Chapter 41 The Backfire

Chapter 41 The Backfire
Control wasn't an emotion. It was something I relied on, something as solid and dependable as a law of nature.

At least, it had been until Elara barged into my life and messed everything up.

I didn't release her wrists right away. Pulling back would mean admitting something was wrong, admitting I felt threatened. And I refused to give the filthy creature lurking at the cave entrance the satisfaction of seeing me hesitate.

But then a drop of black sludge bubbled up through the stone and touched the heel of my boot.

The moment it made contact; pain exploded through me.

A freezing pain shot up my spine so violently that my breath caught in my throat. It felt like jagged ice tearing through my body, stealing the air from my lungs. My grip on Elara loosened instinctively as panic clawed its way into my chest.

My grip loosened and my hands dropped from Elara’s wrists as a violent tremor racked my frame. I stumbled back a step, my breaths coming in shallow bursts. Across the cave, I saw my brother let out a sound I had never heard him make in all our decades of slaughter. The Great Wolf of the High Houses was cowering against the rock, his pale eyes wide, staring at his own hands as veins of pitch-black rot began to web beneath his skin.

This was sooner than I contemplated.

"Azran..." Callum choked out. "What is this? My fire... I can't feel the spark. It's empty. It's completely bloody empty."

"Silence, Callum," I hissed, though my own voice sounded brittle, lacking the usual cadence.

I looked at Elara. She had slid down against the cave wall, struggling to breathe. Her chest rose and fell in uneven gasps. The torn fabric of her chemise had slipped from one shoulder, exposing the mark Callum had burned into her skin.

My stomach twisted.

The mark wasn't glowing with the familiar gold of our bloodline anymore.

It was as if someone had run their claws over her skin.

Thick black liquid oozed from the edges of the mark, the same unnatural substance spreading across the cave floor around us.

"You see it now, don't you, King of the beasts?" the old heretic called from the mouth of the cave.

He leaned heavily on his strange green staff, its light pulsing through the darkness.

"You thought she was nothing more than a vessel," he continued. "A womb. A pretty little bird you could lock in a cage and use to save your dying kingdom."

His smile widened. "But the blood of the jailers still runs through her veins. And you've just handed her the key."

A cold fury settled over me.

"I'll give you one chance," I said quietly, turning toward him. "Whatever game you're playing, stop it now."

My voice dropped lower. "Or I'll make you beg for death before this minute is over."

A dry, rattling sound that echoed through the cave and crawled beneath my skin as he laughed.

"I'm doing nothing, My Lord," he said. "This isn't my work. I am but a medium to end this all."

He lifted a trembling finger and pointed at Elara. "She's doing it." My eyes snapped back to her. "Or rather," he continued, "the thing inside her is."

A sudden chill swept through me. My gaze fell once more to the black liquid dripping from her skin.

The mark.

The mark I'd placed on her.

I looked back at Elara.

For a moment, I forgot about the heretic. Forgot about the cave. Forgot about the black poison eating through the floor beneath my feet. All I could see was her. Something cold and ugly twisted in my chest.

Disgust and rage. Possessiveness so sharp it felt like a wolfsbane rubbing against my ribs.

She was mine.

Mine to judge. Mine to protect. Mine to destroy if necessary.

And yet I could no longer tell what was sitting in front of me.

I took a step toward her. The black liquid hissed against my armor. Agony shot through my legs as it drained the divine strength from my body, but I barely noticed. Pain had become background noise.

I wanted whatever had stolen the fear from her eyes to reveal itself so I could tear it apart.

I stopped in front of her. She looked impossibly small against the stone wall. Yet somehow, she was the only thing in the cave that made my instincts scream.

My hand shot forward as I caught her jaw and forced her head up.

My grip tightened. "Look at me."

Her skin felt cold. "What did you do?" I demanded. "What did you bring into this place?"

Her gaze slowly lifted to mine. The absence of her emotions unsettled me more than any monster ever could. The Elara I knew was disappearing. Something else was staring back through her eyes. Something hollow. Something ancient. Something I’d lose her to if she wouldn’t find herself again.

