Iniquitous (The Marked #3)(93)

I slid across the mud and threw myself down at his feet, slamming my knees against the rock as a putrid smell of death and Sulphur immediately filled my nose. The smoke billowed in the air above us, charging itself like an electrical storm.

“Trace!” I screamed his name as his eyes rolled into the back of his head. “Don’t you dare leave me! You have to get up,” I yelled as I tried pulling him off the ground and into my arms. His body was immovable, frozen in place as though rooted in the earth. “Please, get up! I need you.”

Strands of my hair slashed through the air as the darkness continued to blacken, swelling as it pulled up sand and rocks from the ground around us. It was feeding on the earth, on us, drawing in our energy. A defeating clap of thunder exploded inside the smoke, ringing through my ears as it hissed back its necrotic intentions.

“You can’t have him!” I screamed back through choking sobs. “I won’t let you have him. Take me instead. Please! I beg of you!” I tried to cover Trace’s body with mine, to force the darkness away from him and onto me, but something seared my skin and then bounced me off of him like an opposing magnet.

The smell of my burning flesh infiltrated my nose, but I didn’t bother stopping to appraise the damage. I would burn myself alive if it meant I could have him back.

I scrambled back to my feet just as the smoke shot down from the air in a torrent, the force of it violently tossing me right back on my ass again. From the ground, I watched in horror as the darkness descended over Trace, smothering itself over his body as he bucked and shook uncontrollably.

“NOOOO!” I jumped back on my feet and rushed him, though my efforts were thwarted by a pair of marble arms that grabbed me by my waist and yanked me off the ground.

“This way,” shouted Gabriel as Dominic clutched me in his arms and started running.

“Stop! You’re going the wrong way!” I yelled as they headed down the beach and towards the forest, taking me further and further away from Trace. I could still see the smoke seeping in through his ears, his mouth, every part of his heavenly body was being overtaken by it; consumed by it. Fissures of lighting crackled against his skin, jolting his body, burning him. “We have to help him! It’s killing him!”

“You can’t help him anymore, angel. He’s already gone. It’s over.”

“It’s not over! It’s not over!” The words tore out of me in shrieking sobs. “Let me go, Dominic! I have to go back. I can’t leave him here,” I screamed, smacking him in the face. My palms burned as I wailed on his head and arms, on every inch of his body my fists could reach.

But he didn’t falter.

He didn’t let me go.

He threw me over his shoulder and continued running, taking hit after hit as he drew us closer and closer to the forest. I wanted to scream at him that I hated him; that I would never forgive him for this, but I couldn’t speak through the agony. I couldn’t pull in enough air between the desperate sobs thwacking my body to utter a single word. All I could do was lift my head and watch in gut-wrenching agony as the last of the smoke entered Trace’s body.

Beautiful, resplendent Trace.

“My Trace…” His name came out of me so painful and soundless that only God above me could hear it.

Tears blurred my vision as I watched him stand to his full height and then slowly roll his neck as though stretching the skin around the darkness it now housed. The sisters dropped down to their knees in worship, throwing themselves at him like three demons bound to the darkness, and my heart stood still in mourning.

I knew then that my Trace was gone. That he’d been taken away by the thing that now lived inside his body, and everything inside of me died.

Because I knew I was going to have to be the one to kill him.