Into the Darkness Read online

  Glancing to the right, I saw Taesa land on the airship. She set the broken tree branch down and walked over to me.

  “Can I eat her now?” she whispered so that Hana could hear here. Like Mary, Taesa loved fear. But, unlike Mary… Taesa could eat it.

  The frightened girl began to whimper again.

  I moved my head lower and released the gag so that it fell down her chin and stayed attached to her throat instead of suffocating her.

  “No,” I said.

  Taesa reached down and unlatched my chains.

  Standing up, I pulled her close to me in a hug.

  Startled, she hugged me back, but only after a slight pause. Human emotions were still foreign to her.

  “Do you want to fuck?” she whispered.

  I chuckled and laid my head on her shoulder. Her coolness made my head feel a little better.

  “Not right now,” I told her with a smile.

  She squeezed me back.

  Taking her hand, I walked us over to Brynn, who was sitting against the airships gunwale, holding Abigail.

  “Did you seduce me with your gaze?” I asked my wife.

  Brynn looked up at me, and the darkness stole her brown eyes from my sight. Golden snake eyes looked back at me instead, and I felt her humanness fall away. She shed it like a snakeskin, revealing the real Brynn inside.

  “No,” Brynn said. “I bit you instead.”

  Taesa touched my shoulder. “You have bite marks, scars now, on the back of your right leg. I thought you knew.”

  Dammit. That wasn’t good. I had no idea that Brynn had been biting me, probably for years.

  “Why?” I asked my wife.

  Brynn stared at me, deep in thought.

  I stared back at her refusing to give in.

  Finally, Gavin said, “You are one of Abigail’s fathers.”

  I looked at him in surprise, as Brynn snarled at him to shut up.

  Undeterred, Gavin added, “Every basilisk child needs two sperm donors, usually of the same bloodline.”

  “But, we never,” I began.

  Brynn touched a ring on her hand, and suddenly, her features shifted.

  Now, I was staring at one of the local barmaids who I definitely had fucked.

  “Do you remember me now?” she asked in the other woman’s voice.

  Then, she twisted the ring again.

  The whore who I had fucked in the alley, after my fight, stared back at me with her gap-toothed grin. Smirking, she blew me a kiss.

  Dammit.

  “You fucked her first,” Gavin explained, “opening her breach. Then, your brother finished the job by fertilizing her egg.”

  A horrible thought rolled through my mind.

  “Did you eat Justin?” I asked, almost afraid to know the truth.

  - 22 -

  Brynn grinned.

  “He was delicious.”

  I stepped back, horrified by her answer. Justin hadn’t abandoned her and his child. That was all a lie. My wife had eaten him, just like a female praying mantis devours a male after sex.

  Shit.

  “I never thought you would successfully cast the taming spell,” she added. “I only gave it to you as a carrot, to make you dance to my tune so that we could safely reach Ashmouth.”

  Smiling, she added, “And, if you somehow succeeded in casting it. Then, I was going to tame you with it instead. You are weak and not a challenge to me… at all.”

  “Brynn,” Gavin hissed.

  “What?” she snapped. “I’m done talking nicely to this clown. The curse was your idea, after all.”

  Gavin turned pale.

  “Throw her overboard,” Mary prompted. “We don’t need either of them.”

  “Can I eat her first?” Taesa asked.

  I sat down in a state of shock.

  “Abigail is your daughter,” Brynn pointed out. “Well, you and your brother’s.”

  That didn’t help, not at all.

  “Bazal,” Brynn murmured. “You only took up fighting to take care of me. Without me, you’d be nothing.”

  I was starting to hate her.

  Taesa began to growl at my wife, and I felt Mary getting angry as well. My emotions were coloring theirs.

  “But,” Gavin said, sputtering, “You could still become the Archmage of Ashmouth… with our help.”

  Did I want to become the Archmage?

  I didn’t really know the answer to that question anymore.

  My grimoire was lost, and both of the spells that Blister had taught me were gone. I could still cast the taming spell, but that was all.

  I had wanted to be a wizard my whole life.

  “I can teach you magic,” Mary murmured with a grin in her voice.

  “She can only teach you shadow magic,” Gavin pointed out. “Outside, in the sunlight, you would be powerless.”

  Mary sulked.

  Apparently, that was true.

  “I can teach you magic,” Gavin explained, “And, with Brynn’s pedigree, you could become powerful and rich.”

  “Brynn already told me I was only useful until we reached Ashmouth.”

  Gavin smiled.

  “Tame her,” he declared.

  “Shut up!” Brynn screeched, as everyone looked at her.