"I didn't bring anything," she whispered.

Her voice sounded distant, as though it belonged to someone speaking from the bottom of a grave.

"You brought me here." A strange sensation crawled down my spine. "You tested me."

Her lips curled into something that wasn't quite a smile. "You wanted to see what the monster would do."

My stomach tightened. "Well..."

The black liquid pulsed around us.

The cave seemed to breathe.

And for the first time in years, I felt something dangerously close to uncertainty.

"Look at it."

A roar shattered the silence.

"Get away from her!"

Callum.

I turned sharply. He was doubled over several feet away, clutching his chest. Dark fluid spilled from his mouth as he coughed. But even now, even broken and terrified, his eyes remained fixed on Elara.

"Azran!" he choked. The words echoed through the cave. "It’s not her!”

I resailed so. Something had possessed her, and that definitely was not my Elara.

I turned toward the mouth of the cave and chuckled. “You can not enter this cave, don’t you? That’s the reason you’re standing there and controlling whatever had possessed her.”

The heretic’s eyes widened slightly and it was enough for a man like me to get my answers. The wand in his hand. Well, fuck me, because I was not going to lose her again.

The bastard wasn't fearless. He was just suicidal. Whatever protection kept him outside the cave was the same thing keeping him from reaching Elara directly. Which meant he needed a tool, a conduit and a leash. And that staff was the only thing connecting him to whatever nightmare had been unleashed here.

My pulse steadied as the uncertainty vanished.

Because if there was a leash, there was something to cut. My gaze drifted back to Elara and to the black liquid dripping from her skin, to the hollow look in her eyes.

I had already lost her once. I wasn't doing it again.

The cave could collapse. The kingdom could burn. The world could split in half. I didn't care. I would drag her back kicking and screaming if I had to. And anyone who tried to stop me was about to discover exactly why people feared the name Azran.

I turned my back on the heretic, dismissing his very existence as my attention snapped entirely back to Elara. She was still glassy-eyed, a hollow vessel for the black bile pooling at our feet. The void-leach continued to pull at my core, draining the divine strength from my muscles with every passing second.

"Look at me, little bird," I snarled, my hand moving from her jaw to wrap firmly around her throat. I didn't choke her, but I pinned her completely against the rock, forcing her body flush against my cold armor.

leaned down and slammed my mouth against hers.

It was a brutal, possessive reclamation. Elara instantly stiffened, her hands coming up to press against my chest plate, her fingers clawing weakly at the scuffed metal as she struggled against me. She fought like a trapped animal , her hips twisting against mine in a frantic effort to break my hold, but I only pressed harder, pinning her wrists back against the stone.

I tasted copper, ash, and the bitter tang of the black liquid weeping from her collarbone. The ancient fever inside her raged against the intrusion, sending shocks of freezing agony through my jaw, but I refused to yield. I deepened the kiss, my tongue forcing its way past her lips, dragging her back from the edge of the void by sheer, arrogant force of will. I wanted to consume the nightmare controlling her. I wanted to remind whatever cosmic horror was looking through her eyes exactly who I was.

Her struggles weakened, shifting from a desperate fight for survival into a heavy, breathless surrender. A low, traitorous moan escaped her throat, a sound that belonged entirely to her, not the door. The sickly green tint in her eyes began to dissolve, bleeding away until the familiar, frightened warmth of her gaze flooded back.

When I finally pulled back, my thumb still resting heavily against the frantic pulse of her throat , the black veins beneath her skin had receded.

Elara blinked, her chest heaving in uneven gasps as she stared up at me in total disorientation.

"What... what happened?" she panted, her voice barely a thread of sound, completely stripped of the hollow cadence from before. She looked down at her tattered chemise, then up at my face, a shuddering breath leaving her lungs.

A sharp, fracturing sound echoed from the cave entrance.

I cut my eyes toward the mist. The old heretic was gone. The pulsing green staff had shattered, leaving nothing but a pile of dry, decaying leaves skittering over the stone slab where he had stood. The scruffy hound let out one final, whimpering whine before vanishing into the grey fog outside.