Chapter 4

Chapter Four: The Sweetness of the Scythe

 The catacombs were a suffocating embrace of damp stone and the smell of ancient, forgotten dust. The only light came from the flickering silver dagger in Julian’s hand, casting long, dancing shadows against the skulls of his ancestors lined up in the wall niches.

 Above us, the muffled thunder of the King’s army battering the gates shook the earth. Dust fell from the ceiling like gray snow, coating my hair and the torn silk of my gown.

 "Keep moving," Julian rasped. His hand was clamped around my wrist, his grip almost painful. He wasn't looking at me. He was staring straight ahead into the dark, his jaw so tight I feared it might break.

 "Julian, your leg," I whispered, watching the dark stain of blood spread further down his trousers from where he had stabbed himself to break the King of Sorrows' grip. "You’re limping. We need to stop."

 "We stop, and we die," he snapped. But then he stumbled, a low groan escaping his lips, and he hit the wall of the tunnel with a heavy thud.

 I was on him in an instant, my hands reaching out to steady him. The moment my palms touched his chest, a jolt of electricity—hot and violent—shot through my nerves. It was the Curse. It felt our proximity. It felt the need.

 "Elowen... get back," Julian warned, his breathing turning shallow.

 The air in the narrow tunnel grew thick. It felt like we were breathing in velvet. I could hear his heartbeat, a frantic, heavy rhythm that matched the pulsing in my own blood. We were trapped in a space barely wider than his shoulders. There was nowhere to go. No distance to keep.

 "I can't let you bleed out in the dark," I said, my voice trembling with a different kind of fear.

 As I knelt before him in the dirt to tend to the wound, my head brushed against his thigh. I felt him shudder. A low, guttural sound—half-sob, half-growl—vibrated in his chest.

 "You are doing this on purpose," he whispered, his hand suddenly tangling in my hair, forcing my head back so I had to look at him.

 His silver eyes were changing. The black ink was swirling in his pupils, devouring the light. But it wasn't the monster’s eyes yet. It was the look of a man who had been starving for a thousand years and was finally looking at a feast.

 "I’m trying to save you!" I cried, but my body was betraying me. The fear was mixing with a desperate, wild heat.

 "You are killing me!" Julian lunged forward, his mouth crashing onto mine.

 It wasn't a gentle kiss. It was a collision. It tasted of salt, iron, and a desperate, agonizing hunger. I knew I should pull away. I knew that every second his lips pressed against mine, the "Shadow" was getting closer. But nine lives of suppressed longing exploded in my chest. I didn't push him away. I pulled him closer, my fingers clawing at the damp fabric of his shirt.

 Julian groaned into my mouth, his hands sliding down my back to lift me, pinning me against the cold, damp stone of the catacombs. He hiked my gown up, his large, calloused hands sliding up my thighs. The touch was electric, making my toes curl in the dirt. He pressed himself into me, his hardness a promise of the end and the beginning all at once.

 He entered me with a sharp, desperate thrust that drew a cry from my lips. For a moment, the catacombs vanished. There was only the friction of skin, the heavy scent of sandalwood, and the intoxicating, dangerous slide of his body against mine.

 But as the pleasure peaked—as I felt him shudder inside me—the air in the tunnel suddenly turned ice-cold.

 Julian’s movements slowed. His grip on my hips turned from a caress into a vice. I looked up at him, my breath hitching.

 The man I loved was fading. His skin was turning the color of gray ash. His fingers were elongating into black claws.

 "Julian?" I whispered, my heart freezing.

 He didn't answer. He opened his mouth, and a thick, black smoke began to pour out, flowing into my nostrils and my lungs. I tried to push him off, but I was pinned. The pleasure was replaced by a cold, numbing paralysis.

 I looked past his shoulder, into the darkness of the tunnel.

 There, standing in the shadows, were the other nine Elowens. They were standing in a circle around us, their empty eye sockets weeping black oil. They weren't trying to save me. They were chanting.

 "Join us. Join us. Join us."

 Julian’s hands moved from my waist to my throat. His eyes were pure, void-like black.

 "Elowen," a voice whispered—but it wasn't Julian’s. It was the King of Sorrows, speaking through my husband’s lips as he began to squeeze. "Thank you for the invitation."

 Suddenly, the wall of the catacomb behind us exploded.

 A flash of brilliant, blinding white light filled the tunnel, and a man in gold-and-white armor stepped through the dust, a massive sun-shaped mace in his hand.

 "Release the soul, demon!" the man roared.

 But the Shadow-Julian didn't let go. He turned his head toward the newcomer, his neck snapping with a loud crack, and smiled a mouthful of jagged, obsidian teeth.

 "You're too late, Priest," the monster rasped. "She’s already half-mine."