Page 141 of The Silversmith

“Let Smyth’s wife go. I know you have her.”

His cold finger traced my collarbone. I bit my tongue to stifle a cry.

“Take me and my power, and we’ll leave Nyrida and never return. Free the people on this continent, and I will be whatever you want.”

He brushed a cold thumb over my breast.

“That is my offer. Agree to it, and I… I will be yours.”

His eyes, eerily bewitching, studied me. My stomach lurched when I recalled how recently another pair of eyes had drawn me in like that. Eyes I loved.

“I don’t have his wife, Ary.” Molochai grinned. “I’m not even sure who she is. But it was a good little trick, wasn’t it?” Gesturing around, he added, “So where is he?”

My eyes burned hot with tears for Gavin. For my failure. But part of this could still work.

“If you don’t have his wife, then free my people.” I forced my chin up defiantly. “Take me, end this fight with Simeon, and leave this world in peace.”

He chuckled. “Very enticing, Ary. More than you know.” His shadows—cold, like ropes of icy wind—snaked around my naked, shivering body, over my bare breast and around my torso, where they squeezed. “But…” His cold, taloned finger slithered along the base of my neck. “There’s a larger war to be won than the war between two old friends. The power Simeon and I bargained for is nothing compared to the power of the Selvaren. The power…” His finger moved over my navel… to my hip… to my thigh, a venomous snake waiting to strike. “That is meant to be inside you.”

A gasping shriek tore out of my throat and faded into broken sobs when the sharp tip of his taloned nail impaled the meat of my thigh.

My blood iced over. Darkness shrouded my vision. And when I looked at my veins, they were swelling with black, beginning at the place he’d cut me. His darkness was inside my body.

He was everywhere, invading me.

I could barely breathe.

“I have it!” I gasped, fighting the panic and terror that clamped down on my throat. “I have it—the power you want. Accept my offer. I’ll do whatever you want, just leave this world alone.”

“I’m inside of you, and your people are all you can think about?” Molochai hissed out a laugh. “I’ll have to give it some more effort.”

Sobs wracked me—silent, void of air. He lifted his bloodied, taloned finger to my cheek, down the curve of my jaw, stopping at my collarbone. This time deeper, sharper, slower. A thousand red-hot, finely honed blades in my skin. He dug each nail of his claw through my flesh, one by one, until he hit bone.

I screeched, but he clamped his free hand over my mouth, silencing me so he could whisper against my cheek, his hot breath a sickening contrast to his cold lips. “When Simeon and I made our bargain, we were told that when you kill someone, their power shifts to the killer. It’s quite the valiant sacrifice you are willing to make, darling, but your offer is useless to me. I must kill you to get what I need.”

“Then take me, kill me, and let them go!” I pleaded. “I won’t fight you.”

Anything to get this horrid, blackened ice out of me. Death was surely better.

“Why so eager to die, Ary?” he sneered. “It would be such a waste not to take my time with you. Clearly, you’re…” he violated my shivering, naked form with his slow, salacious stare, “divine. A sacrifice for your people is one thing, but it’s particularly intriguing,” he purred, tracing a bloody finger along my jaw, “that you would give yourself up for such a despicable bastard.”

“He’s a better man than you could dream of being!” I spat in his face.

“Is he?” Molochai laughed darkly. He wiped my spit off his cheek with his bloodless thumb and licked it off. “Hmm,” he purred. “You are delicious. It seems Smyth thinks so too. After all, my shadows can smell him on you. Smell… how you want him too.” His nostrils flared as he glanced down between my thighs. “I typically enjoy this, but you… no, I will not enjoy killing you.” His lip and brow furrowed in mock sadness. “And it’d be a shame for Smyth to miss it.”

“Leave him out of this!” I gritted out. “He has suffered enough!”

Molochai flashed a sickening smile. “Let’s see how fast your screams make him run.”

“No!” I thrashed against my binds, but the shredding darkness stole my vision, and I held my breath to brace for what was to come.

The absence of all things good.

I lost sense of time and struggled to breathe. Every time I gasped for air, my lungs were crushed by a clamping fist of consuming darkness, that black void allowing in only enough oxygen to see and hear and survive. I was just conscious enough, aware enough, to feel the agony. And awareness was a torture of its own.

The shadows that blackened my blood sluiced through me like malleable, serrated snakes. Slowly, methodically, while my body begged for relief. I screeched—the sound terrible and foreign—until my throat felt shredded and I tasted copper on my tongue.

I screamed, but I didn’t beg. I refused to give him that.