Page 74 of To Crave Madly
“No…” I said feebly and tried to pull away, but he held firm.
“Reach Iveri,” he called. “You need her help.”
“I can’t… I…”
He gripped my face harder. “Yes, you can. Do it, Lori. Do it now!”
I tried to call out to her but the agony burning through me was more powerful than my call. She couldn’t hear me or didn’t want to hear me. Was she in pain, too?
I looked back to Torsten. His eyes were so fierce in their determination to help me, but it felt useless. “I can’t. It hurts…”
“Yes, you can, Lori. She is submissive to you. Call her to you and mean it!”
Another wave of pain hit me, and I screamed. It was getting too much to bear now. Every nerve ending was on fire. Every cell felt like molten lava as it pumped around my body.
I wasn’t going to last much longer. And I suddenly feared that the moment I died would be an explosion no one in the base would survive.
“Torsten, I need you… to take… Elissa and go. Save her…”
He shook his head. “I am not leaving you. You can do this. Iveri can help you.”
“I order you,” I managed to gasp through grounded teeth. I hated that I had resorted to commanding him but I couldn’t bear the thought of having his or anyone else's death on my hands.
Torsten flinched at my words but he couldn’t refuse my command. “Fine. But I am not leaving until the last second. Now, please,” he begged, “please try to reach Iveri. I know she can help you. You are more powerful as a whole.”
I nodded. The pain was eclipsing my ability to speak.
“Iveri, come to me!”I shouted the words in my mind, throwing everything I could muster behind the order. I could tell she was trying to resist me, but I felt her presence grow as she came out of her little hiding place.
You called?she said bitterly. She clearly didn’t like being commanded. Well, tough shit. I was dying and if I died, she died. As did Lucifer.
Oh, god… Lucifer. I bet he was writhing in the same agony I was. I hadn’t noticed because the pain caused by my magic was so intense, but my mark was burning. Fresh tears escaped my eyes at the thought of losing him. But I brushed the thought away. I needed to focus on Iveri and get this magic contained before I killed everyone.
“I need you to help me. Please, Iveri. Step into my skin and save us.”I tried to ask politely but the demon was a petulant thing, and I could see her stood with her arms folded and sulking because I had ordered her to do something. Funny, I saw her in my mind as an exact image of me. Same hair, same eyes, same everything.
Shewasme.
Shit. Talk about the wrong moment to have a revelation.
I had been thinking about this all wrong. I didn’t need to order her. She was part of me and therefore I could just do it.Icould step into the Sin Reaper rather than ask the Sin Reaper to step into my skin.
I closed my eyes and thought about the hunger I’d felt when chasing dark energy. About how it felt to move and breathe as the Sin Reaper. Static electricity crackled in the air as numbness crept into my limbs. I heard a cacophony of sound in the training hall. The rest of the team must have finally figured something was going on in here and come to investigate. I had wondered when they were going to show up.
Hunger churned through the pit of my stomach, blossoming into a desperate need to be satisfied.
Here we go. This was it. I could feel myself becoming the Sin Reaper.
And it was weird.
My limbs were mine, but it was like stepping into the shadow of someone and walking through it. The Sin Reaper encased me in her dark embrace and wrapped around every inch of me. Power rushed through me and settled deep in my bones. It was overwhelming and way more intense than I had ever felt before. This time, it felt different. This time it felt like part of me, rather than someone taking over me.
Had I done it? Had I assimilated with my demon?
Silence descended into the training room as the electrical storm, I’d somehow manage to create, died down. My eyes snapped open and I saw the world in beautiful, bright colours.
“Hello, Lori,” Torsten whispered as his thumbs trailed back and forth across my cheekbones in a calming gesture. I couldn’t wrap my head around the Shadow Fiend. One minute, he was telling me to stay away, and the next, those lethal hands were making my heart flutter with their tenderness. He’d also made my name sound like a powerful rumble that came from deep in his chest. I liked hearing my name on his lips and it had me wanting to lean forward to taste it. He was a conundrum and I hadn’t quite managed to figure him out yet.
I looked into his eyes. Their magnificence shined and glowed as the mercurial pools of gold and silver bore down on me with admiration.
