Chapter 206
It was dark magic, it had to be.
Invisible wstched onto a part of me that was much deeper than mere flesh and bone, wrapping
and coiling like the scaled body of a snake. The pleasure soured, and as spasm after spasm rocked my
body, I tasted its foulness on my tongue.
I was entangled in it’s grasp, powerless even though mere seconds ago I k****d an entire group of
witches with my mind.
The way it split my thoughts like a deck of cards, shuffling through them before turning each one over
to inspect it felt like a vition.
Everything hurt. The pain was so consuming that I couldn’t tell which parts of me were still intact. My
skin b****d from the silver tipped arrows, stung from the slices in my flesh, and b****d because every
movement I made jostled the quills protruding from my back.
The forest was growing darker, the shadows dancing around the edges of my vision. They thrashed
and writhed, their whispers just out of reach. It took me a moment to realize it wasn’t the forest that was
growing dim, slowly draining of color.
It was me. My strength was failing, and I didn’t have nearly enough to fight off the dark magic while also
keeping myself from bleeding out.
A ssh of crimson blossomed in my peripherals like the petals of a wilted rose.
An idea came to mind, one that would’ve made me sick if I weren’t standing on d***h’s precipice.
When I looked back on this moment, I wouldn’t remember digging my fingers into the dirt to propel
myself forward. I wouldn’t be able to recall the feeling of dirt and stone getting wedged under my nails,
packed into my wounds as I slid along the forest floor.
What I would remember is the moment I reached her, the witch that shot me.
I’d remember sinking my teeth into her neck, tearing into her flesh with human canine teeth. They were
so dullpared to Maya’s, so terrible at shing through flesh that it was almost a chore to get to
what little blood remained in her body.
I swallowed and swallowed, drinking the liquid strength that poured from her body in a sea of red.
My skin began to itch horribly as the wound on my side, where I’d been grazed by an arrow, began
knitting itself together. The ones on my back were another story all together. I couldn’t reach to pull the
arrows out of my flesh, and I didn’t have enough strength for my magic to get the job done.
“Shadows, I need your help.” I croaked, wincing at how sore my throat felt.
Help…help……help… They whispered in dozens of ovepping voices.
I clenched my hands into fists, unable to look at the stain on my skin and those unnerving veins that
crawled up my fingers like poisonous spider webs.
“Can you get rid of this—this evil inside of me?” I tried not to beg them, but I was terrified.
I thought I was slowly bingfortable with magic, but this was a wake-up call that showed me
just how little I actually knew.
Each word ached like I’d swallowed mouthfuls of ss, but I forced them out regardless. The shadows
writhed at the sound of my voice beckoning them closer. To anyone else, it would’ve looked ordinary.
Simr to how shadows dance along the walls in a dimly lit room. If they looked closer they might see
the hundreds of tendrils all curling around one another, all speaking in their high-pitched whispers.
Yesss…we can help you, master. We can take the darknesss.
My sigh of relief sounded more like a sob, melting the tension in my shoulders until they slumped. The
shadows weren’t done, though. Their voices shot out from all sides of the forest, all of them saying the
same thing.
It will be painful, master. So very painful… They warned.
I closed my eyes and steadied myself. This wasn’t the first time I’d felt pain, and it certainly wouldn’t be
thest. Anything—anything was better than this evil magic peeling apart theyers of my brain. No
matter how bad it was, I’d endure it.
“Do it. Do it now and you can have the d**d witch’s blood.” I whispered.
As I anticipated, the promise of magical blood sent the shadows into a frenzy of excitement. All at once
they shot out from the cover of the forest, slinking from behind trees and untangling themselves from
the brush. Like leaches bloated with the anticipation of blood, they flung themselves at me.
It was like every shadow in the forest hade.
They moved so fast that I didn’t even have time to cover my face. Darkness flooded my vision, the
imprable kind that blocked out every single one of your senses and left you wondering if this was
what d***h were like.
The pain wasn’t instant, but it dide without warning.
I’d been encased in the Shadows, hearing only their chatter when every muscle in my body contracted
and every bone flexed. My mouth opened but no scream came out, only excruciating silence. Just
when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did.
The Shadows continued to writhe all along my body. They had no feel to them other than this icy
coldness licking at my skin. When one slithered up my neck and forced its way into my mouth, I let out
a choked shriek. Another followed, and another, and another.
Only when I began to thrash did I realize that the Shadows covering my body were there for a reason.
I couldn’t move a muscle.
They had trapped me. Caged me in with their bodies and made me their prisoner.
You mustn’t fight usss…
Yeah, like that was easy when I could feel my throat expanding, forced to take in the frigid cold. Time
passednguidly, each second stretching on longer than the next. There was ice seeping into my
bones, using the wounds the dark magic gouged in my body and mind as pathways. I could tell when
they made contact with it.
More importantly, I felt how desperate it was to stay.
Agony swallowed my every thought as its ws sank into my soul and held on for dear life, screeching
and roaring against the Shadows that continued to coax it away.
It was worse than anything I’d ever felt. Worse than crashing a car, feeling the rattle your bones and
your skull crush your brain.
