Page 136 of Eldritch
For craving her so badly, he’d unleash hell at her command.
He was losing his footing. Could feel the grip on his sanity turn more lax each day he was deprived of vivicantem. How long before the madness would pour out of him, leaving his soul bare and broken, snarling and terrifying, like a rabid dog?
Zevander had come to fear nothing, not even the most brutal creatures in the world. But he feared that day. The day when Maevyth would look upon him with sharp, pitying eyes. Eyes that had resigned themselves to futility. Eyes that could no longer be swayed to hope.
He pressed his lips to the curve of her shoulder, and the pad of his thumb caught on something at her back. He focused his attention there, running his fingertip over a raised scar he hadn’t noticed. A silvery glow trailed after his tracing fingertips, revealing the same sigil he’d seen carved into the back of her neck—the one Dolion had called the death glyph. Not unusual that a bloodline sigil might appear somewhere else on her body, but something about that one was different.
A strange vibration sank beneath his fingertips, humming in his bones. Not a sensation he recognized, like a searing heat, or sharp cold. It felt ancient and watchful, like the slumbering ruins of an arcane magic. Enduring. Powerful.
Zevander’s muscles coiled, but his hand wouldn’t move from that spot, as if held there by a much greater force, and he could feel his power shrink back, his scorpions cowering—not in fear, but reverence. His blood warmed as the flame inside of him stirred, and his vision narrowed to images that flashed through his mind.
A damp cell. Pale, mutilated flesh. Pleading eyes. Cold, blue lips. Stars. Voices.
Zevander retracted his hand on a sharp breath. The weight of those visuals pressed into his chest, far too intimate. Familiar. The same surge of familiarity that he’d felt the first time he’d kissed her in his office.
His hand trembled, his head daring him to touch it again.
He pressed his palm to the sigil, and more images flashed through his mind, so fast, he couldn’t stop them.
Black flame. Warmth. A smile. The sweet, citrusy scent of starshade.
Hooves trampling the ground. Screams. Agonizing screams.
Like the first breath after drowning, Zevander gasped and rolled away from her. His muscles shook, eyes fixated on the glowing sigil that gleamed in his eyes.
A witch pricking tool. Drops of blood.
He shook his head and pounded at his temples, desperate to banish the visuals that struck him so profoundly, he was certain they were real.
A storm-bloated river of memories poured through his mind, painful recollections that gurgled up from the depths like buried corpses in a flood.
Manacles biting into his wrists. Bruises and cuts across his flesh. A beautiful face. Gray eyes. Pale skin. Black hair. His hand on her shoulder. A silvery glow.
“Take me with you, Angel. Take me away from this place.”
“Maevyth,” he whispered, seeing her face in his mind.
The sight of her filled him with a quiet warmth, an overwhelming relief that spread through his body with a fragile sense of peace. The tension in his muscles eased, the ache in his bones faded.
He was there, hanging from those chains once again, his heart calling out for her.
Her. The girl. The one who’d spoken to him in his darkest, most painful torments. The one whose voice he’d clung to like a prayer, as he’d hung from those chains.
Confusion clouded his thoughts as he stared at the marking on her back. The one he’d put there nearly two centuries ago. Itwasn’t fate that’d brought them together—he’d defied the gods, breaching that sacred boundary and claiming her as his mate with a kiss.
He dragged himself closer to her, breath shuddering, and thumbed the mark’s edges, remembering everything he’d somehow forgotten. Was it his slipping mind that allowed him to see the truth he’d missed all that time?
How many times had he looked upon her over the months, not a flicker of those memories that suddenly bore teeth, sinking into him with merciless guilt? Flooding his mind with such clarity, as if he were reliving them all over again. How could he have so easily forgotten her?
How could the face that’d come to mean everything to him, that’d pulled him from death’s grasp all those years ago, have faded like ash in the wind?
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
ZEVANDER
Past …
Chains creaked and whined, as they held the weak and withering husk of a man that hung from them. The stench surrounding Zevander was his own decay, despite that stubborn organ in his chest drumming a relentless beat of life. His dry lips moved as he muttered softly in the darkness, whispers that carried through his cell.
