Page 121 of Cursed to Be Mine
HIM
A feminine scream breaks my heart in both joy and terror that my girl’s alive. Running towards the sound of her, the feel of her as our bond reconnects, I search with my magic in the pitch-black darkness. I find her not far from me, on her knees, struggling to get the gag off her face. Crouching down behind her, I quickly untie it, then work on her hands.
Twisted creatures skitter at the edges of my vision, the black like a fog even my magic can’t penetrate. My pulse like a hummingbird’s wings, I drag her to my feet.
“Don’t leave my side,” I say, wanting to grab her hand but needing both of them to protect us in this nightmarish plane.
“Where are we?” she whimpers, but her voice isn’t that of a broken mind. She’s strong, a fighter, and my chest expands with that knowledge.
The gods won’t take me before I get a lifetime with her.“We’re in the Shadow Domain.”
The sound of clicking wet mandibles and gut-churning slurps start to echo around us, lured by the blood of my girl. There’s a lot of them, a thick density I can’t fight off. One or two minor beings, I might have had a chance, but there is a reason no one else but my family walks through the Shadow Domain. The average person won’t last a minute here.
I can’t use my shadow magic inside it either, can’t conjure any weapons to protect us. Turning tokira, I cup her cheeks.
“I need you to bite me,kira,” I say, grabbing the back of her head and pushing her mouth against the side of my throat. “Bite deep.”
“What?” She tries to lift her head, but I hold it down, covering her in my blood the only thing that will protect her. Maybe...
“Do it!”
“It’ll kill you!”
“I’ll heal; do it!” A lie, but I don’t have time to guide her on just where to bite me or how deep or at what angle to pull away so she doesn’t rip out my artery. Screaming hisses rush towards us as the clatter of hooves and insect-like legs echo in the dark. We’re out of time.
“Kira,please!”
Crying, she digs her teeth into my neck and rips away.Too deep.Blood spurts free in a jet stream, covering her in a repellent that will hopefully keep her alive.
Using magic to stay conscious for just a few seconds longer, I draw a rune on her skin with my blood. Placing my palm over it, I push my magic into her. When she’s pulled out of here, taken to wherever it is Antonio wants her, the rune will protect her frombeing raped.
The creatures stop only a few feet from us, hissing in rage as they gnash deformed teeth in deformed faces.
“Khalid!” Scarlett cries as I drop to the ground, my strength disappearing with the high volume of blood loss.
“Heal yourself!” she screams as she places one hand over the wound she gave me. I cover it with my own and squeeze. It seems I cannot defy the gods after all...
“Khalid!” Fumbling with her other hand, Scarlett digs something out of a pocket, and there’s a slightpopas a cork is freed.
“Do you drink this, or do I pour it over the wound?” she demands as she shoves a blue vial in front of my face. Laughter pours out of me in soft wheezes as I guide her hand to my mouth.
Dipping the whole thing into me, she saves me from the verge of death with a healing potion.
My girl.
My clever, clever girl…
Holding Khalid’s head in my lap, I clutch him tightly as tears fall down my cheeks. My palm is pressed against his neck, trying to tell if the bleeding has stopped. I can’t see anything in this place, and he’s not moving.
“Khalid?” I whisper, praying that he answers. When Micha found me, she made me drink one to counter the red potion eating through my legs, but those hadn’t been life-threatening wounds.
She then explained that there was amisunderstanding, that she was being set up, and given she had just saved me, I was inclined to believe her.
Then Antonio burst through the door and attacked her from behind. He slammed his whole arm through her back and out her stomach, causing her to pass out in an instant.
He didn’t kill her though. She was his scapegoat or rather, Talon’s scapegoat and needed to be left alive to take the heat off him. He told me with great delight that Varius, paranoid fuck that he was, would torture her for our whereabouts. Sau believed her to be a traitor, so it would not matter what truths Micha told.
Khalid’s hand tightens on mine, and he breathes out softly. “You saved me,kira.”
