“You did that to the mages.”
It wasn’t a question, but Aida still nodded. Wrapping her arms tight around her middle, she hugged herself for what little comfort it could give. Flinching when Er’it raised his hand, she startled even more when he stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers.
“There is something you can do,” he said, quiet and not at all pleased as his mouth turned down at the corners.
“Tell me. I’ll do anything.” Aida sat up on her knees, eyes wide as she shuffled closer.
“Give me your hand.” Eyes hard and cold, he met Aida’s starlit gaze with his hand held out for hers.
“What for?” Regretting her words, she realized just who she spoke with. A man who gained his power from blood and death, he was the same as Otaso, hurting her at every turn.
“You said you would do anything,” he said as he grabbed Aida’s wrist and dragged her hand toward him.
Whimpering as Er’it crushed the fine bones, Aida nodded and stretched her arm out farther. She scrunched her eyes tight against the sight she did not want to see. He had spilled her blood once, but she’d been so wrapped up in his power, in her need for him, she never noticed the pain of it. This would be as it was with Otaso. Pain, agony, the red rush of her life staining her skin would be gathered between his lips. She knew that from her former guardian, remembered his adoring groans and rough praise as he hurt her and feasted upon her small wounds. She shuddered at the memories of those times and how they drove her to be meeker, quieter—an unwilling participant to the great mage’s desires.
“Do not,” Er’it snarled, jerking Aida forward. Bringing her crashing against his chest where he violated her mouth with tongue and teeth, he forced her lips wide to accept his brutality. He feasted upon her shaky breath and tentative moan before hauling her back to look deep into her eyes. “Open. Soft. That is how I need you,kou’va.Just like this.”
Misty gaze caught within the glimmering bands of light in his eyes, Aida gave a low hum, gasping as his fingers worked their way under the tunic to splay over her back and pull her tighter. She fair purred as he kneaded the tense, abused muscles. Feathering chaste kisses against the corner of her lips that were no less torrid and intoxicating, he upended her thoughts, leaving her blissful in the confused array of sensations as she felt another touch. Delicate and light as a breeze, it caressed against her soul and brought with it the heady scent of cedar and crackling fires among starshine and snow.
Aida cried out in anything but pain as that touch became firmer. Her fingers threaded through Er’it’s braids, holding tight as his resonating groan tumbled through her. Feeling a heartbeat not her own thundering in her chest, she gripped him for fear of losing herself in the overwhelming sensations. Caught up in a tidal wave of fire and ice lashing through her limbs, she smelled and saw things she had no words for—flitting images of hazy horizons, breathtaking colors in hues she had never seen before, vast sands a gleaming onyx under an unforgiving sun.
“Slow, slow,” Er’it mumbled against her lips, though there was nothing serene about the way he ravished her. Calling to her with vicious satisfaction, he yanked her snug to grind her against his thigh.
Screams. Fire and smoke so thick it created an impenetrable wall. A woman with eyes of amber and lush ebony waves, lip curled as she wielded a sword too large for her. Protecting the fallen bodies of two boys. A wide-eyed, smaller version of Er’it, long before cruelty shaped his stern jaw, stood at her back with a bloody knife in his grip. The one Aida lost in the woods.
“No,” Er’it said through a low growl, the hand at Aida’s back digging into muscle and bone. The glare of his topaz eyes was hidden away as he clenched them shut and muttered something under his breath.
They were not the same as the words Aida found on her lips when the blue light made its appearance, but they were familiar. She felt their power prickling along her skin, clawing at her back where Er’it gripped her so tightly. The images running pell-mell through her mind tripped along, stuttering from one memory to the next, all of them soaked in blood, pain, and a loss so deep it struck the soul as it tore a heart apart.
His heart and soul. Aida’s eyes did not sting but burned with the salty wash of her tears, a deluge that rushed over her cheeks to spatter over Er’it’s shoulder and chest. Her broken purr was an offer of comfort she never knew for herself, given as she pushed her face tight against his neck. Leaning all her weight against him to force the delicate reverberation of solace into him, she cradled his head as Er’it snarled and growled above her.
“Enough! That is not for you to see, Omega,” Er’it yelled against her crown.
