“I’m grateful for the warning, mheyia.” He grabbed a hunk of my hair in one strong hand.
Unlike the Djinn, Sin Garu didn’t suffer from touching me since arriving in this place, wherever this was. But I burned with cold where his fingers touched my scalp.
“When I’m burrowed deep inside your human body, then we’ll see how much you really care.” He yanked my head to the side and licked my neck, just under my ear.
I couldn’t help a whimper at the soul-numbing pain.
“What’s wrong, mheyia? Don’t you like my touch?” He laughed and pulled my hair so hard strands came free in bloodied clumps. Then he pushed me away. “Now meet the wraith and draw on its energies unless you want a true taste of my desire.”
Shivering in the gloomy, rock-walled chamber, I nodded just to get him the hell away from me. He stepped back and resumed his seat in a massive red chair that looked more like a throne.
Sibilant whispers came from the dark while flashes of movement surrounded me. Except for the single torch floating directly overhead, the rest of the large room lay in shadows and darkness.
The monster approached, and I felt weak with fear. Angry with myself for being such a wuss, I’d still rather take my chances with Sin Garu, who at least looked human.
The wraith approached, its bald head unsteady on a paper-thin neck. It looked like a skeleton with too many vertebrae. Like the others I’d been forced to encounter, this wraith also had yellow and black mottled skin, large, blank white eyes, and rows of sharp, black teeth that would have looked at home on a shark.
“I’m going to digest you for the next three days,” it hissed and weaved in front of me in a riveting dance of intricate steps that transfixed me while it scuttled closer.
Before it could do any damage, I drew on the memory of Marcus, the talisman I’d been wielding during this nightmare with Sin Garu. To this point, it had worked. The love I felt for Marcus overwhelmed all my worries, leaving me able to defend and defeat my attackers, with the exception of the sorcerer.
I kept praying for some Storm Lord intervention, stalling for time. But the wraith before me was through playing. So I opened myself to absorb its energy.
At once, my fascination with its dance stopped. A fierce need to kill became my world. Like falling into a vat of oil, hatred oozed over my skin, my thoughts. I felt a hunger stronger than I’d experienced with the others I’d been forced to fight.
It scared me, that ravenous need, and I knew to give it free rein would be a mistake, one from which I might never recover.
“No, no, no.” Sin Garu shouted, “I want you to let it all out. Or, as you pitiful xiantopes would say, stop fucking around.” His arctic glare promised retribution if I failed to obey.
Should I fail, the wraith would, as it promised, devour me. I knew that. Still, the idea of taking a life felt wrong. As if by killing others, even in self-defense, I would somehow cross a line that would haunt me forever.
But what was my choice? Being devoured and raped by Sin Garu? Or kill a creature that fed on innocence?
With more a groan than a growl, I surrendered to my fate. I pulled from the creature then directed its energy back on itself, using its own hunger to ravage its strength until it fell to its hands and knees.
Wielding telekinesis as if born with the ability, I mentally pummeled the wraith across the stone floor and against the walls, unable to stem the wraith’s dark energy, pleased with so much pain.
I threw the wraith over Sin Garu’s throne. It must have hit someone, or something, that loitered in the chamber because something squealed.
Unfortunately, the wraith wasn’t yet dead. And it hurt and knew an anger—my anger. So it took out that rage on the unfortunate creatures in the shadows.
Shrieks and squeals of pain, from the wraith and the things it beat, mixed with Sin Garu’s laughter. I felt like a prisoner in a madhouse.
When the wraith was no more than a lump of tired flesh and blood, like all the other monsters I’d been forced to drain of energy, I released it at the sorcerer’s feet.
And like the others before it, its body fell to hazy, spider-like creatures that appeared out of nowhere and ate it all up.
Only a stain remained on the stone floor. Reality settled heavily over my shoulders. Tired, sad, and angry, I was exhausted and wavered on my feet. Then I crashed to the hard floor, my strength leaving me as suddenly as it had come.
“Not again.” Sin Garu sighed. “For months, you refused to succumb to a Storm Lord. You rejected his magnetism, the light of his magic. You showed an inner strength that impressed me. One I’ve yet to see here, with me.”
He grimaced, his beautiful features pinched yet in no way ugly. “How can you wield such power against the wraiths and be so weak afterward? You have the potential to be so much greater.” He seemed to be talking as much to himself as to me, and I had to focus on his face to keep it from blurring.
Squatting down to meet me at eye level, he tilted my chin up to meet his gaze. “Tessa?” he sang my name, drawing it out. I wished I had the energy to drain him dry.
“What?” I both longed for and dreaded Marcus’ arrival. I loved him, wanted him near, but didn’t want him in danger. Not at the hands of this merciless devil who wanted nothing more than to make Marcus suffer.
Sin Garu dragged me to my feet. It was agony to stand, my mind splintering at the effort to hold myself apart from the bone-numbing cold of his touch when I needed the support.
