Xander stood on the shadow’s other side, arms lax, head tipped. “Just like that?”
Damien shrugged.
“Won’t his lackeys notice something’s wrong? And couldn’t he call on someone to stop him?” Xander seemed to forget they were sparring, face screwed up.
“He won’t even know the talisman is within him nor remember the orders given.”
“You’re saying this thing you supposedly made can’t be overridden by the target’s will?”
“I know quite a willful creature that doesn’t fight back,” Damien mumbled, using the blood from his weeping arm before it healed to cast another volley of arcane blades.
Xander was caught again on his shoulder, hissing out in pain. “You know, of all people, Archibald has years of blessings being heaped upon him,andhe’s a descendant of one of those ridiculous dominions. His will is like iron.”
“That’s the beauty of the talisman—it’s crafted aroundmywill. It allows me to placemyblood inside the target, so it doesn’t matter what the target wants, it simply makes them an extension of me.”
Xander was frowning in that very specific way he had always done when he was jealous. It was a look he’d mastered when they were quite young. “Well, if it’s so good then why in the Abyss aren’t you already in Eirengaard and figuring out how to get it into the dominion spawn’s hands?”
Damien gestured to the room. “Because I’m here.”
Xander squeezed his bleeding shoulder, and Damien prepared to dodge a ranged attack. “Show it to me.”
“No.”
“But I wanna see how it works!” There was a yank at the back of Damien’s tunic, and he was wrenched downward by unseen hands, slamming into the ground.
“Fuck,” he coughed as shadows sprinted away from him, “you said no imps.”
Xander pounced before he could stand, getting right in his face. “Show it to me!” And then, just for fun, he slapped him across the face.
Rubbing his cheek, Damien grunted. Why Xander couldn’t just break his rib or stab his thigh, he’d never understand. “I can’t.”
Jumping to his feet, Xander held the vial of his blood over Damien’s face. “How am I supposed to believe these claims if you can’t show me this supposed talisman?”
Damien curled his lip at the drop threatening to land on him and spat, “Because it’s inside Amma.”
Xander froze, blood hesitating at the mouth of the vial, and then he recorked it. “You put an enthrallment talisman inside our sweet, little kitten? Nice.”
“No, it’s not nice at all.”And she’s not ours, she’s mine.Damien swept his leg along the ground and took Xander’s feet out from under him. The blood mage landed with a hard thunk on the stones. “And I didn’tputit there, it just sort of happened.” Damien pushed himself up as Xander lay on his back taking a sharp breath, the wind knocked out of him. “Regardless, it is inside her. Whatever I tell her to do, she’ll do, whether she wants to or not, even if she’s not capable.”
“Basest beasts, Bloodthorne, you’re right, it’s not just nice—it’s fucking wonderful,” Xander coughed out breathlessly as he attempted to laugh.
“Well, the complaints aren’t wonderful. I made the mistake of telling her about it, and she’s obviously unhappy to be my experimental vessel.”
Xander blinked, breath finally caught. “If you think it’s sonotwonderful, then why haven’t you taken it out?”
Damien groaned quietly.
Xander’s eyes pinged all the way open. From his spot still on the ground beneath him, he put on the most shit-eating grin Damien had ever seen. “Oh, you didn’t…but you did?” He laughed and then ran a finger across his throat. “You’ve gotta kill her to get it back, don’t you? Of course! If I made the thing, that’s exactly what I’d do too!”
Damien drew his dagger just below his collarbone and released another barrage of blood blades straight downward. Xander’s eyes lit with shock for only a moment before his form completely vanished from beneath him. “Shit.”
There was a crack against Damien’s back, and he jerked forward, pain searing up his spine from what had impaled him. Dark gods, that was bad, paralyzing even. Of course, Xander was obsessed with translocation, even the most minor instances of it, and he’d been saving that to get him at the perfect time.
Damien couldn’t move, something like a blade wedged at the base of his spine as Chthonic was whispered behind him, and then Xander’s arm came around his chest, pulling him back and up against him. “Just like this,” said Xander into his ear, and he pushed Damien’s arm up to his own throat, still gripping his dagger. “You can use this little knife you adore so much and slice right across her pretty neck. Would be fitting, poetic even.”
Damien should have known how much Xander would revel in the idea of killing her. The feeling came back into him all at once, Xander’s arcane blade dissolving—he never could keep it up for very long—and he threw Xander off of him. “Too complicated,” he growled, spinning and striking out with his dagger, catching Xander right across the chest and severing half the cord his blood vial was suspended on.
Xander gasped, snatching the vial before it fell to the floor. “Minotaurshit. You just don’t want to tell me because your complications are all mushy and stupid even though you know as well as I that you can’treallyfeel those things.”
