The Shadow and The Draw, page 24
They’ll come for me soon.
“Hey, runt.” Finn’s voice sounds above me.
One of my eyes is swollen shut, and he’s blurry even through the other one. “What the fuck do you want?” I can barely raise my head.
“Poor Anya, huh?” He walks around me, his footsteps heavy on the stone floor. “Imagine how Cora’s going to react when she finds out her Mom died because of you.”
“Fuck you, Finn.”
He looks down at me, sneering. “You look like shit, pretty boy.”
“Yeah well I’ll heal,” I reply, “you look like that all the time.”
Finn’s face drops, and his boot connects with my jaw, sending my head snapping to the side. I laugh as the taste of blood fills my mouth.
“What’s wrong, Finn?” I ask, my voice thick.
He kneels down next to me, his face contorting with fury. “You know, coming inside Cora, that was quite something. Her pussy is just, wow, it’s something else, huh?”
“Sure is,” I reply.
“I mean, she was so fucking tight,” he says, and growls low in his throat, “it was like she really was a virgin.”
“Are you trying to piss me off or make me horny?” I turn my head, spitting blood across the floor.
“Does it piss you off?” He asks, leaning over me. “Does it piss you off that I was inside the love of your life? That I fucking came inside her?”
“Does it piss you off that I was there first?” I ask, my shoulders shaking against the floor as I laugh. “Oh man, my eighteenth birthday was a fucking blast.”
Finn’s face darkens. “You fucked her then, huh? That was the first time.”
“Sure was.” I look at him with my one good eye. “Do you want details or are you here for something else?”
He grabs my hair, yanking my head off the floor. “You’ll fucking call out to her now, or I’ll -“
“What?” I’m challenging him. I don’t fucking care anymore. “If you were gonna kill me, you’d have done it already.”
“Maybe I should just cut off one of your fucking legs?” Finn says.
“Go ahead.” I grit my teeth. “You wanna fucking maim me, fucking do it. But you won’t, because you’re all fucking talk. You’re pathetic, and you’re a coward, and you’re nothing.” I spit blood in his face, and he lets my head fall as he stumbles back, his hands frantically rubbing the blood out of his eyes. “You’re insignificant. You’re nothing.”
“You’re nothing!” He screams, and he lunges at me, grabbing my head and smashing it into the stone floor. “You’re nothing! You’re pathetic! Your own mother couldn’t even stand to be around you! She’d rather die than fucking be around you!” His fists rain down on my face. “I’m the Alpha! And Cora’s my Queen, and I’m going to fuck her in front of you for a week before I finally cut your fucking throat!” He leans over me, spit dripping from his lips. “The last thing you hear will be Cora screaming my name.”
I look up at him and grin, through the pain, through the haze settling over me. “The last thing you hear will be Cora tell you that you’re nothing.”
One more week.
I think my arm is broken. It hurts when I move.
I lie on the floor of my cell, and I’m pretty sure I fucking pissed myself the last time they beat me, it stinks and my skin burns. I can’t feel anything anymore, and yet I feel everything. Everything hurts. Nothing works anymore.
I can see the light of the moon grow brighter through the cracks in the shutter above me. Not long now. I can do this. I can last this long.
One more week. Just one more week.
“Amryn?”
Cora’s voice whispers to me in the dark.
My eyes open slowly, the room illuminated by bright moonlight.
A hand touches my face, and I flinch, pain shooting through my body as I do.
“Baby, it’s me.” She whispers, her voice tight with tears. I feel her hair spill over me. She’s sobbing. “Oh god, what have they done to you?”
I lift my arm, the one that’s not aching, not broken, and touch her. She’s here. Oh god she’s finally here. I feel tears burning my eyes.
“You came,” I murmur. My voice doesn’t sound like mine.
“Of course I did.” She lays her head on my chest.
“I’m dreaming aren’t I?” I ask, holding her close.
She climbs on top of me. “No, baby, it’s real. It’s over.”
What is she doing? “Cora, we have to go.”
Her hand moves over my cock, and I’m swelling even though my body is screaming. What the fuck is she doing? My relief gives way to confusion, and I try to find my bearings.
