Ashes of Chaos (Legacy of the Nine Realms Book 2) Read online

  Not everyone set on fire was dead before the flames had reached them. In horrified silence, I listened to the screams of the dying as they burned to death before my eyes. I trembled with the force of my emotions, unable to stop the tears that burned in my gaze.

  I wanted nothing more than to jump to their aid, but the reality was the moment the villagers fell under the spell, it sealed their fate, and nothing would change that fact. The only thing I could do now was study and to learn more about my enemies so I could avenge all those sacrificed in my grandmother’s name.

  As I silently cried, evil shadows danced hypnotically to the screams of their victims. The masked figures laughed at the dying as their flesh sizzled and burned, sending the putrid scent high into the night. I noticed other flames lit in the distance, and suddenly, the entire area glowed with hundreds of similar circles made from remains. The fire created a burning pathway that flowed outside the village, deep into the countryside as if lighting the way toward something, or worse, someone.

  Calming my emotions wasn’t easy. Inside the Nine Realms, everything about me was enhanced, including my senses. My sense of smell was unreal. My hearing had amplified to the point that a twig, breaking miles away, echoed within my ears. The need to mate hadn’t merely increased; it had intensified until even my nipples ached when Knox was near. To say it was ridiculous was an understatement, but that’s how I knew when he was near, how I sensed him before I ever saw him as he continued to chase me.

  My body knew Knox, desired him, and craved him deeper than I craved the need to do what I’d come to the Nine Realms to accomplish. I’d used potions and spells, all to no avail, because it was a primal need and something that wouldn’t be ignored or shut off.

  I leaned against the wall, closing off my emotions. I tuned out the debauchery happening outside. The victim’s screams were dying down, which meant death was finally claiming them. I rubbed away the tears, deadening myself to the senseless loss of life, knowing that I’d come upon it too late to make a difference. Nothing I could have done would take away the dark, oily magic fueling the men and women to slaughter one another.

  I wasn’t that strong, nor did I house the right magic to fight against the spell. Not yet, at least. Soon. The witches outside stopped laughing and talked excitedly, in a rushed, worried speech. I frowned, moving back to the window.

  Peering down the road, I spotted Knox as he stepped into the village and unseeingly moved through the scene. My eyes narrowed as he and his men continued toward the courtyard, stepping through the bodies. I blinked, rubbing my eyes. I watched the hooded figures slowly slinking toward him, Knox seemingly unaware.

  Son of a bitch! Knox and his men were within a layer of the realm. I turned my attention back to the masked figures, but they showed no signs of alarm. They could not see Knox and his men, so how was I able to see them? Knox came closer into view as a hooded figure emerged from the crowd, looking directly at him. Removing the mask, a woman scowled angrily at Knox as she reached into the layer of the realm, sliding her fingers around his wrist, causing him to jerk back in pain. Anger snapped through me that they’d dare touch what was mine.

  Power unleashed within me without warning. Power like I’d never felt before slid through the masked figures closest to me, until they recoiled, screaming as it burned their flesh, just as they’d done to their victims.

  “Tit-for-tat, bitches. That monster is mine, and only mine.” My eyes slid over their burning bodies, a smile lifting my lips as the rush of magic rippled through me.

  Black eyes slid to my position in the window, and I realized I was no longer invisible. Shadows swayed around the woman’s body as she released Knox, giving me her full attention. The figures all moved closer, coming toward me as one. I sent a warning shot of pure, untethered light magic at them. They recoiled since dark magic couldn’t handle light, something we were taught very young.

  Once you embraced the darkness, it sucked out your soul and then your beauty. You became a cold, undying, horrifying monster. Skin withered and wrinkled as it stole the witch’s beauty, leaving her a decaying vile husk of a thing that no one trusted, or wished to be around. It made you into a witch’s worst nightmare, unwanted and ugly.

  The stronger the witch, the longer she could hold onto her outer shell, but even the strongest witches eventually fell to the darkness. I watched as the woman and the masked figures vanished, removing the victims from my vision, becoming shadows, drifting on the wind before ashes drifted into the night.

