Page 52 of His Darkest Desire
With its fanged, slavering maw yawning, the barghest lunged. Vex thrust out his magic, creating a pair of sorcerous hands that caught the beast’s jaws and stopped them mere inches from his face.
The beast snarled, shifting its other arm as though to grab at him. Vex jabbed the dagger into the underside of its jaw.
Flesh sizzled and blood boiled as unseelie flesh reacted to the gold. The barghest wrenched its head back, pulling free of the blade and spraying its thick blood onto Vex. He pushed with his magic appendages, forcing the creature back farther still. When the claws tore out of his leg, deepening the gouges, he cried out. His own hot blood ran over his flesh.
The barghest toppled onto its back and thrashed, kicking up leaves and detritus.
Somehow, Vex managed to regain his feet. Though his right leg wailed in protest and fresh blood ran down his shin, he retreated several steps. His pain was only a distant thing, a concept his mind could not fully grasp. How could he perceive the fullness of that pain when his rage left no room for it?
“I am master here,” he grated.
Shaking its head fiercely, the barghest planted its oddly split, clawed hands and feet on the ground and pushed itself onto all fours. It sides heaved with ragged breaths as it swung its gaze toward Vex. Faint smoke wafted from the wound on its jaw. “You are food.”
Vex spread his arms and wings. Illusionary doubles split off him, fanning out to either side, each holding its own phantom dagger but for one, which clutched the real weapon in hand.
Growling, the beast reared back on its hind legs, towering over Vex despite its hunched posture. “The bite of your little blade matters not, goblin, and your blood scent betrays you. I will guzzle the mana from your bones.”
Vex pointed his illusory dagger at the beast. His doubles rushed toward the barghest, attacking. The creature did not react to their insubstantial blows. It stared at him unwaveringly as it stepped forward.
“You came at death’s beckoning,” Vex said through his teeth.
The illusion bearing the true dagger sliced the weapon across the back of the barghest’s leg. The beast snarled in surprise and pain, twisting to rake its claws at the double, but Vex’s magic had already passed the blade to another illusory hand. The weapon leapt from double to double, always faster than the beast could follow. It opened a gash along the beast’s ribs, and another across its gut, then more on its arms, its back, its legs, striking in rapid succession, each time from a different angle, a different image.
Every wound sizzled and smoked, and globs of dark blood splattered the forest floor.
Vex raised a hand as he shaped his magic into a new form—another sorcerous hand, which grew and grew as he poured mana into it. Arcane energy crackled through his limbs, suffusing him with heat that would soon grow unbearable.
The beast roared as it flailed in defense, but there was nothing solid for it to strike, no enemy for it to wound. It finally stumbled and crashed onto the ground. Clawing at the dirt, it dragged itself toward Vex as the dancing dagger shredded its flesh.
The massive arcane hand caught the barghest in a crushing grip, flipped the beast onto its back, and held it in place. The double of Vex clutching the real dagger poised the weapon over the creature’s exposed chest. Black blood burned on the blade, bubbling and hissing.
“In this place, I am death,” Vex declared, “and you will not take her from me.”
The barghest thrashed and roared in pain and hatred. The dagger sped down, plunging deep into the creature’s chest.
That roar ended with a choked grunt. The barghest’s final exhalation released a faint cloud of fog into the air. The beast sagged, limbs falling limp, and darkness overcame its reflective eyes until they were blacker than its skin.
“Are you harmed, magus?” Echo asked, racing down to Vex on a blazing trail of ghostfire.
“You should not have endangered yourself so!” Flared declared, arriving just behind their counterpart.
“Necessity dictated otherwise,” Vex replied.
The illusions dissipated, leaving behind an arcane hand around the grip of the dagger, which tugged the weapon free. The larger hand faded to nothingness.
Tendrils of smoke wafted from the barghest’s many wounds, which emanated orange, emberlike glows. Nowhere was that glow more intense than the wound on its chest. The corpse was burning from within.
Such was the fate of any unseelie creature pierced through the heart by pure gold.
If only death had been so quick for all those who’d perished because of Vex’s failures.
He drew in a deep breath through his nose. If the queen’s curse served as his shackles, the past had been his chains, binding him to this place in misery, sorrow, and regret. He could allow those chains to weigh him down no longer.
There was someone here to protect, the most important someone to have ever entered his life. His mate. And he’d eliminated a threat to her today. He’d succeeded despite his past failures, despite his curse. If he continued to succeed in safeguarding her…
With Kinsley, he would shed those chains, would cast off those shackles. He would be freed from this prison.
When he called his weapon back to him, the barghest’s blood had already burned off the golden blade. Vex’s leg and ribs throbbed with pain as he guided the dagger into its sheath, feeling the heat radiating from the metal even after it was secured.