“I missed you so much,” she says, and through the haze of my pain I feel her lower herself on to me.
My hand digs into her thigh. I’m dreaming, I must be. This isn’t really happening. But my back aches as she rides me, pain shooting through my whole body. I wince. “Cora, stop.”
“I need you.” She sighs. “I’ve missed you so much.”
My body doesn’t feel like mine, but I can feel myself rising all the same. What the fuck is happening?
“Cora, stop.” I say again, gripping her thigh and trying to push her off. “Baby, just get me out of here.”
“Don’t you want me?” She sighs.
Fuck. I’m going to come. I don’t want to. It’s all wrong. I’m not dreaming. Her dark curls bounce in the moonlight, her long fingernails digging into my chest.
“Cora, please stop.” The heat in my groin is growing, and it hurts. I don’t want this.
She leans over me, pressing her mouth to mine, and she tastes like smoke. Like cigarettes.
Cigarettes.
Long nails.
“Get the fuck off me!” I cry, adrenaline coursing through me as I push against Morgan’s thigh.
She cackles, throwing her head back as she rides me harder. Fuck. Fuck. I’m going to come.
“Stop!” I cry again, but it’s too late, my aching body shuddering as I release inside the fucking witch who can’t stop laughing on top of me. Fuck. Nausea washes over me. My lungs are drained of air. My stomach quivers and convulses.
“Oh Amryn,” Morgan sighs, and she trembles, moaning loudly as her nails dig into my chest. She’s breathing heavily, and I see her teeth glint in the moonlight as she leers down at me. “Now I know what all the fuss is about, you really are quite something.”
“Get the fuck off me,” I cry again, trying to buck her off, even as pain shoots through my back.
She climbs off me with a giggle, and moves back, sitting down. My stomach lurches as I watch her dip her fingers inside herself, withdrawing them, and raising them to her mouth. “Mmmmm,” she moans as she licks them, “you’re delicious, Amryn.”
“Get the fuck away from me,” I say, shuffling across the floor, just wanting to get away from her despite the pain that’s screaming at me to stay still. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“What do you mean, sweetheart? I just wanted to show you a good time,”
The fuck you did. “What did you just do to me?”
She crawls towards me, leaning over me, stroking my cheek. “Cora really wants a baby, doesn't she?” She traces a finger over my lips, and I shake my head to get her hands off me. She grabs my hair, putting her mouth to my ear. “And so do you, don’t you, Amryn?”
“What did you do?” I ask again. “What did you fucking do to me?”
“Stealing someone’s fertility is so easy, so very easy,” she whispers into my ear.
Fuck. My stomach drops, and I can’t breathe. Fuck. Fuck. Panic overwhelms me.
“You think you can escape Fate, Amryn?” She hisses into my ear, her hands pulling my hair. “You think you can just decide what you want, and have it? Fate always wins. We always win.”
I push her away, scrambling towards the wall, crying out as I put weight on my broken arm. Fuck. Fuck.
“We own you, Amryn,” Morgan says triumphantly, rising to her feet. “We broke you once and we can do it again.”
“Fuck you!” My voice cracks.
“Cora won’t want you now, no one will.” Morgan giggles. “You lived your whole life alone, and unwanted, and now you’ll live out the rest of it the same way. You will die, all alone, and no one will remember who you were.”
“You fucking witch,” I hiss. “You fucking monstrous evil fucking witch.”
Morgan laughs. “Your whole family, pathetic. You should have heard your mother, simpering and whining in that tub, so worried about her poor precious little baby in the next room. ‘Don’t let him find me, please, Morgan’.” She raises her voice into a sing-song tone, mocking. “It was sickening. She was better off dead.”
“I’m going to kill you,” I say, backing against the stone wall. “I’m going to tear your throat out.”
“I’d like to see you try,” Morgan says. She knocks on the door, and it opens, light pouring into the room. “Have a good sleep, Runt. Thanks for the orgasm.”
The door slams shut, and a shutter rolls closed over the window above me. I watch the moon disappear as it does.
