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But then something unbelievable happened. He had been virtually comatose for so long that rousing himself seemed impossible as well as futile. He hadn’t wakened fully in years; hadn’t even opened his eyes to look around. What was the point? There was nothing there.
Only, suddenly, there was. Something had jolted him out of his slumber like a bolt of lightning. Or what it was—a bolt of pure energy, incubus energy, life energy. He’d stared around, confused and groggy, not comprehending what was happening. Even when it hit again, harder this time, hard enough to crack the walls of the prison he’d made for himself and to send them blasting away into nothingness.
Leaving him huddled there in the darkness, all alone, stunned and frightened and unsure what to do.
Until another bolt hit, blowing open his eyes, leaving him looking at—
He wasn’t sure.
A woman, yes, but not human; not human at all.
He didn’t see her with the eyes of a man, because he wasn’t one. He saw her as others of his kind had once seen her mother—a glowing being of pur
e light, of pure life—only she wasn’t threatening him. She wasn’t trying to hurt him. She was . . . she was . . .
No! It was a trick! She couldn’t be offering herself to him—why to him?
Incubi respected power, and he had none, had never had any. And he was so small, so shriveled, so completely powerless now that his own people wouldn’t have even bothered to cannibalize him, had they been able to get past his master’s formidable defenses, for what would be the point?
He had nothing to give.
But it was irresistible, the lure of all that power. It would have been to any of his kind, but to him it was completely overwhelming. He knew he had no right to it, knew how furious his master was going to be if he so much as tried to touch it. But no power within him meant no power to resist, and it drew him out of the depths like a moth to a flame.
And if, like the moth, it cost him everything, he didn’t care. If he died, he didn’t care. Let it be a trick, let it be a nightmare, for what nightmare could be worse than what he’d already lived? Just let him feed . . .
And she had. To his amazement, she had. There had been no hesitation, no holding back. The power was simply there, fully and freely given, all he could ever want and more, so much more, than he could ever hold.
He’d been tentative at first, just taking a little bit, a dainty sip at that vast ocean, afraid that it would overwhelm him. And it had, but not in the way he’d feared. Instead of more pain, the price of long disuse, he felt . . . fire. Not the kind that burned but the kind that energized, flowing like a river of sparkling life through his veins.
He felt himself opening back up, the long-disused, almost calcified pieces of himself filling out, plumping up. His vision brightened, and she came more into focus, a flurry of sparks flying behind her, her blond hair floating out on currents of her own making, her eyes blue flame. She was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen—
And then it was like a match thrown on a gasoline-soaked bonfire. His hunger reawakened, his true nature surged to the surface, his claws came out and then sheathed again, because he didn’t want to hurt her, no, no, never hurt her! But he couldn’t, he found, because she was drinking him down, too.
As fast as he could absorb that river of energy, as fast as it bloomed and blossomed within him, his gift turning it into so much more than he’d been given, she was taking it back. She was pulling it out of him, but he didn’t care. Because as soon as one wave retreated, another came to replace it, a never-ending stream, because how do you drink the ocean?
You can’t drain her, he’d thought, the realization hitting him hard. You can’t hurt her! And that meant—
He felt his eyes blow wide, his mental state rocked to its core, his reality tilt and whirl and break off to fall into the void. And then he didn’t feel anything, at least nothing he would ever be able to describe. Because, for the first time in his existence, he did what he was meant to do, and opened wide the floodgates of his power, taking everything she could give and more, until he was overwhelmed with it, until he was laughing hysterically, half out of his mind, or perhaps all the way out, because what was this?
Fire tore through him, power overwhelmed him, he felt himself do something else he had never been able to before—and grow. And with size and power came something else: rage at the creature trying to hurt her, to kill them both. He turned with a roar on the god tearing his way into this world, not in fear but in challenge, because right then, he felt like he could take on the world.
But she was ahead of him.
He sent back all that he could, one last time, which was nowhere near all that he’d managed to absorb. But it was enough. They’d won, a god had died, and he had basked in more energy than he’d ever known existed. It had invigorated him ever since, allowing him to do his job properly for the first time, and give his master more strength, more endurance, more raw power than he’d ever had to work with before.
Together, they’d been a force to be reckoned with. Together, they’d been unstoppable. But now he was hungry once more, and she was here.
Time to feed.
Chapter Forty-six
But Pritkin had two halves to his nature, and one of them was not on board. “No.”
It was low-voiced, but harsh enough to pull me out of the fog. The visions or whatever his other side had been sending shattered, and I clung to him, our bodies slick and intertwined, the warm water sloshing around us. And somehow I managed to focus on his face.
The eyes were green, but not incandescent. The jaw was tight, but not in anger. It was his implacable face, the one with enough strength to turn what should have been average features—too large nose, too thin lips, eyebrows too blond for his skin—handsome.
I tried to focus. It was really difficult. “Why?” I finally managed to ask.
