Hellfire

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Fire roared from me, silver and glittering like moonlight that spilled over the wet mud and clamoured between the proud trees. It was burning and burning and burning everything it could, like a beast starved and desperate for anything it could eat. I couldn't stop it, just let it rush from me like a flood, drying out my skin, cracking it like plaster and peeling away like old paint. I felt raw, but I couldn't feel pain. Just numbness. Heat. Anger.

I rose with effort, a cloud of white ash rushing with a heavy breath from my mouth. My temper soared, a need to burn and kill taking me. I wasn't calm or sane, I wasn't even really myself. The hellfire was ruling. I was a demon, a thing of fire and made to burn. To destroy.

And I would.

My gaze latched onto Pendle and her wulver, the big golden beast curling about her with his teeth bared threateningly, hacks raised and muscles taut like wire. I slowly reached for Thorn, clutching her tight as I settled into an offensive stance as the woods burned around me. I ignored how my bones cracked, the marrow stuffed full of hot embers and turning them to cinder. I ignored how ash was falling around me, grey and ashen like snow, and the trees creaked and crumpled into dead slumps. I remained fixed on the witch ahead, my hellfire primed and roaring for a hunt.

With a sweeping movement with blackened steps left in my wake, I attacked.

I was faster, my hits stronger, even as my body rattled with increasingly fragility. I just tightened my grip and forged through. I'd kill this threat. It had to die. To burn. Burn. Fury was rampant. Blinding me. Swallowing up every thought. I shuddered with heat and a savage primal need to fight. I had to hunt. To kill. To set everything I could alight.

My prey shifted away from me, flourishing away in flaming moths, but I could track her heat with ease through the air, her life and breath coming to life from my right. I cut before she'd formed properly, the tip of Thorn slicing open her witch-suit and belly shallowly. She shuddered and flung herself back violently, her palm passing over the wound already bleeding and the ripped suit. A howl thundered. Primal. Furious. I was turning to the wulver, everything I'd promised Lucius forgotten. Lucius himself forgotten. I just saw those teeth bared, the fury in his eyes. Then a blur crashed into him of dusk orange and night black. Two over-sized beasts tumbled over the ash of grass and leaves, claws and teeth slashing. I nearly began to hunt them too, until I felt the cold sweeping in.

I turned slowly. A man stood at the edge of the crisp black sea, his alabaster skin glittering in the silver lights. I didn't recognise him, only the strength of him. It was taut in his dangerous body, thick in the frost battling against the heat of me, the blood slipping from self-inflicted wounds. Something brushed the back of my neck. A possessive cold touch, male and authoritative. My whole body revolted, spasming with fury and gushing fire. No. No. I wouldn't be controlled. Chained. I wouldn't bend to him!

I focused my all on the new threat; the witch and the wulver forgotten. Hellfire spilled from me, whirling about me like a storm with a roar of a beast. Thorn was held tight as I lashed out, arcing her and sending a jet of raging flames to devour him, spilling them over trees and turning them to cinder. He folded into mist and slipped behind me lithely, prowling with slow steps. I saw his mouth moving, a hand raised to ward something off. I couldn't hear - only the sound of cracking wood and the hellish roar of flames filled my ears. My fire was picking up in hunger, flames lancing from tree to tree in growing inferno, forcing the panther to back off, the witch and her wolf.

All but the man. Steam hissed about him as he prowled about me dangerously, ice glittering over him, hoarfrost sliding out beneath the soles of his bloodied shoes, the cold wreath of winter crashing against the sheer heat of me. His body rippled with feline strength, raw and wild, an almost hypnotising step that made me forget everything else. I felt his control brush against the nape of my neck, his baritone words whispering wickedly, threads trying to slip over my quivering limbs, his icy gaze fixed on me as something battled my hellfire, trying to snap it up.