  Turning my attention back to Knox, I smirked at the confusion playing on his face. Ocean-blue eyes lifted and locked with mine, before turning to look around to find what had touched him. Death had touched him and sought to take him without his knowledge. Like I’d let them hurt that asshole, not when I enjoyed our cat-and-mouse game, even if he was exhausting me effortlessly. I was still winning.

  Knox didn’t waste time as he entered the house, marching toward the room I occupied. I pulled a portal to me, opening it as his heavy footfalls started up the stairs. The moment he stood in the bedroom doorway, heat rolled through me, and my body grew pliant with need.

  Knox’s gaze slid down my body. His eyes turned heavy-lidded and filled with lust. My reaction to his proximity wasn’t normal. It created a violent need that stormed within us both. There was normal lust, and then there was the raw, intense lust that drove us, pledging violent sex, bone-jarring, leg shaking, unending pleasure that his eyes promised me. He didn’t need me to speak because he knew my answer without asking the question.

  Knox was primal, and everything within him matched perfectly, and I matched him. My gaze held his, screaming for him to end the chase, begging him to slam me against the wall, part my legs, and make me cry his fucking name. His lips curled into a grin as he inhaled deeply, watching me through hooded, seductive eyes. I shivered with the need my expression begged him to give.

  This man was brutality mixed with virility. He was darkened desires that left no inch untouched when he consumed you. The need that rushed through me was razor-sharp, etched in violence that I needed him to give me. The more hostile Knox got, the hotter I burned with a need for him to take me. I didn’t understand it, nor did I even care to look deeper at what we were.

  There were ordinary people, and then there were us.

  People flirted. They gazed shyly at each other, sparing brief glances and smiles, exploring looks or other shallow things about one another. I’d watched my sisters lure men in a thousand times. The steady flutter of eyelashes, or the cute little smirk that said, ‘Here I am, fuck me.’

  Knox and I didn’t do that. I looked into his gaze, and I saw his bare bones. I felt the carnal need to get on my knees and worship him as he destroyed me. We went to war in bed, visceral need driving us to go deeper. Together, we’re both volatile and destructive. We could ruin worlds by coming undone without walls to protect them from us.

  He stepped forward, and I trembled violently, which didn’t go unnoticed. Knox noticed everything about me. He knew that I arched my spine for him when he got too close. He saw my nipples pebbled against my top, and those fucking lips slid into a knowing grin. He isn’t oblivious to the signals my body exposed. If I were a song, I’d be the one he wanted to replay on repeat.

  Knox didn’t speak, but the purr escaping those sinful lips rumbled through me. It reverberated off my clit, bounced to my nipples, and slid to my womb, awakening it with the promise of fulfillment. His eyes told me he’d enjoy breaking me, and mine said to bring it, daring him to dance with me. Knox’s mouth opened, revealing serrated teeth, causing my jugular to pulse with the need to bare my throat to his beast.

  His nostrils flared, inhaling my scent as his body rippled with power. His chest rose and fell with silent breathing, and yet I knew it wasn’t rage rushing through him. It was need; a need so raw and undiluted that I smiled, unable to stop it from spreading across my lips as my eyes fluttered closed while I drank his scent deep into my lungs. I loved his sme
ll, the dark spices mixed with male, driven by that deadly hint of darkening desire that caused my body to clench with anticipation anytime I caught a whiff.

  “Aria,” he growled huskily, slowly letting his attention slide down my battered body. His eyebrow lifted, telling me he wasn’t happy to find me hurt.

  Those sexy oceanic-depths slipped back to lock with mine as he held his hand out, no doubt expecting me to be struck stupid enough by desire to place mine into his. I smirked, watching as his body rippled with something deadly, reminding me that this man was more beast than human.

  “Knox, you smell… delicious.” I bounced on my feet, needing him to slam his body against mine as he wrote his tag of ownership within me. I didn’t dare take my eyes off of him. The moment I did, he’d have me pinned against the wall, with that glorious cock of his buried in my heat. I’d be screaming his name like a prayer I couldn’t say enough times until we became nothing more than beasts in human clothing.