  “My daughter is a conniving, manipulative bitch,” her father pointed out. “Taming her would be an improvement in every possible way.”

  “We don’t need her,” Mary insisted, while Taesa placed her hand in mine. Neither of them wanted me to tame my wife, and I agreed with them.

  “I’m not going tame her,” I told him.

  “You tamed both Mary and Taesa,” he pointed out.

  “That was different,” I exclaimed.

  “Why?” Mary asked.

  “You were our only way out of a hellhole,” I exclaimed. “Plus, you were a happy, sadistic killer that needed to be changed.”

  Then, I motioned at Taesa, “And, she was trying to eat me.”

  Mary shrugged. Then, she said, “Brynn is a path to power, I don’t see what the issue is.”

  Things were so much simpler from her viewpoint. Killing and destroying people was easy. I could feel the shadow magic in her veins, pumping out its dogma to kill those who are weaker; take what you want.

  “Once you curse her,” Mary added, “she will be much more compliant.”

  “You understand that I cursed you,” I said. “And it changed you drastically. I saw your personality disintegrate before my eyes.”

  “It only changed how I felt about you,” she answered. “I am still myself.”

  “Until I tell you to be someone different.”

  She shrugged again. “So far, having you for My Love hasn’t been bad. Though, I do want to go downstairs and consummate the marriage.”

  Looking around, Mary added, “Or, right here will do fine.”

  Taesa kissed my cheek, drawing my attention to her.

  “I am happy that we are together,” she told me. “I was lonely.”

  Neither of them was helping.

  “We will let them go in Charleston,” I decided. “Then, the three of us will go our own way.”

  Mary and Taesa both smiled.

  “What about me?” Hana whimpered.

  “You can go with Brynn,” I said. “I just hope that you can walk away from the cult.”

  “They are all I have,” she answered.

  That translated to... I will go back to them.

  Sighing, I decided to deal with that later as well.

  I looked over at Mary, and she smiled back at me. Through our bond, I let her feel how much I wanted her. The bits of gray in her hair were deceiving. I had a feeling that she had gone gray early. She was beautiful, even with the tiny crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes.

  “I have to fly the airship, My Love,” she murmured.

  I rolled my eyes. Apparently, sex with Mary wasn’t going to happen tonight. My head was starting to feel better at least, and I didn’t feel like
dying anymore.

  “Are you just going to abandon your daughter?” Brynn asked.

  - 23 -

  Fuck.

  I had forgotten about Abigail.

  Abandoning my daughter wasn’t something that I was alright with. But, living with her mother wasn’t going to happen either. I couldn’t trust her, at all.

  Shrugging, I decided that I was too tired to figure it out right now.

  “I need sleep,” I said.

  Taesa squeezed my hand, and I felt that she wanted to come with me.

  But… “I haven’t slept since I became a witch,” she murmured.

  “I really need sleep, not sex,” I told her.

  “Mary needs to fly the ship,” Taesa said. “You will have to sleep by yourself.”

  Lovely.

  I had three wives, but I still had to sleep alone.

  Standing up, I kissed Taesa’s cheek and gave Mary a wave, as I entered the small cabin behind the ship’s wheel.

  It was a decadent, whore’s dream. Carpet covered the floor and tassels hung down from the ceiling. Curtains covered the windows, and the bed was thick and plush. Sitting down, I looked around in surprise. I had expected Mary’s cabin to be austere and lifeless. But almost everything was pink, purple, and fluffy.

  Shaking my head, I climbed under the thick comforter.

  Falling asleep wasn’t hard. I was exhausted.

  My dreams were strange and violent.

  Then, I realized that the dream wasn’t mine. I was watching a village below me, through Taesa’s eyes. She was floating from hut to hut, peeking into windows.

  Her stomach rumbled.

  My lover was famished.

  A man came out of the hut with a slop bucket in his hands.

  Taesa smiled and let a ghostly image of herself appear.

  He stared at her in shock, as she leaned back on the broken tree branch that she was floating on and spread her legs. I knew from experience that she had the pinkest female lips between her legs.

  The man licked his lips, as Taesa used some of her magic. A thick, syrupy sex appeal began to ooze out of her.

  The peasant set the bucket down and walked to her with a mixture of timid, mixed in with lustful.

  Taesa became more flesh than ghost.

  Leaning back further with one hand, she licked a finger and then began to play with herself.

  The man hurried over to her.

  He smelled… awful, but Taesa didn’t care. She was after more than sex.

