Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

M y claws hit The Book of Dark Magic .

As seamlessly as cutting through water, they impale the book's cover and its thick pages, all the way to its back cover before hitting the stone floor and impaling it, too.

There's a moment of pure silence and a strangely dark peace.

Within that heartbeat, I sense an unexpected connection with the magic in the book, as if the dark soul of it actually welcomes my touch.

As destructive as it is.

Even stranger is that this dark peace—this sudden sense of wholeness —triggers a spark of deep rage within my body and mind.

Suddenly, there's a whisper within my mind. A burning impulse that's as clear as if the book had spoken to me.

Take control of the light and the dark.

Mold the living to match your will.

Fight the old and find the new…

Power, so pure and intense that I feel like I'm breathing for the first time in my life, floods through me and my back arches with the force of it.

Opposite me, Emil's eyes have flown wide, undeniable shock reflected in their green depths as his focus flashes from me to the book and my black claws rammed through it.

I'm certain he thought that I would choose to drive my claws through his heart.

And still, the powerful impulse flows through me.

Take control of the dark.

Mold them.

Make them yours.

I grit my teeth against it.

This book is the reason my father hates me. The vision he saw within its pages showed me slaughtering dark creatures without mercy. This book has wormed its way into his mind. If ever there was a truth that Emil has spoken, it was about this book.

This book wants bloodshed, and it serves only itself.

My father lurches desperately down toward the book, his arms outstretched, a shout of protest roaring from his lips. "Daughter, do not dare?—!"

As if I would obey him.

With all the ferocity of my dark nature, I snarl, "Die, book. Fucking die."

With an outward sweep of my hand that feels as easy as pushing it through air, I rip my claws through the book's pages.

My claws shred it from the center and out across its spine, breaking the central parts that keep it bound, leaving it barely held together by the top and bottom of the spine.

Despite how easily I move, the tearing sound my claws make is like metal cutting through iron, shrieking and high-pitched, as if two metallic forces are grinding against each other.

For a second, I imagine that I can hear screams raging from the pages and it's impossible to sense if they're screams from battles long past or the souls of a thousand dark creatures crying out for mercy.

At the last moment, before my claws exit the book, a hard bolt of energy leaps up through my fingers, traveling across my palm, up my arm, and into my chest.

The power I sensed when my claws first impaled the book now strikes directly through my heart.

It's cold and full of malice, flooded with hatred and cruelty.

My dark heart inhales it like air, pulling it into me with purpose. I will take whatever anger the book has to give, as long as I hurt it as much as it has hurt me.

I breathe through the painful sensations, accepting the flood of dark magic.

At the same time, my left arm continues its upward arc even as my father leaps down toward me.

The trajectory of my claws takes them up, out of the book, up through the air, and directly into my father's face.

His downward momentum works horribly against him.

My claws slice through his outstretched right forearm and continue upward to cut neatly through the entire right side of his jaw.

With a scream, he tries to reverse his direction, his wings whipping outward as if he could flap them fast enough to get away from me.

The damage is already done.

His blood splatters across the floor and soaks into the cover of the now-ragged book.

Still screaming, he throws himself backward, scrambling away from me, trying to clutch his face with his uninjured left arm.

I have no illusions that he'll be out of action for long.

And he's still located between me and the only exit.

What's more, a flood of light magic is already building around him. I'm certain he's drawing on the light magic keeper's power as fast as he can and will let it loose the moment the worst of his pain subsides.

The book, meanwhile, lies completely still on the floor.

When I was forced to read it, the book itself had turned into vines and daggers, pinning me to the spot so that I couldn't look away.

Now, it looks like nothing more than black paper bound together. When I grab the side of it that's still intact and scoop it up against my side, pressing it close to my body, it's heavy and awkward, parts of it flapping like ribbons.

But I feel nothing of the power I sensed from it before.

As my father's screams continue, I finally look at Emil.

His hand hasn't wavered from its spot at the back of my neck, but it has tightened.

I find him frozen opposite me and I don't have a hope of interpreting the expression in his icy-green eyes.

"I've said what I needed to say, and I meant it." I force sound through my lips. "The truth is a gift, however dark it is. My fate is now up to you."

For a terrible moment, his eyes search mine.

I force myself to meet his gaze. To face the fear that his current form brings to me.

Only he has the power to get us out of here and, by taking control of my pain and mending the cracks in my heart, I've ensured he has enough strength to do it.

Without a word, he lifts his left arm, wrapping it around me and swiftly tugging me closer—all while avoiding contact with the book.

For some reason, I am one of the few beings who can touch this book without it destroying my mind. When I first showed Emil a page that had been ripped out of this book and left for me in secret by my mother, he turned away from the page, not even wishing to look at it.

Emil's cheek is cold against mine, a deathly iciness that defies his beauty.

In the next second, his transportation magic bursts to life, a tornado of mist rushing against my skin and enclosing us.

Not so much that I can't see my father's silhouette beyond it.

A flood of white light pours toward us, cutting through the farthest edge of the mist.

Dark light bursts around us a second before the light magic would reach us.

I can't see exactly where Emil's dark power is coming from—his hands most likely—but it forms a shield against which my father's light magic can only spread outward, never making it through.

My father's shouted threats are garbled but becoming clearer as his healing power seems to be repairing his jaw. "I'll tear you apart, Daughter! I'll rip the flesh from your?—"

A second burst of dark light completely obscures my father's form, blocking him from view.

Within the dark shield, the transportation mist storms around me faster than before, spinning in dizzying ribbons within the cocoon, and pressing in on my chest, plastering me against Emil.

His head remains bent to mine and finally, his voice sounds in my ear. Not the growl of a dragon or a wolf or even the snarl of a warlock or a demon. He sounds almost human, and the sheer simplicity of the baritone of his voice chills me to my bones.

"You should have killed me," he whispers.

A violent shiver racks my body.

Emil's transportation magic has already taken hold of me, and now I'm at his mercy.