Rebirth (Lost Souls #1)

Chapter 22

I have to suppress the urge to burn it all down as I leave Sophia’s quarters. I want to destroy everything, so I set out to destroy him. He told me that I would be able to take him on now that his magic is mine. Looks like it’s time to put that to the test.

Ice-blue sparks fly from me as I cross the garden, guiding me to his quarters. It lights up patches of grass and parts of the trees, yet remains contained to the spot where they made contact. Which I’m thankful for, because I’m not in a state of mind to do something about it. My mind is solely focused on getting to him and hurting him.

My hands touch the black wooden doors that mark the entrance to his quarters, and blue flames erupt from under my palms. The fire spreads around the wood, consuming yet not destroying. I push the door open and step inside. Walking through the hallway, I trace my fingers over the left wall and the marked doors. Flames spread from the pads of my fingers, following me as I step through the one marked door that has been left ajar.

The room that I enter is a study. It’s done in the same burnt umber and dark brown as everywhere else and filled with beautiful matching dark wooden furniture. The wall in the back holds a fireplace almost as wide as the wall itself, a fire burning inside of it. On the left from the fire is a sitting area with sofas and a coffee table in the same style as the ones in his bedroom. Next to it, also on the left wall, is a large wooden bar table with matching bar chairs. Behind it is glass shelving filled with expensive-looking bottles of alcohol. The flames of my fire light up the liquids inside of the bottles, making them shimmer.

The right-side wall consists of nothing but completely filled bookcases. There are hardbound books and piles of paper records, all seemingly neatly marked and organized. In front of it is a large wooden desk, papers and files scattered over the top of it. He sits behind it, a few pages in one hand and an expensive-looking fountain pen in the other.

He seems surprised, looking up as I come to a halt in front of him. I smash my hands on the desk, and my magic quickly spreads over the surface. It only needs a little nudge, and it will all go up in flames. By the way he cocks a brow at me, he’s well aware. He’s daring me to go through with it, to destroy something else of his.

“You knew,” I growl. My lips pull back until I’m baring my teeth at him while my magic burns small holes in the papers under my hands.

Leaning back in his chair, he smiles at me, utterly unimpressed. That smile tells me he knows exactly what I’m talking about. Yet he still asks, knowing it will set me off even more. “And what exactly did I know?”

“You knew about the third child. You knew all along, but you didn’t tell me, knowing that would work out better for you.” The table combusts in blue flames as I casually toss it aside in my rage.

He sits looking at me, unphased by my anger.

“Why?”

He considers my question as he gets up, pushing the chair to the side. Then he looks at me with that cruel smile of his, and I snap.

“Darbs ia i don butmoni parm zumvi cnila.” I throw the spell at him, and it hits him before he can react. He’s thrown into the bookcase behind him, and the spell effectively holds him there.

As he starts to form the words for a counter spell, my magic-enhanced fist hits him in the face. I break his nose as he once broke mine, the loud crack the most satisfying sound ever. It’s the first time in my life that I’ve punched someone like this, but it feels more than appropriate. It’s so gratifying to see his nose bleed, to see him casually lick the dripping blood away with his tongue.

“I didn’t tell you because you needed to find out on your own.” It’s the answer that I expect from him, and I merely huff in response. “And it was fun to see you struggle.” Then again, he doesn’t have to add that.

I launch a second spell toward him, but he breaks free from my first one with a single gesture and ducks out of reach. A guttural roar escapes me as I cast a series of spells in rapid succession. I weave more and more power into them as I throw them toward him. The first ones are relatively small, and he easily evades them. Cocky as he tends to be, he’s then quickly caught off guard by the twists and turns I put in them.

He continues to flick them away, and they explode when they come into contact with our surroundings. The sounds are deafening, the whooshing of magic combined with the shattering of glass, the sizzling of burning paper, the snapping of wood. Splinters of all materials fly around us, his study quickly looking more like a battlefield.

Then a first hit stuns him, allowing for the second one to make contact as well. He does what I expect him to do and puts up a hefty defense around himself. He uses a spell in Eloghyll, in blood magic, to be certain that it will be powerful enough to protect him. To stop me.

I curse, nostrils flaring, for he knows that I can’t freely use these spells yet.

Then again, he always fights dirty.

Taking a second to size each other up, I notice that my spells left their marks on him after all. He has cuts all over him and curses when he finds himself unable to make the bleeding stop. If this is what it’s like to be on equal footing with him, then I have no problem getting used to it.

He takes down his protection and immediately switches to offense. I deflect his incoming spells as he steadily gains ground on me. He sends them flying left and right, destroying whatever was still intact around us.

Even though I’m fast and powerful enough to keep up with him, he has the upper hand when it comes to skill. He’s clearly not shying away anymore from using full-on blood magic, and I know that I won’t be winning like this. I’m a quick study, but not that quick. He knows this as well, knows that he has already won.

Despite this, I refuse to give up, continuing to throw everything I have at him. But the closer he gets to me, the more hits I end up taking, until I’m in no better shape than him. With my back against the wall and a large, dripping cut on my cheek, I get an idea.

“This little game of ours is certainly more fun now that I don’t have to hold back so much.” He laughs as he pins me against the wall with his magic. Magic that swiftly crawls over my body like a caress, keeping my arms trapped next to me. But I don’t miss how he insinuated that he’s still holding back. And it enrages me even more to know that I’m still far from being evenly matched against him.

He looks at me as I look at him. Him with amusement shining in his eyes, while mine are filled with anger. Both of us are breathing heavily, our clothes ripped and an array of bleeding wounds marking our bodies. He puts his finger to the cut on my cheek, and the sting of the touch makes me hiss. He chuckles as he pulls his finger away, then licks the blood from the digit. The sight of him tasting my blood makes me flinch. I start to struggle against his magical bindings, trying to get to him, and a frustrated scream leaves me when I can’t .

