Diana Rowland - Fury of the Demon

Ryan moved to crouch in front of me, face a mask of worry. “Shit,” he breathed. “Kara. Kara!”

My brow furrowed at the shout. Was that my name? It didn’t seem right.

Bryce scrutinized us, jaw tight. “You two are going out back,” he commanded, then stood and pulled me to my feet. “Let’s go.” He jerked his head at Ryan. “Now.”

I offered him a tremulous smile. I trusted these two men, and that absolute certainty helped ease the churning disquiet. Obviously distressed, Ryan led the way down the hall to the back.

“This is a nice house,” I murmured as we passed through the kitchen. Ryan shot a startled look back at me, and Bryce’s hand tightened on my arm.

“It’s your house, Kara,” he insisted. “Your house.”

Fear twisted my gut as I struggled to process that. I looked around for anything that clicked as personal, as mine , but found nothing. How could this be mine? None of this made sense.

Ryan took my other arm as we stepped off the back porch, and together the two men quick-walked me to the mini-nexus. As soon as we crossed the boundary of the power focus I dragged in a shuddering breath, feeling as if the curtain obscuring my Self reopened a crack. I clawed my way up, clung with everything I had to that slim awareness. “Kara,” I gasped out, tasted it, fought to reclaim my name. “Ryan. Bryce. I’m Kara.” I wrestled against the uncertainty and panic that threatened my tenuous hold. But how long could I do so? For now I held fast to the sloping plain of glass, but if it tipped more . . .

The converged potency of the mini-nexus seeped through me, threw the curtains wide and added power to my grip. Yet I knew it could only delay my descent. The instant I lost the potency, I’d be gone. Kara would be gone. Forever.

Fuck no. Not while I have breath in my body.

I drew from the mini-nexus, called up all of my internal reserves. “I know who I am. I know what I am,” I said through clenched teeth. “The instant I leave the nexus I’ll lose it, but I’m not fucking giving up yet. I’m going to beat this shit,” I looked from one to the other. “ We’re going to beat this shit.”

“You’re goddamn right,” Bryce said fiercely. Ryan gave an equally determined nod. Eilahn crouched a foot beyond the perimeter of the mini-nexus, still tracing sigils, teeth bared and eyes glowing with relentless focus. They had my back. Always had. My posse.

Kara’s posse.

The scars on my torso abruptly flared white hot, then quickly subsided to a billion tiny ant bites of prickling heat. Shit. No way was that a good sign. I drew measured breaths—in through my nose and out through my mouth, with a silent “ Kara” each time.

Ryan released his hold on my arm, shifted to face me, expression intense. Without warning or preamble, he seized my dress at the neckline and ripped it from me, leaving me in nothing but bra and panties. I knew why he’d done so, but Bryce jerked in surprise.

“Shit! What the hell?” He lifted his free hand to intervene, then paused as comprehension lit his eyes. “The sigils,” he murmured.

Ryan yanked my bra free and cast it aside to fully reveal all of the patterned scars. I focused on his face. No. Same hair, same eyes as Ryan, but now with subtle differences in the features. Not full-fledged Szerain, but headed that way. And far more stable than ever before, perhaps because of the potency from the node at the plantation combined with that of the mini-nexus.

A pinpoint of heat ignited over my sternum, much the same as when Jesral attacked me earlier. An instant later, it diffused and Mzatal’s sigil crawled with fire. I sucked in a gasping breath. “They’re waking up.” I swallowed hard. “Not good. Last phase.” In through the nose, out through the mouth. Kara .

Szerain squeezed his eyes shut. “Zakaar,” he breathed. He needed Zakaar, needed his support. I now saw that the breaking of the ptarl bond had shaken Szerain as deeply as the other lords, and was made even worse by Zack’s absence.

“No!” I put every bit of power I could into the word. “Zakaar can’t be here,” I snapped out. “It’s only us four, and it won’t even be me much longer if you don’t pull yourself together.” I leaned closer. “Szerain! Right here. Right now. I need you.”

His eyes flew open, the uncertainty of a moment before replaced by fixed intensity. In a slow, deliberate move, he laid his fingers on my sternum where the invisible arcane fire crept upward. “Mzatal,” he pronounced. The first to be carved by Rhyzkahl, the sigil sucked away the heat then writhed like ice beneath my skin. A wave of vertigo hit me, and I swayed, yet Bryce’s firm grip on my arm kept me upright. A soft buzzing drone set my teeth on edge, as though a dozen voices hummed out of tune.

Szerain slid his hand up to rest beneath my collar bone. “Rhyzkahl.” Then to my side. “Kadir.”

With each name, ice twisted beneath his fingers, and the hum grew clearer as though a voice found a harmonious note. Mzatal. Rhyzkahl. Kadir. The exact order Rhyzkahl had carved their symbols into my flesh.

Heart pounding, I seized Szerain’s wrist. “You’re activating the series. Why ?”

Bryce shifted his grip on my arm. A quick glance at him revealed a shimmer of doubt in his eyes, though his face revealed nothing. Eilahn stopped tracing sigils and stood, watching us intently.

Szerain twisted from my grasp. “Rhyzkahl began the process when he struck you with the virus,” he told me, almost growling the words. “Jesral completed it when he drew the rakkuhr to your chest earlier. Now the series activates, as was Rhyzkahl’s intent, and I can’t stop it. But I can complete the circuit before the virus does.” He leaned closer, face intense. “Kara, I don’t have a backup plan.”

I took that in. “You complete it, and then what?”

“I keep you from losing yourself.” He said it with calm assurance, but the droplet of sweat that slid down his cheek betrayed his tension.

A feather touch of heat brushed my chest through the ice, and the hum wavered—Rhyzkahl’s activation breaking through while we stood debating.

“Do it,” I said quickly, pulse slamming. If I thought about it any longer I’d lose my nerve. And myself.

Szerain touched his hand to my belly. “Jesral.” Ice answered him, and the hum steadied. He moved around me. “Seretis.” One by one he activated the sigils.

“Vahl.”

“Vrizaar.”

“Rayst.”

“Elofir . ”

With each, the harmony steadied and the cold fire increased, like ice encapsulating the heat of rakkuhr . His hand rested on my tailbone. “Amkir,” he said with particular vehemence.

Only one sigil remained. A single note of the hum whined out of harmony like an insane mosquito. The horrible icy ache penetrated to my bones. Szerain laid his hand flat against the sigil on my upper back, and I closed my eyes, braced myself for the next level.

I felt a tremble go through him, yet he said nothing.

“Szerain.” I named the sigil for him, my voice tight and hoarse. “ Szerain .”

A sob choked from him. “Szerain,” he echoed. The searing ice receded, leaving only phantom echoes. The hum shifted to soft harmonious tones, eerily familiar.

He slid his hand to the small of my back, rested it on the twelfth sigil—the one meant to unite the other eleven, but never ignited. The scar blossomed with heat under Szerain’s hand, and I jerked in shock. I’d never felt anything in that sigil. The tones cut off and the world abruptly dipped and swayed. Only Bryce’s hold on my arm kept me from falling.