Page 48 of King of the Damned
“She is the only soul that I care for.”
Eternity hums as if she doesn’t believe me, but she holds out her hand to me. I take it. Dark magic on our skin forms a crimson line.
A blood vow with the Goddess of Misery; one that will not be broken.
When she releases my hand, she uses her magic to lift the two Bloodstones at eye level. Her dark magic surrounds them, crushing them together until they form a single stone just a smidge larger than their original size.
She plucks it from the space in front of her and hands it to me.
“You only delay the inevitable,” she says as I take it and place it around my neck. I approach Adelasia and focus on healing her wound. “I have seen millions of futures. Infinite forevers. There are none where your mate does not perish.”
I swallow cautiously, keeping my focus on Adelasia. When I once again feel the soft warmth radiating from her body, only then do I turn to face the dark Goddess.
But she has vanished, leaving me wondering who I have just sacrificed for this sinister pact.
Though some of the radiant flush of Adelasia’s cheeks has returned, I still fear that I was too late–that by some twisted version of fate, I’ve only prolonged her suffering instead of saving her.
Eternity did not specify when Adelasia would die, just that she would spare her this once. But for how long? A day? A week? A century?
I lift my hand to Adelasia’s supple cheek and stroke her soft skin with the back of my fingers.
I watch as her arm reveals goosebumps at my lifeless, cold touch. I retract my hand and feel a sense of dread and guilt for ever bringing her here. I stole her from her life, only to cause her harm and misery.
“It’s like you were created solely to be my ruin, my sweet agony”, I whisper across her lips, barely grazing them with mine as I place the most featherlight of kisses there. “But we both know you were meant for more than that, don’t we?”
I take a deep, defeated breath, and my voice shakes as I tell her still body, “Everyone dies. And one day in the future, when it’s your time, your memories of me will die with you. But for me? I’ll carry you with me for the rest of my miserable eternity.”
Twenty-One
Adelasia
Somehow, in the vast expanse of nothing, I feel a hand reaching for mine. A warm hand. It grips my slender, freezing fingers and I feel it pull me in the opposite direction of the vines around my ankles.
The pulling becomes more frantic, more painful, until finally–light.
I see light.And in that light, I can make out the shape of a person. A man.
When I crash through the surface back into the air, my lungs ache for it. I wretch to clear them of water and replace it with deep breaths.
I feel the man that pulled me out of the water rub circles on my back and hold my loose hair out of the way of my gagging as a black, tar-like substance escapes my throat.
I turn my head to face the man, and through the thick haze of the poison in my body that clouds my vision and thoughts, I see wings.
Large, beautiful, white wings, surrounding us in a protective embrace. My shaky hand reaches for the feathers as if they will bring me comfort…but then he’s gone.
“Kaius?” I croak. And then he’s there again.
The feathers…no…his cloak.
But his cloak is black, not white, right?
I can’t see.
I can’t feel.
I can’t remember.
I jolt upright in a fright to the sound of thunder, only to find the room empty. I’m in the Obsidian Palace, under warm covers in a fireplace-lit comfort. My robe is thrown over my vanity chair, and I stand to put it on over my thin nightgown to protect myself from the chill in the air I’ve only just begun to become accustomed to.
