Chapter Fifty-Eight

***REMI***

The shock of Xaden wrapping his hands around my throat and choking me, does, in fact, knock the wind out of my chest.

He’s writhing in darkness, his near white blonde hair seemingly aflame, and the red of his eyes pulsing with another type of need than the boys.
The need for blood.

“Xaden, for fucks sake!” Keiran shouts out, him and the twins rushing up behind us.

“I told you not to let him near her,” Kallias growls.

“Let her go,” is all Rhodes comments.

Xaden’s power is terror. Just pure, wicked terror and it riles up in my belly and crawls like a snake down the center of my spine. My heart beats loudly against my ears.
This is it.

I’m going to die.

“The Offering asked to be an offer,” Xaden’s new voice is all consuming. It has shifted to something deeper, more manic, along with the hue of his eyes.
Tears spill over my lids and trail down my cheeks.

I wanted sex, not whatever the fuck this is.

With the others, it’s dangerous, but with Xaden….I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

“Shh, darling,” he coos. “Save your tears for when it really hurts.”

My eyes bulge from their sockets.

For when it really hurts?

What is he going to do to me?

“Please let her go,” Keiran says, and never, ever, did I think the King would ever use the word please.

The twins edge around us, I don’t need to look to know that they’ve both drawn their preferred weapons. Blades for Rhodes, fists for Kallias.

“The little girl wants to play with fire,” Xaden goes on, chilling in his amused gaze. “Let me show how badly she can get hurt.”

If I could breathe, I’d be screaming.

I wrap my hand on Xaden’s wrist, silently pleading for him to stop. My other hand scratches at his bicep, but achieves nothing.
I need air. I need to breathe.

Fuck
.
Maybe I am a helpless little doe who doesn’t know any better.

Nothing more than the uncontrollable, stolen magic in my blood that serves as nothing more than a blood bag for these four.

“Xade,” Keiran says again, but the twins can’t take it anymore.

The second Xaden ignores the second call, then they lunge.

I drop to the floor and the second Xaden lets me go. On all fours, I choke and gasp for air.

The twins each grab one of Xaden’s arms and drag him back. Xaden goes off.

I’d never seen anything like it. Even when the twins spar against each other, I’ve never seen such speed and agility in the three men. They zoom around as nothing but blurs of silver-white and jet black hair, only pausing for a second at various areas of the throne room.

Ultimately, Xaden wins.

Even against two of the strongest warriors born through the witches cauldron only for the purpose of protecting me.

Stone cracks loudly, and I barely glance up with enough time to see Xaden slamming Kallias’s skull into the stone steps before Keiran’s throne.

Then Rhodes, from a surprising distance across the room, implodes.

Violet, star-kissed magic explodes from his palms and jolts across the room. It’s so uncontrollably, so consuming, that Keiran has to throw his body over mine as well as a shield.

“Don’t touch my fucking brother.”

Xaden pays him no mind and instead turns towards Keiran.

Kerian holds up his hands. “Get your fucking shit together Xaden.”

Xaden doesn’t seem to be listening much. A dark smile graces the Demon Slayer’s mouth, and he stalks towards us.

Keiran rolls up his sleeves. “For fucks sake, man.”

I suck in oxygen and then put my back to the wall.

This is not going to be good.

King of the Lands Once Lost versus King of the Midnight Isle.

The world will not survive the extent of their battle.

“Xaden,” I call, my voice is raspy, and no one hears me at first. “Demon Slayer.”

Xaden’s voice is terrifyingly dark and hollow.

“She’s ours to use? ”

Keiran breathes through his teeth at the words, his words, being used against him.

“You need to figure out how to control your Black Pearl,” Keiran warns, “Or you're going to get us all killed.”

Wait a second.

Xaden has a Pearl?

And he was born on the Lands Once Lost?

I’m no expert in magic, but that sounds…really fucking bad.

“I am the Death Pearl,” Xaden says, closing the distance between us and him. “I don’t need to control it.”

Holy fucking shit.

“Yes, you do. Or I’ll banish you back to your Isle.”

Xaden laughs. Then lunges.

Keiran ducks and heads away from me. Distracting the Demon Slayer.

Xaden notices the hesitation, the opening, and punches Keiran squarely across the jaw. Keiran curses, and staggers back, and Xaden wraps his muscular arm around his throat from the back.

There are no easy words to explain what happens next.

Darkness, terror–evil itself, blooms from Xaden’s touch like swirling smoke. It spreads over Keiran’s tattoos like a second skin, sinking into his skin deeper than ink.
What the fuck is that?

The swirling smoke spreads up and eats away at the pale skin of Keiran’s throat.

“What’s happening?” I rasp out. “Kallias, what is happening?”

With a look of pure hatred on his face, Rhodes answers. “He’s going to kill him if he doesn’t stop.”

The inky tendrils stretch up the curve of Keiran’s jaw, turning his lips black.

He’s not strong enough to fight off Xaden. Not yet. Access to the Pearl restored his power, yes, but not enough to stand up against another one itself.
“What do we do?!” I ask Rhodes.

The twin frowns. “I’m not getting in between that. No one except Kerian can stand up to Xaden when he’s like this. And this is worse than I’ve ever seen him before.”
Keiran grits his teeth as the darkness consumes him slowly, inch by inch. “Xaden…for fuck’s sake.” Kerian gasps out in pain, but Xaden shows no signs of giving up.
“We have to do something,” I say, and the twins meet me with blank and grim expressions.

“If we touch him, he’ll do the same to us,” is all Kallias says.

Touch him…

“Xaden!” I shout.

The Demon Slayer turns just slightly, the line of his jaw meeting the rise of his shoulder.

“I want it to be you.”

“Remi,” Kerian hisses. “What the fuck are you doing?”

I edge closer to them both, keeping my arms out to prove I mean him no harm. “I want you to be the one that claims me, in any way you want to do it.”
Xaden smiles wickedly, then drops Keiran and the darkness on his skin immediately recedes. Keiran hunches over, hand clutched at his chest.

The Demon Slayer turns to me and the terror of his magic edges back in.

It’s all on me now, not Keiran.

He takes a slow and deliberate step, Xaden makes sure I know I am nothing but a predator, and he is the prey.

He feels nothing like Keiran. Nothing like sweet or sharp in his movement.

Only death. Only terror.

I back into the wall where he choked me and step on a shard of broken glass. I hiss at the pain, but it’s the least of my worries now.

But Xaden’s gaze wanders to the floor, to the footprint I’ve left in blood.

The pain is sharp and intense but nothing compared to when he bit me.

As the blood spreads and the pain throbs in my nerves, I notice something else.

The terror of Xaden’s magic has seeped away with the blood.

Xaden frowns at me and all the magic curling around him disappears from the atmosphere.

I breathe through the dull ache in my foot.

Xaden’s eyes return to their normal, ruby red hue, but the anger is still cut into the line of his jaw.

The twins shift towards me, as does Keiran, but the tension in the air has…sedated. It’s the quiet after a storm when the ocean has stopped roaring, when the light of new dawn breaks through the clouds and day.

Xaden rolls his neck, shoves his hands into his pockets, then takes a long, deep breath, and says to me.

“Don’t ever do that again.”