I watched, unsure of what had happened—what might still be happening. Slowly, Veyka lifted her hand from the ground, opening her palm to examine it.
A cut had broken open on her hand, dark liquid sliding out of the small wound.
She wore the scabbards—she could not bleed. But what came out of her was not blood. It was black, and thick, and leaked a scent so distinctive that all the hairs on my body rose in unison.
That was not blood leaking from her wound. It was her soul.
Her gaze lifted from her hand. But the female that looked up at me through soulless black eyes was not my mate.
Veyka was a succubus.
69
VEYKA
Kill.
My entire life, I’d been starving. The darkness inside of me ached to feed, but I’d denied it again and again. A slashed throat here. A dagger shoved there. They were nothing more than bites of sustenance. Only one thing would sate that need inside of me, the need I’d spent a lifetime denying. I neededdeath.
Why had I ever denied myself?
Already I could sense the lifeforce of this place. Oh, yes, it was rich with magic. I sucked in a breath, savoring the scent of rich magical blood all around me.Yesssss. Even the humans were tinged with something special. Something I needed to taste.
There was more… a tingling at my fingertips that I vaguely recognized as familiar, as mine. Power, that’s what it was. I was powerful. And I was hungry.
My legs bent under me, pushing me to my feet. Legs—I had those. Arms, too. A cut across the back of my hand. But I did not bleed, I could not bleed, I remembered. Viscous black leaked from the wound. The soul, expelled. That insistent light, finallypurged. Too long I’d done battle with the light inside of me. Now, I could let it all flow away.
There were weapons strapped to me. I could feel their weight. But I did not need weapons, not when I had hands capable of ripping flesh. Not with this glorious power rippling through my veins, crying to get out.
But what could this power do?
I let it unravel, watched as tendrils of darkness emerged from my fingertips and wove their way around my arms. They caressed my cheeks, sweeter than the touch of any male, the touch of my—
Mate.
My eyes snapped up.
I recognized him. The dark hair, pulled back into a tight knot at the back of his head. The persistent bits that escaped, falling forward to brush a jaw shadowed with stubble. I knew the feeling of that stubble. I could imagine how it felt scraping over my skin.
“Arran,” I gasped.
He had me before I could inhale my next breath. Powerful hands gripped my upper arms, holding me in place as his black fire gaze burned down into me, searching my face.
“What happened?”
I swallowed, trying to make sense of it. My hands, raised in the space between us, were no longer wreathed in shadow. But I could feel it, that power crawling just beneath my skin. The darkness that lurked in my mind. I’d shoved it back—Arran had shoved it back. But not forever.
“I don’t know.” I blinked at my hand. My hand, which was bleeding. Except not, that was not blood. That was… my nose wrinkled, my stomach turning over violently.
I dropped my head, retching onto the grass between us. Arran did not flinch. He held my hair out of the way and letme empty my stomach onto his boots. I hung there even after the heaving stopped, struggling to breathe normally, eyes shut tight against the world. But that only left me with my own mind, which was currently in possession of…
“What…” The vomit on the ground. It was not my last meal. It was black. Just like the bile that leaked from the cut on the back of my hand. My eyes flew to Arran’s—and I saw what he tried to hide. Fear. He was afraid of me?
“Am I a succubus?” I whispered.
But Arran was not the one that answered.
“Yes, Veyka,” said the Lady of the Lake.