So, I decide to change tactics. It’s my turn to fight dirty.

He snickers when my head drops in defeat. My hair curtains around my face, hiding the grin that plays on my lips. Magic seeps out of me and drapes itself around him, urging him closer to me. Then I look up at him and lick my lips while my magic tugs at his belt, trying to undo the buckle. His eyes twinkle as his hand goes up my leg, looking for the hem of my skirt.

It’s almost too easy.

My magic gathers on his lower abdomen, and a single whisper is all it takes for me to cast the spell. His eyes grow big as he realizes what I have done, stumbling away from me with one hand over the spot where I stabbed him. His fingers clutch the wound on his abdomen, blood gushing through them. His eyes hold a mixture of shock and pride at my deception. He falls backward and, when he crashes to the ground with a loud thud , his black magic releases me.

I step up to him and nudge his side with the tip of my shoe. He groans, but his magic is already creeping up my leg, refusing to give up. Bending forward, I forge my ice-blue power into claws around my fingers and rip his magic away from me.

There is a loud pounding in my ears, telling me that I’m not thinking straight, but I want to hurt him so bad. I want to continue to hurt him, for all that he’s done to me and might still do to me. My hands clench and unclench at my sides, the magical claws pricking my skin.

He looks up at me then, a painful grin on his face, taunting me while the wound heals. I snarl at this and, without thinking twice, step over him and lower myself into a sitting position so that I’m straddling him. My claws glint in the glow of the fire when I raise them, catching the light so beautifully. His eyes widen when he realizes what I’m about to do. Before he can stop me, I bury the sharp claws deep in the still-healing wound .

He curses loudly and tries to push me off of him, but he can’t muster the strength, and the struggle only makes him lose more blood.

“Fuck, love, are you trying to kill me?”

His groans of pain bring a smile to my face. “Yes,” I hiss at him in reply, “but apparently I’m not doing a thorough enough job.”

His laugh shakes his wounded body, and a flash of pain crosses his face. His hands grab my thighs, and I dig my claws deeper in response. He curses again, banging his head against the floor and lying silent for a few moments.

“You going to let me bleed out, then?”

“Even if that were possible,” I snarl, wiggling my fingers in the wound and making his face twist, “something tells me that you’re just fine.”

He laughs, blood now dripping from the corner of his mouth. “I know that you have a mean streak, but this is downright cruel.”

“I learned from the best.”

I pull my claws free from his abdomen, and he gasps. The way his blood coats my ice-blue magic… I understand why he’s so obsessed with it. It slowly drips down my fingers and arm, onto my clothes. It’s beautiful. Mesmerizing.

His hands squeeze my thighs harder, and I’m brought back to the moment. My hand snaps out, and the sharp tips of the claws are at his throat, puncturing his dark-red skin.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask him, my voice shaking as the brunt of my anger slowly starts to leave me while sadness and disappointment creep in.

“Like I said, you needed to find out on your own.” His eyes search my face for something. “Would you have done the things you did if I had just told you from the get-go?”

“If I had known there was a third child, then I would have had no need to marry you,” I spit back at him, my claws digging deeper, drawing blood.

“And if you had not married me, you wouldn’t be able to use my magic. Meaning that you—we—would truly be trapped here forever.” I curse. “Admit it, you never would have accepted without the extra motivation.”

“I still wanted to go home.”

“To what? There was nothing there for you to go back to.” He gives me a devilish smile, knowing that his words are true. “You would have come to realize that, in due time. Imagine what those little trips you made would have been like if the third child was already dead. All you would have seen was a world so changed that there was no place in it for you anymore. You would have given up; you would have preferred to stay here and wither away.” He grinds his teeth, his eyes cold. “It’s what happened with Sophia.”

I retract my claws then, the ice-blue magic dissolving in the air while I regard him, trying to make out if his words are the truth or not. If they are my truth.

They are. And it hurts.

“Screw you, asshole,” I spit, the last of my anger lashing out at him.

“Gladly.” He laughs, his whole body shaking with the force of it.

I rip myself away from him, done with this, with him. With how damn well he knows how all of this would have played out if he had told me. Every single part of it would have gone as he said.

There’s a bitter smile on my lips as anger and sadness leave me, only disappointment remaining. I weave my hands into my hair and pull, a scream escaping me while I kick at something. My eyes don’t notice what it is, my ears barely registering that it shatters at the impact.

Behind me, he lifts himself into a sitting position, his magic reaching out to me. I slap it away with my own once more. Unable to take no for an answer, it’s back on my skin a second later. But this time it’s soft, gentle. Caring.

I feel his body behind me then, his arms wrapping around my waist and pulling my back flush against his chest. His heat and scent overwhelm me, and I start to tremble as something else wells up from deep inside me.

His breath is hot against my ear, his voice barely more than a whisper. “Let it go.”

And I do.

My magic explodes from deep inside me as I let it all out. All of my pent-up frustration, anger, and even grief. It’s like a wave of pure energy, crashing through us, the room, and perhaps this whole place. It sends me to my knees, and he goes down with me, cradling me in his arms.

When my memories initially returned, I grieved for the life that I lost. The life that I had, and would never have again. Now I grieve for myself, for how I was tossed aside and left to die. For how I did die—how it took dying for me to have a second chance at life. A life that he’s giving me, offering me, with him by my side.

It’s true what he said—there is no place in that world for me anymore, with or without revenge. But maybe, just maybe, he’ll be able to give me a life out there as well.