Page 56 of Let Me Win You

The black smoke curled around my ankles and wrists. The pungent stench invaded my nostrils. The shadows shrieked and moaned, their tendrils sifting through my hair and grabbing for my limbs, but their fingers slipped off without locking.

“Nic, you have to run,” Invi ordered.

His shape had almost completely drowned in shadows. He propped his tail against one side of the dark passage while holding on to another as the spirits pulled and shoved him towards the all-consuming scorching heat of hell.

With his other arm, he sat me down.

“Run, sweetheart.”

“Not without you.” I shook my head so hard, it was a miracle my neck didn’t snap.

The shadows tightened around him like chains. I tore at them with my hands, ripping them to shreds, only for the new ones to curl around him right after. Bracing my heels into the ground, I clung to his arm.

He tensed. The muscles in his neck and arms bulged out as he strained to hold on to the walls against the impossible pull of the damned.

A blast of heat from the depths of the passage blew back my hair.

“Go, Nic,” he pleaded. “See? They can’t drag you in with them. Because you don’t belong in hell. But you will be taken in with me if you don’t let go of me. Let me go.”

“Never.” I punched the closest ghostly shape, then another one. “Remember? We stay together.” I kicked another dark soul, sending it into the abyss of hell with a moan.

I’d never kicked or punched anyone in my life. But now, I was throwing both kicks and punches right and left, fighting the shadows.

“Go to hell! Let him be!”

With both arms free, Invi got a better hold of the crumbling wall, but the darkness had already claimed his tail, pulling it into the passage. I took a step after it but quickly shrank back.

“Fucking hot.” I whipped the sweat off my brow.

A screeching spirit flew by, then grabbed onto Invi’s shoulder.“Come with me!”

“No! He’s mine.” I slammed a fist into the dark shape, knocking it off Invi and into the whirlwind of the damned that spiraled down the passage to hell. “Come on, my love,” I pleaded with Invi. “Try just a little bit harder.”

A convulsion ran through his entire being as he tried to free his tail. Baring his teeth, he strained his arms and shoulders, pulling himself out of the tunnel to hell. I kept shoving andpunching the spirits off his torso, as far as I could reach into the passage without boiling alive.

His tail flew out of the tunnel with so much power, it lashed against the opposite wall, shaking off the spirits that clung to it like mud.

“Come.” I grabbed him under his arm, pulling him away. “Move, please.”

Using his hands and his tail, he crawled along the floor under the hurricane of dark smoke and shadows.

“Almost there, Invi,” I urged, brushing off the hands and claws reaching for him. “We’re almost there, baby.”

When the storm of heat and darkness was finally left behind us, he dropped to the ground, exhausted, and grabbed for me.

“Nic?”

“I’m here.” I kneeled at his side.

He hooked his arm around my waist and pulled me in for a kiss.

“Did you call me your love, back there?” he grinned, and I slapped his arm.

“Is that all you remember from your fight with the forces of hell?”

“It was the best part, for sure.” Smiling wide, he pushed from the floor with his hands and rose above the ground, propped on his tail. “All right, dearest, let’s finish this.”

I stumbled alongside him, going down yet another long corridor. My knees shook, and my feet seemed to forget how to walk from exhaustion. But Invi could hardly move himself. He didn’t need the added strain of carrying me.

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