  It wasn’t need.

  It was a primal demand.

  I wanted him, and he wanted me.

  I was the sickness; he was the cure.

  I was the chaos, and he was the storm.

  Together, we’d destroy each other and enjoy every moment.

  Knox had hurt me, and I’d hurt him. I didn’t care if it was wrong. It wasn’t about anyone else. It was just how we met as beasts on a need so primordial that others wouldn’t understand or even process that we were just… right when others would say it was wrong.

  “Do I?” he asked, narrowing his eyes on me, dropping to my hands where my nails had pushed free. “Why can’t I smell you?”

  “Because you’re not even on the same level as me right now,” I chuckled darkly, canting my head to the side, watching as he stepped forward. I stepped back, slipping through the portal to stand in a meadow filled with glowing flowers.

  “You know that I will catch you eventually,” he growled through a deep rumble, unable to hide the lust entering his tone. “I tire of this game, little girl. When I finally catch you, that look burning in your eyes will become a fire that will leave us both in ashes.”

  “I keep waiting for you to catch me, but you never do. If you tire of the game, you change the game you’re playing. You don’t get mad at the other person for your failures,” I taunted, trying to force him to come through the portal.

  The desire to ride him had me wired. It was as if being this close to Knox made me into something else. I could feel his eyes, their scorching trail of heat as they slid down my body. My skin prickled, acknowledging every inch he surveyed.

  Knox smirked wickedly, watching how I moved like an addict craving a fix, bouncing from foot to foot with pent up energy. Lust created need while his eyes promised me pain, sending excitement burning through my veins. His nostrils flared, trying to figure out what was happening to me as he licked his lips. I purred at the memory of that tongue buried in my body as he purred back, sending vibrations rumbling through me from within, hitting my clit. His tongue skills were something ordinary creatures probably hadn’t mastered or even realized was a thing.

  Knox knew every erogenous part of me with carnal knowledge. He knew he could get violent because I liked it when he did, needing his bruises that came from the way he savaged me. He could bruise my hips, leave handprints on my thighs, and still, I begged him to fuck me harder. I let him wreck me, and I’d wrecked his ass right back, giving him blow for blow in the bedroom until we were both nothing more than empty, exhausted shells gasping for air. His smile was predatory, as if he remembered the same night, the exact fucking moment as we stared at one another.

  “I always catch my prey, Aria. This isn’t a game for me. When I catch you, and I will, you’re going to know why I’m the fucking King.”

  “Is that so?” I whispered, pushing my hands down my dress as his heavy gaze followed their trail. “I’m a needy bitch, so either do it already or stop talking. You seem to always taunt me, and yet you never follow through. You want me, and I want you. The thing is, I’m not willing to sell my soul to the devil to get the things I want from him. Don’t get me wrong, Knox. You’re deliciously wicked in bed, but you’re not the only cock in the Nine Realms. Now, are you? You want me because of what I have and what I can do. The thing is, you have no idea what that really is. You will soon, and when that happens, you’ll probably decide that I’m too dangerous to keep alive.”

  “You’re not dying, Aria. I won’t allow that to happen. You are mine. The other men? They won’t satisfy that need burning in those pretty eyes. They won’t destroy you like I do, nor would they even satisfy that hunger you feel when replaying those memories of our time together through that pretty head of yours. You’re lust, and I’m carnage. You’re a beauty, but that hides that vicarious bitch that’s itching for you to release her.

  “You’re fucked in the head, just like me. You’re bare-bones that unleash the moment you discard those clothes because without them, you shed your humanity and give in to the monster you truly are. You and me? We’re kindred spirits that come together and shed our fucking skin and go to war against one another. It’s glorious, and you fucking know it, don’t you? Just now, you imagined me pinning you against a wall, driving into you until the only name you know is mine. Didn’t you?”

