Page 74 of Satanic Shadow
“What’s going on?” I blurt out, confused.
His eyes darken, his jaw clenching. “Hello, mortal.”
But one second he’s on me, and the next he’s tackled off me and thrown to the side.
I sit up and pull my skirt down, my chest rising and falling, lips swollen, to see Valin on top of Dane. He punches him across the face twice, and all Dane does is laugh and headbutt him. He tells him to hit him again, and Valin does. Orsen drags him off, Dane wiping blood from his nose.
Valin looks down at me with disgust then at all the students gaping before he straightens his shirt and walks out.
Mel fixes the mascara under my eyes as I sit back down. “As hot as seeing them fight was, I’m going to need to know the details. Why is Valin pissed?”
I shake my head, the after-effects of the orgasm having me speaking quietly. “I have no idea.”
“Why was Dane hiding you both?” Poppy asks. “It was so weird. Like we all knew it was fake, but we couldn’t see you.”
Mel shakes her head. “Are you okay?”
I nod. “I think so.”
Dane licks the black blood from his lip, and the split skin heals itself. Orsen offers to kill Valin, but he tells his friend to shut up and that he can handle the professor.
His stare is devastatingly haunting when it lands on me. A silent reminder that task four is only half completed. Even when they aren’t silver, Dane’s eyes are still mesmerizing to look at, making me feel like his teeth and tongue are dragging all over me.
The class ends, and I make it halfway to my dorm before something wraps around me, my entire body tugging from the inside as I’m materialized into the dark forest. I gasp as I fall against a tree, pressing my back to it, unable to see a thing.
The moon shines above the canopy of trees, but not near enough for me to see what’s ahead of me. Something moves in the bushes—footsteps against the snapping branches.
My palm itches, and when I glance down, black tendrils are wrapping around my fingers, climbing up to my wrist. It burns, and the tattoos on my neck burn too.
And when I look back up, Valin is there. He has his hands in his pockets, taking a step forward.
I press into the tree behind me. “What are you doing?”
“Do you recognize me? At all? When you look at me, do you feel nothing?”
My spine crushes against the tree as I try to back away more and fail.
I try to scream, but Valin teleports closer, slamming his palm over my mouth. “You and I are going to have a little talk, and you’re not going to remember a thing. If you do, and you tell Dane what we do tonight, I’ll kill you.”
And then everything goes blank.
23
Astrong, unbearable presence twists around my body with each breath I take, like the air to my lungs is feeding the darkness. Each limb is entangled by Stygian power, a hunger that could drive any human mad with an addiction for more.
My body writhes against the intensity as my wrists and ankles are bound to the sacred slab of stone beneath me. My innermost self laughs at the danger, the potential death sentence as the space above me opens up like a giant eye full of blinding light.
I can’t scream—she won’t let me. But a huge part of me doesn’t want to. It aches for the energy to seek out more of my fractured soul, to devour it from the inside out. The gradual build-up of the swirling vortex calls to me like my master, praising me for all my hard work.
The veil between me and the monster is thrown up, and I gasp for air.
Thunder growls around me, flashes of lightning above my body doing nothing to help me see my surroundings.
The vortex grows in size as the monster within me battles to be freed once more. Only, I don’t want it free—I want it gone. I want to push it into an afterlife far from me and the ones I love.
Black tendrils of power burn through my veins, crawling up my arms and legs. The power whispers to me to let go, to allow the force to overwhelm me.
Blood seeps from wounds all over my body as I silently beg for mercy, not daring to say it aloud for the monster to hear. My mind slips, and the mask drops once more as a grin plasters over my face.
