My lips move over Reed’s now, and as I grow more awake, so too does the desire for the one who has me in his arms, my aspire. Light and smooth he teases; it increases the tension that coils within me for him. It warms me, teaching my skin by touch about love. I breathe him in.
The fire inside stirs, stokes, and then burns me. I open my eyes to see perfect green ones above me. Pleasure spreads; it finds new places I hadn’t known existed. Gravity begins to win; it pulls me to Reed with magnetic stirrings of yearning. I want to fade into him, fit myself under his skin.
My fingertips reach up behind his ear, entangling in his dark brown hair, tussling it as I draw him closer to me. Our lips part to taste one another. I groan softly. Reed reacts; his wings unfold violently from him with a snap. The darkest gray feathers splay out thrillingly behind him. His arm goes behind me, pulling me nearer as my legs wrap around him. He lifts his lips from mine. Our cheeks brush against one another’s. The sensation of it vibrates through me, reaching that dark place in my heart. I feel the darkness retreat for a moment before it fights back, surging forward with the blackest desire.
My fingernails tense on Reed’s scalp. The white sheet around me is unbearably constricting. My bare leg slips beneath the sheet to rub against Reed’s skin. All of a sudden, I feel a desperate ache to consume him. I want to make Reed bleed. I want to make him bleed for me—only for me. My fingers shift in his hair, sliding to the back of his neck. The sharpest points of my teeth follow the column of his throat downward, grazing the smooth perfection of his skin. His grasp tightens on my hips.
I feel the beat of his arterial pulse beneath my tongue. His hand threads under the mass of my hair at the base of my neck while his thumb caresses my throat in gentle circles. The greedy desire recedes for a moment as my love for him swells. I sigh against his skin in relief, freed from the strange impulse.
Something grows in me, a malicious wave of anger flows out of the dark place in my heart, like poison, it winds its way through my veins. I lose my breath. My skin chills as coldness seeps outward from my core. The poison races on, weaving through me. My lips slacken and rest on Reed’s shoulder. This dark elixir travels up my throat and into my eyes. My irises recede to blackness while I take a shallow breath.
Reed must feel the change in me because he tenses in my arms. A deep point stabs me where I join the darkness, like two lines meeting. I lift my lips from him. A smile spreads them thin. My mouth opens wide before I clamp down hard on his shoulder. Impaling his flesh, sinking in. The iron taste of his blood fills my mouth, the shock of which registers in my mind, but my jaw remains rigidly clenched.
Reed grunts and flinches as he exhales. His fingers tighten on the back of my neck in an attempt to pull me back from him. “Evie?” He breathes in and it catches in his chest before he exhales. He growls out one word, “Brennus.”
A rumble of laughter rolls up from my chest. My jaw eases and my teeth slide out of Reed’s shoulder. Blood collects at the corners of my mouth, sliding down my chin to drip onto the white sheet pressed between us. I feel something inside of me stir, making me pull back from Reed. When I catch sight of his face, his expression is grim.
My eyebrows pull together as my eyes narrow. “Whah part of ‘moin’ do ye na understand, aingeal?” I hear myself say.
Reed grips both my shoulders, steadying me and holding me in place so that he can look into my eyes. “Fight him, Evie,” Reed orders with a sharp shake to rattle me to action. His jaw is tense. His fingers dig into my biceps with an urgency that is as palatable as the aftertaste of his blood. Charcoal wings ruffle behind him showing his agitation in ways that no words can.
“Da dark seeks out darkness,” I say, but it’s not me. “And she needs me.”
“She needs to kill you, Brennus.” Reed shakes me hard again. “Kill him, Evie!”
“She’ll na do it. She loves me so.”
“You haunt her. It isn’t love; it’s decimation.”
The laugh that comes from me is condescending and not mine at all. “I’m da footing for her between ripe and ruin. She can na stop dem, aingeal. Na wi’out me.”
“She’ll bury them and you.” Something about the way Reed says that causes me to shiver. I turn inward as I search for the ache, the point where the swirling dark has collected. I pull energy to me, the higher frequency energy; the kind that Brennus has no control over. The darkness recoils from the sting of it, allowing me to gain ground within my own self.
Reed grasps my chin. “Evie?” his eyes search mine.
Striking against the blackness of Brennus inside my veins, I grunt. “Brennus! GET OUT!” Reed breathes a small sigh because he hears me, but the command I’ve gained over my body is tenuous at best.
Brennus pulls a sea of high and low energy to us that forces me back. It makes the sound of a wave, rushing in my ears. “Reed,” I pant in confusion, wildly looking around the room for a means of escaping my own self before I’m drowned in it. Brennus no longer controls just low energy. He controls it all...and he’s much better at it than I am.
Reed’s fingers dig into my chin, forcing me to focus on him again. “Evie, don’t be his toy! Expel him like a clone!”
A wicked smile spreads over my lips. “I told ye dat I’d come for her. Do ye fancy some blood sport, aingeal?” My chin pulls away from Reed’s grasp.
Brennus controls me, making me lunge sidelong for the dagger on the bedside table, the one Reed used to pledge his loyalty to me yesterday. Grasping the heavy hilt in my palm, I pivot back toward Reed. My wings spread wide to use their force to outmaneuver him. He tackles me, wresting me back onto the mattress. Involuntarily, I struggle against him as Brennus inside of me holds the dagger just out of Reed’s reach with one of my hands.
Reed’s knee digs into my chest as he pins me, and subsequently Brennus, down on the bed. He reaches for the ancient blade in my fist to pry it away. Brennus hisses and snarls, struggling beneath Reed’s weight. The undead faerie inside of me manages to free my other hand. Raising it, Brennus hurls deadly energy from it. Hit by the hellfire, Reed explodes off of me. He crashes into the wall, scattering books from the shelves. My body crawls forward over the mattress. Red wings snap and wave behind me as pennants in the wind. Brennus uses my body to stalk Reed around the room. We engage in a stealthy dance. Whistling swipes of the knife cutting through the air makes Reed turn away in order to avoid being shredded.
Brennus! Stop! I scream in my mind, but no words form on my lips. Brennus ignores me entirely, choosing to focus his attention on Reed instead.
Reed refuses to fight back in any way, knowing that if he does, he’ll be hurting me. I struggle harder within the prison of iniquity; the wickedness swirls around me in paralyzing waves. I follow it down because Brennus has me by my heart.
“Wake up, Evie,” Reed says, searching my face for any sign from me.
“She’s na asleep,” Brennus enlightens. “She made me stronger and she gave me her blood so dat I could find her ta face her black future wi’ her. Ye’re in me way. I plan ta keep her all ta me.”
“Too. Late! She binds to me. Always to me.”
“So ye must die so dat she’ll be moin alone.”
Reed strikes quickly, backhanding us. My face jerks sideways. Brennus licks the blood that collects at the corner of my mouth.