Power twisted, wrenching between them to slam the door of his memories shut against her. Vivid blue edged in dusky purple, it snapped and crackled in a maelstrom of energy reaching from one to the other as Er’it sucked in hard breaths and Aida continued to purr.
“Enough.” Quiet but far from calm, Er’it shoved Aida back to straddle low on his thigh. Jerking his chin at the arrow in his shoulder, he ground out, “Pull it free.”
“Y-You said that—”
“It’s why we’re doing this, Omega. Now pull it out before I change my mind.”
Aida sniffled, dashing the back of a hand over her eyes to clear the film of sorrow away. Her brow puckered when she tried to move closer and Er’it tugged her back to keep her where she was, no matter that it would mean she had to pull the arrow from the opposite angle. She sniffed again, a hint of hurt in her midnight eyes. It wasn’t her fault, but when had that ever mattered? The bitter taste of regret and the acrid bite of anger threatened to choke her as she reached for the arrow. Grasping it tight in both hands, she used all her might to tear it free. It moved a bare inch.
She sobbed as it ripped the wound open wide while she worked it from Er’it’s shoulder, the triangular head rending his flesh. Blood poured from the gaping hole, sludgy and foul. The scent of rot was heavy in the air as Er’it groaned and slammed the back of his head against the tree. Finally, it gave way with a horrible ripping sound, flesh and fabric torn asunder.
“Your hand. Put it on the wound,” Er’it ground out through clenched teeth, vibrating with tension as Aida did as he told her. Slapping his violet-tainted hand over hers, he pushed, holding her palm tight against the putrid flesh as he gripped her hip hard enough to bruise. Crushing her against his chest, he bit out words that sent power skittering down her arm.
The azure glow flared to life under Aida’s skin, leaching into the darkness and filtering brilliant moonlight through the trees to light up the night as bright as day. Both shouted, Aida’s high and shrill as greasy muck rushed from his shoulder as if drawn out by some force. Splattering all over her front, coating her in the nauseating stuff, it came faster and faster. A fair river of the disgusting fluid became brighter, shading to wine, claret, then crimson. It was bright ruby in the end as Er’it’s lashes began to flutter, and he mumbled against Aida’s cheek.
Blue light winking out of existence, the deep red-purple of amaranthine painted her skin in its stead. Etched with jagged tongues of cerulean and ruby, a storm of energy worked its way through her. Aida whined low in her throat, her eyes wide as she clung to Er’it, who seemed too still. Forcing her gaze away from the unsettling show of power, she pulled his head down to find his eyes open and dazed. Seeing the thick fringe of his lashes framing the golden amber turned hazy and soft, Aida’s brow furrowed. She worried at her lower lip as he took her blood-smeared palm and laid it over the wound once more.
His lips tipped up into a smile, the true grin of humor dazzling her senses as much as the rush of power leaving her fingertips. Slow, controlled, something she’d yet to experience with this chaotic magic, it flowed from her hand into the wound, the flesh turning the bright red and pink of healthy muscle, white glimmer of bone hidden away as it began to close. Though Aida was unsure if it moved too slow or too fast for her to perceive it, still, it began to heal from the inside out, the scent of rot only clinging to their clothing and skin.
“Good,kou’va. Slow, deep breaths now,” Er’it whispered, coming forward to brush a light kiss against Aida’s cheek before moving to her mouth to place another there. Guiding Aida’s breath with his own, they breathed each other in.
Fingers flexing in his hair, she saw it unravel in her mind as she stared deep into his eyes. Picking apart the threads of power, she understood how it happened. She saw how he manipulated the first rush to purge the poison, felt his humor at having underestimated how strong it would be. Now he guided her with a firmer hand, slowing her magic to a faint trickle that was still more than enough. His awe of it all pinkened her cheeks, and she understood he felt as much as she did when he tugged her somehow closer, letting her feel the hard length of him despite everything else going on.
From the cloud-soft haze he lulled her into came Marilsa’s voice. Stark and astringent, it snarled through the feathery serenity and reminded Aida what her purpose was to him. He would end her life for the power he craved, tear it from her still warm body after he carved her open upon some altar, using her body for his pleasure until his moment came. His awe was nothing more than the realization of what he would acquire at her death, his need as base and empty as it ever had been.