Worse than the crackle and b**n of me licking at b**e skin.
This kind of pain never truly left. It erased everything I was and ever could be, taking away every
memory until there was only pain, pain, pain. I thought it would never end, that I’d be trapped in this
hellscape forever. Eternally punished for the things I’d done and didn’t do.
Suddenly, the hold the dark magic had over me lessened, and the Shadows surged at the momentary
blip of weakness.
Its ws were ripped away, swallowed by the shadows that then spewed from my mouth in a geyser of
putrid darkness.
When the Shadows released me and I could once again see, the first thing I did other than wheeze and
gasp for air was stare down at my hands.
They looked normal. My skin was once again unblemished, and those creepy veins were gone. It was
like they’d never been there, but I knew otherwise. I could still feel the wound it wed through me to
get to my soul. It wasn’t physical, but it was there.
As the Shadows left, slithering along the forest floor top up every droplet of the witches’ blood that
was spilled, their whispers lingered.
We wisssh to warn you, master. Every time you draw dark magic into your body, the more difficult it
bes to get rid of it…
…eventually, it will consssume you.
There wasn’t time to dwell on their warning because a few feet away stood familiar face. A wolf made
purely of shadow, its head cocked and curiosity shimmering in its rich eyes.
“What the h**l was that?” Breyona asked after shifting back into her human form.
“Long story…lots of pain. Oh, I think I’m going to be sick.” I groaned. “I can’t shift, not with these arrows
in my back.”
She hissed between clenched teeth, circling around to the half a dozen arrows spattered around my
spine. None had managed to hit it, but there was this painful scratching sensation in my right lung that
made me worried one was close to piercing it. Her face paled, lightening in increments until it looked
translucent and pulled taut with worry.
Lightly, she peeled back the shredded f***s of my shirt and gingerly touched one. I tried not to recoil at
the hot wave of pain that dug into my flesh, but I must’ve made some sound because she quickly
apologized and backed away.
“It’s alright. I…I drank some of the witch’s blood, so the wounds aren’t bleeding anymore. They’ve
scabbed over the shaft of the arrows, which is great for now, but it’s going to be a pain when theye
out.” I grimaced, definitely not looking forward to that. “What I need right now is to get back and help
fight.”
“The fight is over, L. There wasn’t much of one left when Brandon and the group of warriors from
Bran’s old pack got here.” She replied, but something tugging at my gut told me she was leaving out a
lot of details.
I swallowed, wishing I had cold ss of water—or blood. “Did we lose anyone?”
“Actually, no. Mason did break his arm, and somehow ra sensed it with her witchy mojo, but they’re
both safe. Asher’s…a bit stressed out considering you’ve been gone this long, but I let him know I
found you and that you’re alive. Oh, and Dina’s looking for you, but that part can wait.” She said, but
her voice was much too nonchnt considering everything that happened.
Suddenly, her eyes glossed over. A whopping three seconds passed before she shook her head and
said, “Actually, never mind. It can’t wait. We need to get you out of here.”
I stared at her somewhat dumbfounded before pulling myself together. Before she could shift back into
her wolf, an idea sprung to mind.
“That shadow transport thing you do. Think I can hitch a ride?”
She contemted my question then lifted her shoulder in a half-shrug. “In theory, it should work.”
“Then let’s test this theory, shall we? The sooner the better because if I don’t get some blood in me, I
am going to pass out.”
“Let’s do this.” Determination brightened her eyes. As she began to shift, she called out onest time.
“Oops, I almost forgot. We captured one of the witches—the elemental girl.”
Before I could ask which one, shended on four feet and charged at where I stood.
Traveling via Shadows felt a lot like being folded in a million bed sheets. Each one was a new ce or
point in time. More than a few seemed to tangle around my ankles, but Breyona slipped through each
one with ease, pulling me along with her. The forest twisted into nothingness around us, only to untwist
and reveal that we were now somewhere else.
I wasn’t the slightest bit embarrassed when wended in the middle of the street, and I doubled over to
puke my guts out.
Breyona, still in wolf form, gave me a look that inly conveyed her disgust. I swear she was trying to
curl her lip, but since she had a long snout instead of her button nose it didn’t trante correctly.
“Don’t look at me like that. You have any idea how it feels to travel through the Shadows when you’re
not made of them yourself?” I grunted, spitting out the rancid taste of vomit and blood in my mouth.
As much as I needed another hour or two to fully recover from the nausea alone, time was of the
essence.
We’dnded smack dab in the middle of town, only ten feet away from an altercation of some sort.
First, I noticed Tessa at the very center of it all. Her hands were bound behind her back, and she was
sporting a pretty nasty g**h on her forehead. The blood it oozed was rich and carried notes of gardenia
and rose.
I spat a second time when saliva pooled in my mouth.
Tessa was on her back, staring down the snout of a wolf the color of storm clouds. Several shades
darker than Mason’s wolf, this particr wolf wasn’t the least bit familiar.
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“That one of the warriors from Bran’s pack?” I asked Breyona, who had once again shifted into her
human form.
“Nope.” She popped the word in between her lips. “That’s Dina.”