“Me to you and you to me.
“Forever enslaved. So let it be.”
Light burst between them, engulfing the space until she was blind. The weight of silence that followed was suffocating.
“Bring the woman.” The warlock’s order sent another shaft of fear lancing through her.
“No!” Ian’s hoarse cry echoed in the chamber, laced with fear. He was still in there, not body snatched.
Marley scrambled back, blinking furiously, willing her eyes to readjust to the dark. “Ian, you have to wake up from this nightmare!”
The door to her cell swung open. Marley gripped her chains, tried to swing them at the dwarf, but there wasn’t enough slack. He backhanded her, slamming her to the ground.
“Susanna!”
She continued to fight even as the dwarf unhooked her chains from the ring in the floor and began to drag her out of the cell.
“Ian, goddamn it, it’s me! It’s Marley. I’m not Susanna, and this is not real!” She was all but weeping as the dwarf hauled her in front of the rack.
“For pity’s sake, shut up,” said the dwarf.
The warlock wrapped a hand around her arm, hauled her up. Marley tried to kick him, found herself still limited by the manacles and chains. His eyes were flat, emotionless as he looked down at her and smiled. The slow, cold curve of lips paralyzed her. “Appropriate that you should be the first offering,” he said and jammed the knife into her gut.
The world suddenly stopped, her focus narrowing in on that single, shocking point of agony. Ian roared.
The warlock jerked the knife free. “There’s some fear and pain for him to feed on, right enough,” he said, and dropped her to the ground before Ian.
~*~
Susanna fell before him in a graceless heap. Colors swirled around her, so thick they all but obscured his view. Somehow the sight of them called to him, to the ache lodged deep in his bones, to the thing now living inside him. A great and terrifying hunger pulsed through him and, twined with it, a power that reached out toward her without his will or consent. Ian didn’t know what it was, what it would do, and he struggled to pull it back. But his panic was no match for the hunger. The power in him wove through the tapestry of color seeking, seeking.
And came up against a wall of stone.
Somehow that was wrong. The inkling of it drifted through his mind before dissipating in the face of a fresh wave of panic as he saw the crimson stain spreading across the front of her dress. The pool of blood beneath her was growing. Too big. Too much.
With a roar, Ian wrenched free of the bindings and dove toward Susanna. A part of him raged, demanding vengeance of the men who’d done this to her, to him. But vengeance could wait. He hit his knees and gently, so gently, turned her over. She wilted back, exposing the wound, and Ian all but felt his heart stop. He’d seen enough war, enough wounds to know she was dying.
Susanna’s hand was freezing. It felt small and fragile in his, as if growing more insubstantial with every throb of the faint pulse in her wrist. Ian gathered her close, pressing a hand over her abdomen to staunch the bleeding.
As soon as he touched her, he felt the snap as something in him latched on. Some kind of energy began to flow into him, at once slaking and stoking the hunger. He was feeding on her. Somehow, the fucking bastards had turned him into a human leech. No, not human. Not anymore.
In his arms, she was shaking. “Ian.” Her voice was thin and weak as vellum.
He had to stop. Whatever he was taking from her, he had to stop.
Ian made to move his hand, but hers shot out, clamped around his wrist with a strength that belied her condition.
“Don’t,” she croaked. “Not afraid. Never afraid. Of you.”
Around them, the vast clouds of purple shifted to something softer, warmer. That was wrong too. The dissonance rang through him. She should be afraid. She was afraid.
“Not Susanna,” she gasped. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. “Not real. Wake up Ian.”
She’d screamed it before, as they’d dragged her from the cell, but he hadn’t really heard or understood. He stared down at her, gripping tight, as if he could hold her to life by sheer force of will. He felt the…flavor of her change, losing the hints of bitterness and ash. Something stronger, brighter came pouring into him. In his arms, she seemed to shrink. The blonde hair went dark. The sweet, soft face narrowed. The eyes staring up at him with fierce determination shifted to violet.
Confusion twisted his brain, obliterated by dawning horror.
“Marley.”