  “I’m imagining someone else doing something similar, yes.” I teased, but he knew the truth. His eyes smiled, calling me out on the lie as I caught his scent. Fighting to remain in control, I shivered with the need to throw him down and make new memories with that thick cock of his.

  He knew that only he could fix the ache that throbbed through me. He let me lie to myself, knowing that only he could take me to bed and show me both heaven and hell, making me choose hell because we were both sinners, and we would end up there together. Somehow, that thought didn’t bother me. I didn’t care, so long as Knox was there with that glorious cock for me to ride straight past the gates and on through eternity.

  “I marked you, and no one else would dare touch you. So, when you go into heat, and you will go into heat, you’ll come to me. I’m sure you’ll try to fight it, but you’re too fucking young to do that yet.” Knox stopped in front of the portal, inhaling deeply as a sinful smile played on his lips. “How hard are you already fighting it, Aria?” His head canted to the side as his eyes slid to obsidian. “I’m going to mark you again so fucking hard that you never want to leave me.”

  I swallowed, and his scent caused my mouth to open, releasing a moan of need before I slammed the portal closed. The sound of his laughter sliding through the portal as the fabric of the world closed was unnerving. I dropped to my knees, exhaling and inhaling slowly to get control of my body. Knox was dangerous because even though I knew I shouldn’t want him, I did. My basic genetic makeup didn’t have emotions. It didn’t get angry. It was like my creature—basic needs driven by a monster that never grew tired or sated from hunger.

  This wasn’t what I expected.

  It wasn’t what I’d planned on happening.

  Knox was mucking everything up, even though technically, me being in heat wasn’t his fault. However, I still blamed him because he was an asshole.

  Dark witches had messed with things that they shouldn’t, calling up dire wolves from Hecate’s tomb and using forbidden dark magic. I never thought I’d enter the Nine Realms and discover that Knox had told the truth, let alone to figure out he’d sprinkled a lot of sugar over the details of what was going on here.

  Whatever was happening, I had to stop it before dark witches slaughtered more innocent people. The only way to do that was to get ahead of Knox and find witches who weren’t playing in the middle of this mess. Someone powerful was leading deadly, evil witches onto a very dark path that they wouldn’t survive. I would make damn sure that happened.

  First, I had to figure out how to shake the alpha male gnawing on my butt cheeks and nipping at my heels. I spun as a shadow moved over my shoulder, staring up into the other male’s eyes that p
ushed my every damn button on purpose.

  “Hello, Puppy,” I muttered, standing up.

  “I’m your escort tonight, pretty girl,” Dimitri stated softly, offering his elbow as I slipped my hand through it, resting my head on his shoulder.

  “Well, then, escort me, handsome.”

  Chapter Four

  Soraya, Deep within the Kingdom of Vãkya in the Palace of Magic

  Standing in the line of witches chosen to serve Ilsa, High Queen of Witches, I swallowed against the need to spew my lunch, or what little I’d held down after watching body after body added to the large, unending human grid we were building at her behest.

  Slowly, my eyes moved to my sister, hearing her eternal scream, calling my name, Soraya, echoing on repeat in her mind. I couldn’t save her from what was coming. I hadn’t been strong enough to prevent this evil bitch standing before us from taking my sister, so instead, I joined her coven to save myself, and I’ve done horrid things to reach the notice of the high queen, doing whatever it took to get here.

  Instead of finding my sweet baby sister, I’d found a mindless follower in some kind of stasis serving Ilsa unquestionably. Julia was only a mere twelve moon rotations around the Nine Realms, too young to be this lost within the darkness so soon. Whatever Ilsa was doing, it was sucking the life from the witches at an expedited rate, allowing dark magic to take everything from them too soon. It was pure, undiluted evil that was swallowing the young witches whole.

  Scraping sounded against the marble floor, reminding me where I was and in whose company I stood. Turning toward the sound, I examined Ilsa, positioned beside the large window. Her cruel, blue eyes scanning the endless miles of corpses, creating an enormous, winding power grid that fueled her infinite reign of terror. The hair on my neck rose as Ilsa moved her cold, dead gaze to the witches entering the room.