The huge Nymph released a rattle so powerful that I felt it down to my toes and my magic was locked down hard once more, but I smiled as I slowly swung my axe back and forth in my grip, striding towards it between the trees while the rain pattered down on my head.
I was a man at home in the thick of the fight, and I was ready to prove my mettle against every dark souled creature here.
O rion cursed as he worked to close the rift and I gritted my teeth as I struggled to maintain the hold I had on the doors, digging in deep with my earth magic while Nymphs howled and set off their fucking death rattles right outside it.
It hadn’t taken them nearly long enough to break through the first door we’d sealed, and I suspected the proximity of the shadow rift was working them up into a frenzy. It was clear why they were so affected by it too. Even now, as I fought with all I had to hold the door, binding it with rocks and vines against the strikes of the Nymphs on the far side of it, I still felt the pull of that dark and tainted magic.
It was like the brush of a hand down my spine, the whisper of a lover in my ear and the call of a Siren even more powerful than Max who was aching to lure me to paradise.
The tendrils of darkness reached for me much like they were reaching for the dark objects which lined the altar, and I had no doubt that other Fae had come here before me and fallen into the trap of their call. More than one of the dark items were weapons, ready and waiting to be used to spill the blood of the sacrifices which had clearly been brought here time and again if the scent of blood and stains on the stone were anything to go by.
With the doors shut, the space in here was almost entirely black, barely a hint of daylight finding its way in through the tiny cracks which lined the edges of the door, the Faelight Orion had cast the only brightness in the whole space.
I gritted my teeth and fought to hold the door as another tremor rocked through it.
“How’s it going?” I yelled over my shoulder, my fingers curling into fists as the door was pounded with even more force and the whole temple seemed to rattle with the strike, dust falling from the roof and scattering in my hair.
“Better when I’m not distracted,” Orion grunted like the asshole he was and I shook my head, wondering why I’d expected anything more from him as I slammed my hand against the wooden door and upped the flow of magic coursing through my veins.
“Well, if we aren’t done, I’ll have to seal us in fully,” I muttered, drawing a deep breath in through my mouth before closing my eyes and releasing a blast of potent earth magic as I pressed my palms against the door and took hold of the essence of it, forcing my will to change its soul to stone instead of wood and solidifying the entire thing while the Nymphs continued to shriek in fury outside it.
I sealed the door entirely, strengthening and thickening it until a slab of impenetrable granite stood between us and the monsters who’d come for us, effectively locking us in this place while making sure they stayed out.
I turned back to face Orion, lighting a fire in my palm so that I could see more of what he was doing and my breath caught in my lungs as my gaze fell upon the rift instead.
It was pulsing and writhing now, a desperate kind of energy building in it as it almost seemed to be trying to pull away from Orion as he worked to stitch the fabric of the fucking realms back together like he was sewing an easter bonnet for a damn parade.
As my gaze caught on the twisting vortex of darkness, I felt a sharp tug in my chest and before I knew what was happening, I was shooting forward, my thighs crashing against the edge of the altar as I snatched a wicked black dagger into my grasp and a groan of pleasure escaped my lips.
Shadows crept across my skin, whispering promises of untold fulfilment as I tipped my head back and groaned again, the caress of a thousand fingertips roaming all over my flesh, undoing every piece of me and promising me more power than I had ever even dreamed of owning.
Orion shouted something and I heard a single name amongst the words he spat my way, a name which had me shaking my head in an attempt to clear it, remembering the feeling of warm hands against my flesh and blood on my lips.
I clung on to that feeling with all I had, closing my eyes for a brief moment and severing the tie the shadows had tried to leash me with before I snapped them open again, looking down at the dagger in my hand and snarling as I realised the fucking shadows had almost snared me.
I called on my fire magic, igniting the hottest flames I could summon in my fist and working to destroy the blade in my hand, melting the metal and making the shadows hiss and spit angrily.