But I’ll survive this too. Because I have to.
I’ll feed again. I’ll keep going.
“You have to feed,” Talon says, closer than before.
He stands next to me. Like always. Steady, unshaken. Ready to hold me through the worst of it. Ready to catch me when I break.
Not literally of course.
The emptiness inside me yawns wider, a canyon with no bottom. Cramps wrench my stomach, and my jaw aches from holding back the scream clawing up my throat. Every inch of skin pulls taut, ready to rip under the pressure. I’m not sure if it’s the curse chewing away at me or my own certain fate.
“Aura, now,” he adds quietly but firmly.
A numbness spreads through me. I must be in shock.
I nod, knowing he’s right. I know this drill. The hunger already threatens to pull me to my knees. It’s in my teeth, my throat, my chest—gnawing, gnawing, gnawing. I can bear it. I’ve borne worse.
The ground trembles under my feet. Grass blades lift, shimmer.From Mal’s corpse, something red and wrong slithers out, a living scream.
Power.
Dark. Furious. Wild.
It snakes out of her open mouth, her chest, her eyes—streaks of red lightning flaring outward in veins against the green grass. Not aimless.
It’s coming for me.
It slams through my bones, splintering me from the inside out.
Chapter 39
The Power of Touch
AURORA
The cursed magic breaks through my spine, my ribs, sinking sharp teeth into every nerve.
The air disappears.
It’s not just pain—it’shunger. Amplified. Multiplied. Multipliedagain.
My lungs seize. My throat convulses. My eyes burn. I can’t scream. I can’t even breathe.
Hunger threads through every muscle, guiding bone and nerve, answering a need that doesn’t belong to me but feels carved into my marrow. Thought dissolves. Will shatters. Craving is all that’s left.
The body moves. Not from choice. Not from thought. Just hunger pulling the strings.
“Aura?” Talon asks, his voice tight with panic.
I’m already reaching for him.
“Aura, don’t,” he says, scrambling back. My curse whips out of me with an invisible maw with drooling fangs, and sinks into him. And it feeds.
Talon stiffens under the attack.
Not close enough. I need more. Oh fae lords, I need every piece of him. I’m empty, caving in on myself. My insides scrape raw, curling tighter, tighter, until I can barely breathe. He is salvation and I drink like an addict, gorge on his life force.
Every cell in me shrieks for more of him. Not just his magic.Him. His fire. His soul.
