Page 62 of Branded By Shadow
“Very good, Blackwood,” Hades said, a flicker of genuine interest lighting his ancient eyes. “Maybe there’s hope for my chosen yet.”
Without another word, Hades shoved me away. I stumbled backward and fell into the black water. The shades swarmed, their cries of triumph echoing in the void.
A darkness colder and more ancient than theirs erupted from my very core, my own will given form. It wrapped around the closest shade with the silent pressure of the deepest abyss. The creature’s wail died as it was unmade, its essence dissipating into nothingness.
The rules of the game had changed. I was no longer their meal. I was the butcher.
There was no up or down here. No ground beneath my feet, no sky above my head. A crushing, absolute black pressed in from all sides, a dimension of pure malice that wanted to erase me. It tasted of old stone and regret, and leeched my life force with a constant, steady pull.
My surrender seemed inevitable. And I fought it with flowers.
I wove a fragile, bright shield from memory itself. Pale lilies bloomed from nothing, their petals glowing with a soft, internal light. Thorny vines of a ghostly green grew around me, a living, desperate barrier.
I fed it pieces of myself, turning my life into fuel, tearing out memories of sunlight and warm soil to keep the cold from myskin. A living tide of black attacked my defenses, its need a constant, gnawing pressure on my will.
A new presence, ancient and intelligent, slid into my mind like a serpent. “Little flower. You burn so brightly. But all lights eventually go out.”
It was that thing. The creature that had consumed Damon, that had stolen his body and his mind. The Shadow Realm.
I’d thought I knew hate when I looked at Alexander. I’d been wrong.
The raw ache in my chest found a new purpose. I pushed back, not with the force of an Alpha, but with the focus of a scientist stating a proven fact.
I’m not a flower. And I’m not food.
A feeling of sadistic amusement washed over me from the entity. The presence returned—laced with the pleasure of a hunter recalling a particularly satisfying kill—tightening its grip. “Aren’t you? We disagree. We remember the taste of you, Cora Ellis. Just like you remember us.”
A memory flashed into my mind, too crisp to be natural. My skin crawled with the phantom sensation of my own body turning against me. I remembered the darkness spreading through my veins like ice, twisting the bite that should have saved me into a virus.
But when I’d come here, I’d known it wouldn’t be easy.
If you remember me, then you remember I survived,I shot back.Why would this time be any different?
The amusement in the void vanished, replaced by a vicious, clinical intent. The pressure on my shield intensified, the nothingness closing in, absolute and ravenous.
“Because last time you were merely touched,” the Shadow Realm hissed. “This time, you are inside. We will eat your soul, Cora Ellis. Your memories, your powers, your wishes. All of it is ours. We won’t stop until not even your name remains.”
The memory of the orphanage matron swept over me, the first mother figure I had ever known. Her wearied smile grew thin and transparent at the edges, as if she were dissolving.
I refused to let that happen.
In a surge of pure, defiant will, I pushed back with the only weapon I had left.
My name is Cora Ellis. I am Damon Blackwood’s mate. You will not have either of us.
The darkness surged, and the cold deepened, seeping into my very bones.
“Your sentiment is... quaint,” it replied. “But you are getting tired. You will die for nothing. He is already ours.”
The well of my powers was running dry. The energy it took to defend myself was a debt my exhausted body could no longer pay.
But even as the last of my strength began to fray, one thought still burned with a clear, unwavering light.He is waiting for me.
A low, triumphant feeling settled around the last flickering embers of my shield, like a predator toying with its exhausted prey. “We remember, yes, the feel of Demeter’s helpless anger,” it said. “She fought so hard to keep what was hers. But she was never strong enough, was she? And you are even weaker, Cora Ellis.”
I am not... her,I managed to push back, a final, whispered act of defiance.
Suddenly, a new voice pierced the realm. The command sliced through the oppressive silence like a blade of obsidian. Its authority was so absolute that the realm itself recoiled. “And I am not Hades. But I don’t need to be.”