It’s almost full.
I clutch my hand to my stomach as I curl into a ball on the floor. For the first time, I wish I would just die. I want the feeling of Morgan’s skin on me to go away. Endless waves of nausea wash over me. Tears prick at my eyes.
Stealing someone’s fertility is so easy.
If anything is going to break me, it’s this. I can’t deal with it. I clutch my hand to my face and howl, pain and grief tearing through me. I can’t fucking do it. If anything ends me, it’ll be this. They’ve done it. They’re going to break me. I can’t do this anymore.
Cora. Cora, please. I reach a hand out, putting my shields down. I can feel her, the threads between us furling towards me in the darkness.
Amryn?
No. I grit my teeth, my chest heaving as I try to breathe. I throw the shields back up, cutting her off before she can reach me, before she can sense my pain and the hollow grief that won’t stop reverberating through my broken body.
Make yourself pass out. You have to pass out. Do it now.
The guards watching me via the camera in the ceiling yell and bang on the door as I summon my flames, telling me stop, telling me I’ll kill myself. It’s agony, my skin searing and blistering as the blood magic binds the flames to my skin.
I hear myself scream, and the pain pulsates through my arms, through my chest, over my shoulders, wave after toxic wave washing over me.
The smell of burning flesh is the last thing my mind registers, as darkness pulls at the edges of my vision. My eyes close, and I hear the guards, distant, as though they’re in another room, talking about me.
“What the fuck did he do that for?”
20
Cora
Iwatch the Blood Moon rising above us, and I expect to feel some rush, some acknowledgement of the change that’s taking place within me right now. It doesn’t come. My veins glow, are they a little brighter? I raise my hands to my face, turning them back and forth in front of me. Maybe I’m just imagining it.
Nothing else happens.
Shooting stars dash across the sky.
Maybe Zadkiel lied. Maybe he’s working with the other clans, with Michael, to destroy me. I shouldn’t have trusted him.
Amryn’s still alive. I can feel him, even through the shields he’s put up. He won’t let me feel his pain, but I know they’ve hurt him. They’ve tortured him. He’s weak.
Tal sits down beside me, and I don’t look at him, my eyes fixed on the sky.
“So, how do you feel?” He asks.
“No different.” I reply.
“Maybe it takes a while,” he says.
“Maybe Zadkiel lied.” I reply. “Maybe nothing’s going to happen, and Amryn was just tortured for a month for nothing.”
“Hey, come on,” Tal says, putting an arm around me. “You’re strong now, so much stronger than you were.”
I push him away. I feel hollow. “It’s all meaningless if I don’t come into my power.”
“You will,” Tal assures me, his eyes meeting mine. “You will, I can feel it.”
I get up, walking past the fire I was sitting at, past the houses, light streaming from their windows. Thunder rumbles in the distance, and lightning flashes on the horizon. I don’t hear footsteps following me, and I’m grateful Tal is giving me space. I want to be alone.
I close my eyes, and reach out to Amryn. I imagine his eyes looking into mine, his smile, his black hair hanging over his shoulder. I edge against something and flinch, feeling the depths of the pain he’s in. And then his shield goes up, and he blocks me out. He doesn’t want me to know, he’s still trying to protect me.
I’m coming, I tell him. I’ll be there soon, Ascension or not. If we die, then at least we die together. I don’t even care anymore.
“You should.”
I spin around, the unfamiliar voice of a man coming from the darkness. I squint, only able to make out a tall, shaded figure walking towards me.
“Who are you?” I ask, summoning a flame and holding it out in front of me to be able to see better.
It’s a ghost. It must be. He’s translucent. I can almost see right through him. His eyes glint silver in the firelight. He smiles at me.
“Cora.” He steps towards me. “Oh Cora, look at you.”
“Who are you?” I ask again. I’m beyond terror at this point. I barely feel anything.
“I am so proud of you,” he says, stepping closer. I can’t see through him anymore, but he’s still shimmering. The moon rises higher above us. “Don’t lose hope now, you are close, so very close.”
“Amryn’s suffered,” I reply flatly, “and I don’t know if we can win. I don’t know if I’m strong enough.”
