Page 65 of The Incubus Curse

I was willing to die for them if need me. I was ready to suffer whatever fate was my own.

He ran at me faster than I expected, but I had been used to fighting off vampires in the past, so it wasn’t an impossible move to roll away from.

When he realized he missed, his mouth twitched into a fine line. “Did you forget how old I am?” He hissed at me. “Did you forget how powerful I am?”

He ran at me again, hands facing me as if wanting to touch my skin.

Ironically, we both had the same end goal. One touch of either of us and the other would be surely dead either by thetouch of a deathwalker or a succubus.

I forced myself forward, running at him and then using all my weight to slide across the tiled flooring, just barely making it under his grasp. My bare back ached as it scrapped against the tile, leaving a burn stretching from my shoulders to my lower back. I could feel the air sting the cuts as I stood up from the ground.

He growled once more, this time more frustrated than before. “I willeviscerateyou.” His face tore open, mouth widening like the skin connected to his jaw was now pulled flesh. His teeth were visible, his eyes only sunken holes, and his nose disappeared, leaving only the bone. The word deathwalker felt very fitting as I stared at the rotting corpse standing before me.

My eyes flickered to him and then to Fiona, who the ancient hadn’t realized was behind him at this point. She was within arm’s reach even if she was still on the ground. And as I watched her inch toward him to stop him, his eyes noticed my glare and turned to her in a rage.

Her claw-like nails tried digging into his heel, but he spun back from her reach. His boot flicked up as he kicked her head in, smashing it to pieces as chunks scattered the floor. His boot squished into her hollow head deeply as if to make sure she was dead for good this time. And I used that slim break in his concentration to make my move.

I watched as he tried to kick off the blood and flesh from his boot and sprinted at him. It wasn’t until I was within arms’ reach that he realized what I had done. That he realized how close I was, but it was too late. I held my hand out and, with all my weight, fell into him, grabbing onto his arm, not caring how hard I collided with him.

As soon as my hand gripped his arm, it was over.

He was mine.

But I didn’t want this to be a quick death. I didn’t want him to know what peace felt like.

No, this would be long. This would be agonizing. This would be myvengeance.

First, I made him open his eyes, pull them back from their hollow sockets, and then watched as his eyes widened. They looked terrified, pupils dilated, and veins spiking out around them as if he had just burst a blood vessel in his eyes. As if he was trying to fight the hold that I now had over him, to no avail.

“Do you feel it? Do you feel what death tastes like? Do you feel the darkness beginning to shroud your thoughts? I want you to think of the most painful thing your tiny brain can think of and now imagine it spreading across you like a virus. Unyielding. Unimaginable. Unmistakably traumatizing.” I said, watching as his eyes bled from the corners, leaking out onto his face as if he was crying iron-soaked tears.

He began screaming, hands cupping his head as if he were being eaten alive from the inside out. As if the thoughts had now consumed him.

“Did you really think you would survive this?” I laughed, feeling my heart quicken with excitement at the idea of torturing him. At the idea of avenging my family. “Did you think you’dwin?” I could feel my heartbeat in my head, echoing loudly against my skull.

“Dustin, what are you going to do?” Oliver chimed in from the cage.

I had honestly forgotten about him and Tina with all my rage. The two hung from their cages, hands gripping the barsas they stood idly watching me intensely. Like they, too, were hanging onto every word I said.

“What do you think I’m going to do? He killed father! He killed Sasha!” I yelled back at Oliver, feeling the adrenaline coursing through me.

“We may need him if we want to get mother back. He could be useful.”

“Useful?” I growled, slapping the ancient on the face, who just looked dumbly at me as he stood speechless, stuck in a state of charmed paralysis, clutching his head. “Thisthingis not useful. He’s dead, is what he is.”

“You’re not thinking rationally, Dustin.” Oliver rebutted.

Tina reached her hand through the cage to get my attention. “And what if Azrael retaliates and hurts Freya because you killed his brother? What then?”

“Oh, now you want to chime in.” I hissed at her.

Who was she to accusemeof having anything other than Freya’s best interest at heart? I would have died for Freya. Would have lit this world on fire if it meant saving her. If it meant freeing her. I wouldn’t even blink to kill someone if it meant her life would be mine again because she was mine.

Not Azrael’s. Certainly not Tina’s.

Mine.

“Just take a second, Dustin. You know you don’t want to do this. We don’t need to piss Azrael off any more than he already is. Daemon told us he was the one we needed to worry about. Nothim.” Oliver’s finger pointed to the ancient.

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