It claimed her, blocked her sight, severed her control from her body.
Untethered her.
Her subconscious banged on the barrier, but the shadow trapped her within walls of darkness, stole her body, and looked through her eyes. The dark presence swelled inside her and licked its lips as it took control. She couldn’t shake it. Couldn’t push it back into the gaping hole inside her soul it had crawled out of.
Rest now,the shadow purred.Rest now, vessel. Let me take control.
And Emmery was … exhausted. She didn’t want to fight anymore. She was so damn tired of being angry. Of hurting. And the darkness soothed her.
The shadow smiled.
Emmery yielded.
And she let go.
As the shadow claimed its vessel, magic ripped through its body in a torrent of golden flame. Even as thekhaosflame purred and stole its breath, it wielded it without abandon. Without restraint.Delectable.
The demon in its hands withered like paper in an open flame. Such a pathetic, vile thing. Demons had always been inferior.
As the demon disintegrated in its hold, the braziers flared to reveal the massacre of bodies in a splatter of gold and crimson.
The shadow grinned at the sight. At the bloodshed.
But it wasn’t enough. It was never enough.
A few paces away, a man lay collapsed on the floor. A soft whimper left his lips. He was weak too. Pitiful. But then, although he wobbled, he shoved himself to his feet. His black eyes widened as he took in the carnage. The man crept toward the shadow’s vessel. “Emmery?” he said, voice low.
The shadow ignored him and leaned into the unending anger ripping through its veins, blocking any light in its soul, stirring the hurricane of fire, and becoming one with thekhaos, as everything should. The shadow would make the whole world bend a knee.
The man’s hand shielded his face from the raining flame. Molten winds swirled, relished in victory, and the shadow’s vessel spun on him. Its lips pulled back over its teeth with a hiss.
But he was—
Familiar,somehow.
Though he was coated in blood, with his face torn open, dark curls and stubbled jaw soaked in red, the vessel recognized the man. Trapped behind the shadowy wall, the girl fought to reach him, but the shadow shushed her, told her to rest, told her everything would be alright if she sank into the darkness.
The foolish man drew toward the fire like an insect ravenous for light. Ready to die for it.
“It's alright, Em. You’re safe,” he said, his voice a soft, warm thing.
The girl wanted to savour that voice, wanted to soak in it like the blood that coated him and streamed from his arm. Maybe the shadow would make her taste his blood, lap it up like the sacred water of the spring. But the man did something, reaching into its mind though it had claimed this vessel. Itbelongedto the shadow.
Even so, the weak girl clawed at the walls in a feeble but admirable attempt.
“What did you do with her?” the man whispered, his calm splintering. “Where is she? Bring her back.”
His skin scorched as he thrust his arm through the golden blaze, and though he gritted his teeth against the burn, he did not falter. The shadow retracted thekhaosflame. It couldn’tbear it if anything happened to this man, though it knew it was the girl’s will bleeding through.
Because the girl knew him.Felthim. But even as the shadow fought that nature, the man called to something inside it. Some burning, glowing thing that refused to die.
He grasped the vessel’s hand, and a cold wind passed over its burning flesh. It shivered. The shadow’s vessel closed its eyes. Tried to hold on and stay. Consume. Feast. Destroy.
“Emmery.” The man caught the vessel’s fingers and squeezed, though his skin blistered, a mottle mess of flesh. He fought and failed to keep the pain from his voice. “Look at me.”
Gaze fixed on where their hands met, the shadow’s chest rose and fell raggedly. Its gaze lifted to his, but its hold slipped, falling back into that place it lived inside this vessel.
“Come back,” he whispered. Their fingers tangled and his dark stare bored through the haze of thekhaosflame. “I have you, Em. Come back to me,” he said, impossibly soft.