Page 215 of Infernium

“Now you know. It is a pain deep inside my chest that burns only for you. I feel it every time I look into your eyes. Like the light of a thousand stars. An entire galaxy of love.”

The tears slipped down my temples, as I felt exactly as he’d described. So much love, it hurt. “I don’t even know what to call this.”

“In my language, we call itamreloc.It happens with the joining of souls. You are now mine. Officially.”

“I’m claimed?” I shook my head. “I thought you had to do that in public?”

“I claim you the way I want to claim you. And anyone who doubts it can fuck off.”

Smiling, I raised my hand to his cheek, running my thumb over his ruined lip. “Amreloc?”

He swiped up my hand, and kissed my palm. “Yes. My eternal.”

“And you are mine.” A strange cold sensation snaked beneath my skin and stiffened my muscles. I tried to lift my arm, but couldn’t. “Jericho? I feel strange right now.”

He stroked a hand over my hair. “Shhhh. It’s okay. Your body is turning.”

The cold spiked, like tiny needles pulsing through my veins. Panting, I willed my hand to lift from the bed, yet it wouldn’t move as I lay beside him. Helpless and paralyzed. Heart hammering inside my chest, I breathed through the tight fist of panic cinching my lungs. “Turning to what!”

“Immortal, my love. You are becoming immortal. And you will belong to me.”

The icy sensation moved from my arms to my legs, my toes, my torso, my chest. “I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!”

Lips to my ear, he whispered. “Relax, Farryn. It will pass. Allow it to take you.”

“Allow what to take me?”

“Your new soul.”

His words sent a fresh wave of panic crashing through me. “A new soul? Like … I won’t be me?”

“You will very much be you. But your aging will slow. Your bones and muscles will strengthen. Your heart will beat stronger. Your lungs will breathe easier.”

A tingling sensation warned my body was going numb. My sight dimmed, a blackness settling in on the fringes.

“Let it take you into sleep, Tu’Nazhja. Do not be afraid. When you wake, you will feel fucking fantastic. And I will be here, watching and waiting for that moment.”

The blackness closed in like a lid over a box with no air. I gasped and choked for one sip of oxygen.

Until the void pulled me in.

EPILOGUE ONE

BARCHIEL

Three days ago …

Breath sawed in and out of Barchiel as he lay against the wall of the Obsidian Mountain. He had only just made it out of the labyrinth before the portal had closed and the asylum burst into flames, which would have left him at the eternal mercy of being hunted by Mortunath in Eradye. He thanked the Holy Father for whatever interventions had allowed him to escape such a horrible fate.

Hisonlyregret was not having killed Farryn when he’d had the chance.

Pain throbbed at his groin where the little harlot had stabbed him. Fortunately, she had not severed it completely, as a life without pleasure seemed like no life, at all.

Sighing, he sat up from the stony ledge, looking around the barren wall of rock where he’d come out of the portal, somewhere along the stretch of Mount Obsidia, though he didn’t quite have his bearings about him.

Ariochbury couldn’t have been far, though. Perhaps two nights walk from there, and he could find some safety once he was within the Noxerians’ castle. As he wobbled to the side, the pain struck him again, shooting up into his skull, and he let out a groan. The view before him wobbled a bit, and he narrowed his eyes on a figure striding toward him.

An enormous figure.

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