moan.
My lips move with his as he slowly unbuttons the shirt with one hand, keeping the other firmly on my neck to control each thrust of my tongue and the angle he kisses me. I whimper as he abandons the buttons halfway and palms my breast, pushingme back on the desk as he rolls my tightening nipple between his thumb and finger.
He tries to remove his hold on my nape, but I scream.
Something violent and painful ricochets all over me as the room flashes with light, and it feels like my brain is on fire, like my skin is splitting as I gasp into Dane’s mouth. He hisses and manages to yank himself away completely.
“Fuck!” he yells, gritting his teeth and clutching his wrist “What the fuck?”
Speechless, I grab the back of my neck and grit my teeth through the pain, unsure why it’s burning and throbbing—far more intensely that before. I look down to see his palm is completely skinned, the flesh bubbling as if he dipped it in acid. I wince and lean forward when another unbearable wave hits me, my spine twisting in agony.
Dane catches me before I hit the ground, and as he moves my hair from my neck, his eyes go wider than I’ve ever seen them. “Shit.”
“What is it?” I ask, breathless, wincing again as another shock rushes through me like haunting wildfire. He looks genuinely concerned. “Dane? Oh God. Please. Make it stop—it hurts.”
Our surroundings grow extremely cold, and I can see my breath in puffs, all the candles snuffing out. A low hum reverberates around us as Dane looks up before swearing to himself.
“Your tattoo. It has tendrils coming from it, like black ink in your veins.” He lifts me into his arms, waving his damaged hand, and a pair of extremely human shorts appear on me. “I need to get you back to your room.”
His room warps into nothing then as Dane’s shadows rally around us, and I hear whispers that make no sense, about kings and queens and wars and revenge.
Before my mind closes off and the burning at my nape stops, the last thing I hear is Dane muttering in a different language.
But for some reason, my mind translates each word.
Why the fuck is this happening so soon? We should have more time.
19
It burns.
My skin hardens before cracking and bleeding, peeling away with the blazing heat, the inferno lashing angrily around me. Flesh slides from my bones as I push through the flames, trying to see, trying to find him. My bare feet stick to the rug, melting from the fire spreading all over my house. A window downstairs smashes. Something pops. An alarm bellows. I try to scream, to yell out his name, but my lips are sealed.
As I reach up to try to pry them apart, I stare at my hands, the knuckles and veins and nerves bubbling like acid. My clothes are nonexistent, like the family I once knew, all dead as their lives are dragged from their bodies.
A door is thrown open, and I plummet into a world I shouldn’t know. A darkness so deep I can neither see nor focus on it as vines encase me in a tomb.
Death to her.
Death to all.
Death to her.
Death to all.
“Death to her! Death to all!” The echoing voices ricochet around in the shadows. Howls and laughter. Screams and cheers as blue flames erupt around me once more. “Death. To. Her!”
No. Please stop, I say in my head, begging the lost souls to stop this, to release their curse and take me back to my family.
The astral projection keeps forcing me from the tomb to a cliff to a tower, stopping on a platform surrounded by crowds with their hoods up and faces blurred out.
My lungs are filling with smoke, my vision slowly going. A faint light shines before me, but as I try to reach for it, excruciating pain blasts through my withering body, and I scream as loud as humanly possible, ripping my lips apart.
“Look at me,” a familiar voice says from behind me as no more sound emanates from my throat. I try to turn, to look at the person over my shoulder, but I’m frozen in place as flames climb up my legs. “Look at me.”
The person’s tone changes to anger, and frustration, as if I’m a pesky child behaving badly. As if there isn’t a full riot trying to kill me.
I turn and run—or think I do. The world morphs into a new one, and I’m standing by a lake, a kingdom full of love and laughter behind me, and a tall, strong presence to my right.