“You’ve harnessed the Inera, I can feel it.” He puts a hand to his chest, underneath the black beard that hangs almost to his navel, and a light begins to glow. “It is within you now, dear one.”
The Old God. He’s come back. I gasp, and for the first time in weeks I feel something, a small spark, igniting in my soul. “How are you here?” I ask. Tears prick my eyes.
“Because of you.” He smiles and walks towards me, right up to me. “Your powers have transcended beyond anything I could have ever hoped for, dear one.” Thunder rumbles overhead. “I know you don’t feel it yet, but it has happened. The most extraordinary things are sometimes those that we do not even notice at first.”
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I say.
“Of course you can.” He puts his heavy hands on my shoulders. “You are Cora, Shadow Queen of the Earth Realm.”
“What if I can’t?” My head drops, my chin to my chest as I sob, and a wave of emotion crashes over me. Everything I have suppressed and ignored for the past 4 weeks floods my limbs, my chest, and I clasp my hands to my face as I weep.
“You must only believe you can,” the Old God says. “For what you believe, you can do.”
“Cora!” I hear Zadkiel calling to me. “Cora! Where are you?”
The hands disappear from my shoulders, and I look up. The Old God is gone, like a whisp of smoke caught in a breeze.
Zadkiel emerges from the village, his black wings glowing blue in the moonlight. “What are you doing out here, child?” He asks me. “Come now, we must discuss what is to be done next.”
“The Old God’s back.” I tell him, and his eyes widen. “He was just here.”
“Then you have ascended, my dear.” Zadkiel says proudly. “I expected some fireworks or something at least, but I suppose the Old God showing up works too.” Lightning flashes and thunder rumbles in the dark clouds above us, and Zadkiel rolls his eyes. “Yes, ALRIGHT.” He says, looking up at the sky. “I heard you.” He shakes his head as he looks at me, and extends a hand, gesturing for me to follow him. “Come now, we must convene.”
The Great Hall is full, the murmur of the crowd dissipating as Zadkiel and I walk in. All the warriors of Ocario are gathered here, to support us, to go to war, to destroy Nilau and the rival clans, and Michael. The elders, including Elise, Ebony and Liall, sit at the front of the hall, and I go to join them. The hollow ache in my chest returns. I’m afraid. I sit down beside Tal, whose eyes I don’t meet.
“We leave for Nilau just before dawn,” Liall says, his gaze moving around the room. “We will fly together, and swarm them, which should give us an advantage on the first attack.”
“They have blood magic,” a warrior at the front says. “How do we defeat that?” Murmurs of agreement echo around the hall.
“I will ward off what I can,” Zadkiel says, “I am able to enchant against blood magic, and my span is quite great.”
“Good,” Elise says, and looks back at the warriors. “I will need some soldiers with me to find Amryn once we arrive. I need to heal him and bring him to Cora, as quickly as possible.”
“He’s hurt badly,” I say flatly, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “I don’t know if one healer will be able to do it.”
“I can go with her,” Yassin says, rising from the crowd. “My healing abilities are not as strong as Elise’s, but together we might just be able to do it.”
Liall nods. “Good.”
“How do we defeat Michael?” I ask, even though I’ve asked this question a million times over the past four weeks, and have heard the answer a million and one. I need to hear it again. I need to hear that it’s even possible.
“The Inera will weaken him,” Liall says, “and when he is weakened, our flames can hurt him, not to mention what the Inera itself will do to him in that state. If you strike him again, you’ll take him out.”
“It’s that simple?” I ask. “Why couldn’t the last Shadow Queen defeat him?”
The Hall goes silent for a moment, as though the warriors are all holding their breath.
“The last Shadow Queen was overpowered because she faced both Michael and Gabriel,” Zadkiel says to me, “and she was weakened. She’d been badly hurt, abandoned by her Draw, and hit with blood magic. But you have your medallion, and that will protect you.”
I pull the medallion out of my shirt, watching as it dangles from my fingers, spinning back and forth, glinting in the light. “And you’re sure it will work?”
