He looks me over like a predator admiring his prize.
“Millicent, our rare gem.”
His voice slithers through the air as his hand grips my jaw, tilting my head upward. I flinch, another surge of violent visions flashing behind my eyes. A desolate landscape, a sea of broken bodies, black eyes blinking from an endless abyss.
“Cage, snap out of it,” I growl, twisting against his hold. His grip claws into my neck, bruising me.
“Do not dare defy me,” he leans in close, sneering.
“We need to check on the others,” I try, clinging to logic. I hope a mention of the people he loves might ground him. He doesn’t even blink. He’s fixated on me.
“Who are you, and what do you want?” I demand.
“I am Cage. And you know who and what I want.” His lips curl into a cruel smile. “You slip away like sand through my fingers, but not this time. You can’t escape me, Millicent. I am inevitable.”
Rage coils in me. “Don’t make me fight you.”
That intrigues him. His aura is completely different, it’s colder, fouler. Whatever part of him remains is buried beneath this malevolence. I know this threat isn’t directed at me. It’s meant for the others.
I cup his face, drawing us close, our foreheads touching. “Let me in.”
“Not a chance,” he whispers. “You play too many games.”
“I thought you liked games.” I slide my hands slowly down his arm toward the obsidian blade in his grip.
“Not the kind you play,” he snaps, irritation cutting through the stillness in his voice.
I move. One sharp pull, and I drive the blade into my own stomach.
Agony erupts through me. The cursed metal sears as it sinks deep, rot bleeding through my insides. I scream, my knees buckling beneath me.
“What have you done!” Cage roars, his voice thunderous enough to rattle the room.
He catches me before I collapse, and he rips the blade free. His eyes flicker, black splitting with flashes of silver. The presence inside him begins to shudder and reel.
The cursed energy that clings to the blade now tries to enter my system. The Nightmother stirs.
Stay out,she hisses at the invisible force.
“Millie.” Cage lowers me to the floor, panic rising in his voice. Panic that sounds so familiar, from a time when we were younger, when I often hurt myself from running around.
He presses a hand to my wound, trying to hold me together. He lifts his wrist, pressing it to my lips. My teeth elongate, and I sink them in, drinking deeply.
The Nightmother coils around it, consuming the force trying to infect me. My magic surges. My skin tugs and seals, the wound rapidly closing. Then nausea hits me. I heave forward, retching a torrent of red and black again and again. Each heave pulls more of the disease from me, until I’m gasping, clawing for breath.
Cage pulls me into his arms, his palm stroking circles over my back. “Get it all out,” he whispers.
I cling to him, the tremors in my stomach finally settling. The retching fades, and my head lulls against his shoulder. I curl into his embrace, my limbs too heavy to lift.
Victory may have been unpleasant, but it is still mine. Cage shifted after the blade. I guessed some type of possessive force is lingering on the blade or it’s used in parts of a ritual for infestation. A vessel can only be overtaken if its current inhabitant is weaker than the invader. And the Nightmother is always stronger.
“We need to check on the others,” I croak. My throat is scorched, acid and magic clawing at it from the inside.
“We will,” he murmurs. “Just…let me be with you a little longer.”
I don’t fight it, not this time. The night’s events weigh heavily on me, but for now, I let myself rest in the quiet of him.
He buries his face between my shoulder blades and exhales an exhausted sigh. “You are different from how I remember you, aren’t you, Millicent?”