  Like a lioness, she lunged, knocking the man to the ground. Pinning him down, her tongue lashed out and slipped into his mouth.

  His soul tasted like heaven.

  Power rippled into her, as she fed, and through our bond, it flowed into me.

  Aches, cuts, and exhaustion melted away from me as her power filled me. I gasped in my sleep and grew rock hard.

  Taesa fed on him until his flesh turned to mist. She drew that in as well until only bones and dust remained.

  I moaned in my sleep, needing to feel her between my legs.

  My dreams shifted to Mary’s.

  She had fallen asleep. Taesa had fed both of us. The power that had made me hard, made Mary sleepy.

  The cult leader dreamed of slaughtering babies.

  Dark magic rolled off of her… yanking at my own power. Mary began to feed on it without even trying. In her mind, she was eating the souls of the little ones.

  Mary massacred hundreds as I tried to fight my way free.

  But, she was pulling too much. My muscles began aching, and I screamed in terror, finally waking myself up.

  Everything hurt. I could barely move.

  Turning, I felt out of bed in a sweaty mess. Mary had taken too much power. Everything that I had gained from Taesa had been lost to the cultist.

  The cabin door slammed open, and Brynn stalked into it.

  I tried to move, but she stomped over to me and kicked me hard in the side. Then, she stuffed Hana’s ball gag in my mouth.

  I was so weak that I could barely think. What was going on?

  “I killed your fool of a warlock,” she said with a laugh.

  Mary’s black blade was suddenly against my neck. How had Brynn gotten it? I thought Mary had lost it after the fight by the wagons.

  “She was moaning in erotic ecstasy on the deck when I sliced her neck wide open.,” Brynn teased. “The bitch is dead.”

  Brynn was lying.

  Mary was injured but still alive. I could feel her stunned thoughts and emotions. Her brain was thinking slow as if she was drunk or stoned.

  Brynn’s eyes grew a deeper shade of yellow. Her gaze slipped into my brain, invading my most personal space.

  My wife walked amongst my memories with ease. Brynn flipped through my recollections of the Goblin caves, until she found my father and mother. She watched them with interest.

  But what she was really interested in… was my memories of Blister.

  Brynn watched every second that I had known him, especially when his grimoire was open.

  My limbs felt numb and heavy, and my chest began to hurt.

  I could feel my fingers begin to feel… like stone. It was a normal feeling for me when my fighting spell was active.

  But, it wasn’t active.

  Brynn was killing me, as she ransacked my memories. She could turn people to stone, but it took minutes, not seconds.

  I slid my consciousness away from her, as she continued to look for something involving my old master.

  My seven spell bubbles floated into my vision. All of them were covered in stoney spiderwebs, trapping their power and keeping me from using them.

  Angrily, I used the mana that was seeping out of my vault to clean off Mary’s golden bubble, and then Taesa’s. Reaching out through those two, I could sense Mary’s distress and Taesa’s confusion.

  My witch was miles away, relaxing after eating the man. But, she felt my lethargy and Mary’s pain.

  I needed strength, but I had none. Mary had eaten all of mine and now was almost comatose from overeating. When I tried to wake her, I felt Mary’s power.

  She had eight bubbles floating in her mind.

  And, I could feel that her mana vault was pregnant with power. All the energy that I had she had taken from me made it burn and groan. Soon, it would push out more power to the cult leader.

  If she hadn’t been stunned and undefended when I had tamed her, I would never have succeeded.

  Taesa was still hungry. She had fed too much energy to me, and when Mary had yanked my power away, she had taken some of Taesa’s as well; not enough to hurt her, but enough to return the pale witch to her earlier famished state.

  We needed power to stop Brynn.

  - 24 -

  Sensing what I needed, Taesa swooped back toward the tiny village.

  “Found it,” Brynn crowed.

  I focused back on her.

  She was looking at a very specific page in Blister’s book of spells. He had been writing in it, while I watched. I hadn’t understood the gravity of his pen strokes then.

  But I did now.

  Blister had been Gavin’s brother and Brynn’s uncle. He wasn’t the brother who had fertilized her though.

  While Brynn watched, Blister wrote about something called “The Burning Throne.” My teacher scribbled that it was somewhere in the Forbidden Mountains of Kunlun Shan, far to the west, across the endless sea… in China. And, that it could only be accessed by climbing the Grand Staircase and walking through the Gates of Heaven.

  Brynn’s emotions blossomed and boiled over. She was so excited that her heartbeat doubled and then tripled.

  Immortality.

  The word rippled through my wife’s thoughts.

  Followed closely by one word… Panikkar.