Are you two about to have a fight? Makeup sex is what got us into this mess.
I exhale slowly. “Okay, I’ll try one more time.”
“And then a break. I promise.”
He extends his hand, and I take it, letting him help me to my feet. “This time I want you think about what happened when you made the claws.”
I shoot him a dark look. “If I do that, we’ll never leave this room.”
He huffs a laugh, understanding my meaning. “We’re not doing that—yet. That’s for celebration. When we can successfully combine our magic.”
“So that’s my reward?”
“Do you want it to be?”
I fold my arms. “I need more.”
He laughs. “What more?”
“I need to know what you’ll do.”
Eryx pulls me close and whispers it in my ear. Moisture pools in my panties as he explains in great detail, every dirty thing he’ll do to me if we get this right.
My voice comes out weak. “Okay. Let’s try one more time.”
He claps his hands. “Go back to that moment and try to remember what you were thinking.”
I close my eyes. I wanted to be claimed by Eryx, for him to prove that I was his, and I wanted it deeply. I file back through the feelings—the fear he might’ve been poisoned, the way he said he wouldn’t survive losing me, the love that followed.
Being claimed was simply a completion of all those feelings.
That’s it,Nightmare coos.That’s it. Now summon your magic slowly, carefully. Not too fast.
I start to summon the power within me—what’s inherently mine and what Nightmare brought. It feels like I’m balancing an egg on a rope. Move too quickly and it’ll fall and break.
“That’s it,” Eryx says. “Keep doing that.”
I look down and see my magic—that golden line is now outlined in black, like Eryx’s nightmare magic is holding it together.
“Go on,” he says.
He’s pushing his magic out of him, too—slowly, just like me. I feel his power, how hard he’s working to keep it steady.
“Almost there,” he says, his voice strained.
Sweat breaks out across my forehead and my breath shakes.
His gaze snaps on me. “You can do it, Chelsea. Keep going.”
I push my magic out until it tangles with his, meeting in a beautiful collision of black and gold, light and dark.
“Gently,” Eryx says.
I give the magic one more push, and the magics join. I jump as adrenaline rushes through me, like fire flooding my veins.
I’m acutely aware of Eryx, of his magic, that our power is entwined.
“Now,” he says very calmly, “we’ll pull the shadows in—together.”
