The Shadow Queen (Ravenspire, #1)(88)

I won’t . . . He closed his eyes and struggled to remember what it was he wouldn’t do. Disobey his queen? That sounded wrong, but it was the only thought he could find that made any sense.

Don’t disobey his queen. Make the pain stop.

“Nakh`rashk.” Lorelai’s voice, full of fury and power, filled the cave. “Nakh`rashk! Find Irina’s magic and scatter it to the winds.” Her hands, ablaze with magic, wrapped around his, and he arced his back, his jaw locked helplessly against the waves of agony that swept over him.

Irina’s laughter filled his head. Lorelai gets to die first, but I think we’ll go ahead and kill the others as well, just to make it a tidy little victory.

He was consumed, every piece of him, with red-hot light. Irina’s magic collided with Lorelai’s and became a cage of brilliant flames that felt like they would burrow beneath his skin until they incinerated his bones.

Stop, he begged, but no one listened.

Irina was laughing.

Lorelai was saying her incantor over and over, her eyes blazing as she fought to push Irina’s magic out of his body.

And his body . . . his body was fire. It was pain. It was more than he could stand.

Stay with me, Kol. Lorelai’s voice was a soft caress within his tortured mind, and there was something he had to tell her. Some warning he needed to give, but it was lost in the unraveling of his thoughts. I won’t let you go. I won’t let her take you.

Irina stopped laughing. Time to teach her whom she’s dealing with.

The collar around his neck seemed to tighten, and a wave of magic that felt thick as sludge slid out of the collar and over his arms.

He tried to pull away from Lorelai, but her magic was wrapped around his wrists, and she was determined not to let him go.

Please, he said but no one was listening. Irina was chanting words he couldn’t understand, and they seemed to devour the last of his reason and deliver a terrible thirst for pain in its place.

He was fire, blood, and death.

No, you aren’t. You’re Kolvanismir Arsenyevnek, ruler of Eldr. You’re stronger than she thinks. You can fight this. I’ll help you, Kol. Fight this. Fight!

He fought. He strove to drown out the awful pounding of his dragon heart. To ignore the scathing fire that dwelled where he’d once been human.

To pull away from Irina.

He fought, but he was losing.

Lorelai was losing.

The tainted magic that seeped from his collar coated his wrists, slid over the bonds of Lorelai’s magic, and then leaped for her hands.

She screamed, throwing her head back as the pain that lived inside Kol poured into her instead, leaving him as empty as a canyon with a river of magic rushing through it.

See? Irina whispered against his ear. I’m stronger. I control you. And now because she tried to save you, because you both defied me, you get to watch her die.

Let go, he urged Lorelai, but the thought refused to breach the curtain of Irina’s magic. He was trapped inside himself, lost to the impulses of his dragon and the cruel wishes of his mistress. And Lorelai, the girl who had fought so hard to save him, was going to die.

He yanked at their joined hands, ferociously determined to break their connection as Lorelai’s already pale skin went white with strain. Her voice broke, her breath was a sob in her throat, and tears streamed from her eyes as she met his gaze.

I’m sorry, he said, but she couldn’t hear him. No one could.

No one but his queen.

Lorelai’s back arced, and then she fell forward onto his lap, her body shaking uncontrollably.

He no longer had the words to tell her he was sorry. That she deserved better. That she should let go of his hands and leave him behind.

She was saying something, her lips moving though her words were mere breaths.

Time to finish this, Irina said. We have more people to kill, Kolvanismir. Gabril Busche needs to learn what his betrayal will cost him. Kill the princess and let’s be on our way.

His heart thundered its agreement with this plan.

Hurt. Punish. Kill.

He was a predator. They were his prey.

He was fire, blood, and death.

Lorelai slowly pulled herself up until she was eye to eye with him. He snarled.

She leaned close and pressed her lips to his.

Magic shot out of her and surrounded him, cutting off the bonds of the curse and sending the pain that had been flowing into her back into Kol. Before he could move, she yanked her hands from his and pressed them on either side of his face. Pulling back from his mouth, she whispered, “Nakh`rashk. Scatter the queen’s magic.”

Irina shrieked in fury as Lorelai’s magic surged into Kol’s mind, found the thick curtain that obscured his thoughts from hers, and tore it to pieces.

Irina’s cold voice said, She can’t get rid of me. The best she can do is hear your thoughts as I turn you into the predator you were meant to be.

He had a brief moment of clarity, and he knew.

Lorelai might be able to tear through the curtain in his mind, but she couldn’t break the collar. She didn’t hold his human heart hostage. And she didn’t control him.

Irina did.

Even now, his talons were out, his chest heating with his dragon’s fire. He wanted to hurt, punish, and kill. He wanted it with a desperate hunger that roared through him until he felt like he’d never be satisfied.

With Irina in his head, it wasn’t a question of if he’d become a killer, it was a question of when.