Catch, Curse, Release (Immortal Warriors #1) ✅ Completed

Chapter Twenty-Two: Show of Power

As she swayed faster, moving side to side, her arms raised to her face. She felt that power surround her, enveloping her in a hot embrace. It pulsed and pushed against her, like scalding water only denser, less liquid and more solid. What was that? Lori didn’t know but she pushed back, feeling whatever surrounded her body react to her touch. It tried to take her under but she fought against the current, swaying harder as she sang.

“As I move my feet towards your body, I can hear this beat. It fills my head…”

She felt Des begin to drum faster, harder. She matched his tempo, grabbing at the power that tried to overtake her with the darker power rising inside her body. Instead of fighting, she took it all in, changing it and making it her own along with the rest. It was instinctual; she didn’t know what she was doing only that she knew she did.

“I run to the river and dive straight in. I pray that the water will drown out the din…”

Des’s whisper filled her ear: That’s it, Lori.

"But as the water fills my mouth, it couldn’t wash the echoes out...”

Des’s voice urged her on: Don’t stop. Let it grow.

She tried, singing faster, “I swallow the sound and it swallows me whole ‘til there’s nothing left inside my soul. I’m empty as that beating drum, but the sound has just begun…”

Lori stayed on her feet, but just barely as the tempo built up inside her, cresting, growing until she could barely stand it and had to let it all out in one huge wave. All the candles in the room blew out save the ones by Des illuminating them.

Control it, Lori. It’s all yours. Direct it.

She tried but it was difficult. She didn’t know what she was doing; she was just going on instinct. As Lori opened her eyes she couldn’t see anything except for the glow of dozens of yellow eyes around the hall. Every wolf stood watching her, eyes casting their eerie glow in the darkened hall like their own light.

As one they pounded on the table with cups, plates, forks, clamoring. Some of them started to howl but Des only drummed harder, faster. Lori kept singing in the flicker of the candle flames to the sound of howling wolves and wildly beating drums.

Lori.

She looked across the room hearing Eric’s call. She stared into his eyes as they shone across the hall watching her, not the eerie yellow of the wolves, but a shiny gold like a beacon guiding her home.

And she knew then whatever power she’d released inside the room was searching for someone…no not someone…him: Eric. She focused, pushing all that power towards where he sat gripping the table as he stared at her. It followed her easily now, going where she directed as it found exactly the person it was looking for.

Eric jerked as everything she’d released slammed into him at once, filling him until he felt like there was nothing left of himself except that raw power. She knew because she felt it, felt it in his mind like they were one. She felt the power surge under his skin, lightning and electricity running through his very blood as the power bonded with him on a cellular level. For that brief moment in time Lori understood what it meant to truly be immortal, to have such ferocious power at a molecular level. It was a heady and intoxicating feeling – like falling at maximum velocity through space.

Des pounded harder, she sang the last refrain of the song with every breath in her body until there was nothing left inside. She felt Des slam his fists down on the drums at the end before sweeping his arm behind her and catching her. Together he lowered them in a bow, supporting all her weight. When they straightened, he held her close, using the strength in his arms to help her stand.