Page 1 of Seduced By Darkness
1
Thiago
In the beginning there was Darkness.
It curls inside me, hungry and devouring. It takes little nibbles of my soul, day by day, even as I fight against it. I’ve chained it deep within me, binding it with magic and wards, tattooing them into my very skin to keep it locked away, but I can feel it straining against the edges of those wards.
It’s all I’ve ever known.
I stare into the mirror in my tent, trying to see if there’s a little bit more of it showing in my eyes. They’re black right now as I strip the glamor from my skin, revealing the creature inside. Black wings spread wide, glossy with feathers. Dark claws are sharpened to points on my fingertips. My eyes are black. Pure black. And even though the shadow daemons I’ve consumed writhe across my skin, my wards flare gold like a net draped over me.
Safely locked away.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t feel them gnawing at me. It doesn’t mean I can’t feel my own roaring hunger threatening to consume me.
The Darkness feeds on anything. Anger. Pain. Torment. Fury.
And right now, I am all of those things.
“No, you’re not,” I whisper to my reflection as I dry my hands and wrists with the towel and toss it on the vanity. “You’re more than a monster.”
I am Thiago of Evernight, ruling prince of a kingdom that hates me, spawn of a creature so vile I can’t even name it, and a bastard usurper who hides behind his illusions.
Keeping the Darkness contained within me is a daily battle, and I’d like to say the pressure of the current situation—a friend currently held hostage by my enemy—is the reason I can’t quite look myself in the eyes right now, but there’s another truth beckoning.
My father is thinking of me.
I can feel him somewhere far to the north of me, in Unseelie, where the wild fae live.
For the first time the hunger relents. It wants to be whole. It wants to consume him.
But destroying my father means confronting him, and for the first time the creature within me knows fear.
“Thiago?”
Not alone.
I vanish the wings, the claws, the blackness in my eyes. It’s as simple as taking a step sideways, into the ever-present glamor I first conjured when I was a boy. Sometimes it feels like this is the real me, the one who smiles at the world with his handsome face. The one who can meld into any Seelie court without having his parentage questioned. The eyes that meet mine in the mirror are green now.
The handsome prince is back, the monster contained.
A pity I can feel him still, laughing under his breath as I turn to face the intruder.
Him, he whispers mockingly in my head.Are we still trying to pretend I’m not you?
The only way to deal with it is to ignore it.
“Eris?”
There are few people who are allowed into my inner sanctum like this, and Eris of Silvernaught is one of them. Tall, broad of shoulder and hip, her dark skin lit with the gilded light of the candle, she knows a thing or two about the monster within.
There’s a look in her eyes that tells me she saw my eyes. “Thiago—”
“I’m fine.” There’s no point dwelling on it. I’ve spent years controlling myself. I will chain it down deep inside me again. I reach for a shirt and haul it over my head. “Are the others ready for me?”
“As ready as they’re going to be.” She growls under her breath as she reaches out to yank my shirt into place. “You’re losing weight. You need to eat more.” A sharp nail digs into my ribs in order to make her point. “And you need to tell me when your wards are on the verge of breaking.”
“I will. I’m not that close.”
