See How She Awakens (The Chronicles of Izzy #4)(41)

No more. I was no longer a pawn in their game. This world was mine, and I would protect it.

“No, you aren’t,” Damali said with a sneer.

Kennan had died because of this woman’s madness, yet she thought I hadn’t been marked by darkness. Every step I’d taken since the battle, every day I survived, I’d dreamed of finding a way to make someone pay for his death. Yet she doubted me. It was time to become the badass Molly believed I could be. I would use the darkness inside of me, it would do my bidding.

“Tell me something, Damali? How did you predict this would play out?”

“You are an unexpected inconvenience. A bump in the road,” Damali spat.

“Are you saying you didn’t see me coming?” Aberto hadn’t been able to predict what would come of me after he’d breathed his soul into me, it seemed no one else could either.

“I see all. Just as I see your end looming before you.” Damali moved toward me, stalking me as if I were her prey. Only I wasn’t scared. I wouldn’t bow to her madness. Not this time. She pressed on toward me.

“Do not take another step, or I will burn the ground you stand upon, Betrayer.” The words poured from me, a menacing cadence. Gone was the voice of reason. The voice of vengeance rose within me, taking hold. I was done with questions, with motives. No more time would be wasted. If she made a move, so would I.

With a laugh, she stepped another slow step towards me, daring, taunting me in her approach.

“No more.” The words echoed through the room as I absorbed every ounce of light in the room, only to push it back outward, knocking everyone back.

This was it, the vision I’d seen play out. At least this portion; I wasn’t sure what would come next.

Francesca rose to her feet, a feral cry ripping from her lungs as she surged toward me.

Without thinking, my hand lifted. The blue flames licked against her forehead as I held her in place. Her arms waved violently as she struggled to reach me, her hands becoming claws as they tried to shred through my arm. But I was human no more.

“You want darkness? So be it.” Primal instincts drove me as I pulled from the visions of the Revenants. If that is what they wanted for this world, let them be the first to pay.

Francesca screamed as her skin began to char, slowly moving up her arms. She stopped attacking me; instead she clawed at her own skin. Her eyes filled with blood as she fell to her knees, chanting over and over incoherently. As she crumbled to her side, Eric charged.

Aberto snapped into place, slamming Eric to the ground by the throat. His eyes were aflame with fury as he looked down on the Guardian that had tried to attack me. There was no mercy there. Gone was the Old One that had sought to pay his penance, in his place stood a man hell bent on vengeance. Slowly, Aberto’s free hand disappeared into Eric’s chest. His scream echoed from the walls, only to be abruptly ended as Aberto tore the soul from his body.

“You will find no refuge in the heavens. Go and greet your darkness,” Aberto spat before fading from the room once more.

Eric’s soul wavered next to his body, the earth slowly fading from existence beneath his feet. Hundreds of hands appeared, clawing their skeletal fingers into his legs. The sound of a thousand tormented souls screaming from below the only sound to be heard. “No, this can’t be. We did this for the Gods. NOOOOOO!” His final agonized scream echoed off of the walls and the floor closed, permanently erasing his existence..

Brutus rushed forward. Like with Francesca, I didn’t think. My arm shot out to grab him by his throat. He stood a good foot taller than me, but power pulsed within me. The darkness stirred, reveling in the chaos. Strength seemed to manifest itself where once there had been none.

The flames that were once my skin began to change. Red flames began to move in time with blue.

“The darkness owns you,” Brutus spat in my face.

I lifted my arm and tossed him across the room. His body made a dull thud as it hit the wall before falling, broken, to the ground.

When I glanced back down at my body, shock replaced the fury I’d felt seconds before. The flames no longer co-mingled, the red swirling with the blue. In the brief moments I’d spent reveling in my newfound strength, the flames had turned purple. The implications of what that might mean were terrifying. I sought the darkness inside of me, looking for it to be coiled deep within.

Where are you? I called out in my mind. There was no answer.

Realization washed over me. Somehow, the darkness had taken hold, only not in the way either of us ever thought it would. Every ounce of the darkness that had pulsed within me had somehow merged with the rest of me.

What did that make me?

What would I become?

Fear began to wash over me, snuffing out the flames completely. My body once more became flesh as the terrifying truth wrenched my heart in an icy grip.





Shock radiated through my body as I glanced down to where the icy pain originated. It wasn’t fear I’d felt taking hold.

A sharp piece of metal jutted from my chest where I felt the icy grip moments before. A bloom of red wetness seeped through the white fabric, spreading outward from the metallic point. What was happening to me? I thought I couldn’t die? Disbelief warred with reality as the truth of what I was seeing finally registered in my mind.

“ABOMINATION!” Damali screeched from behind, shoving the blade further in. The sneaky bitch had stabbed me. She’d moved so fast, I hadn’t even see her.