Claimed by the Primals

Chapter Twenty-Five

I absolutely understand why Menes didn't want me to tell Warrick. I don't blame him for what he did, but he wasn't exactly gentle.

Everything happened really fast, like, in the space of less than a second. The moment my projection touched my real body, I was sucked back into the physical world. Before returning to his own body, Menes cast his own magic between me and Abraham so that when time started again, there was an explosion of air and power that propelled him backwards and off me.

While the shockwave was mostly aimed at Abraham, the laws of physics don't allow one hundred percent of that energy to go in only one direction. Astral projection feels like a kick to the chest. This felt like an entire mountain fell on me. All the air came rushing out of my lungs, and I'm pretty sure a couple of my ribs broke under the force. The back of my head cracked against the ground, and I blacked out for a solid second or two.

It hurt.

My body was so over stimulated by pain that I wasn't even aware of Esraa's hands on my neck checking my pulse until my vision finally cleared. I knew it was Esraa, even though she had shifted into a form similar to Warrick's. Only her head was the boxier, thicker head of a lioness and her fur was the color of sand. My dazed mind wandered back to that time in the hospital when Warrick told me she was a lioness of Sekhmet. A warrior and a creature of nature and healing, not unlike my mother.

A sense of appreciation and genuine affection for the woman washed through me, adding to everything else I was feeling both physically and emotionally. I could see her lips moving, but a high-pitched ringing in my ears and the low cacophony of other noises around us made it impossible to make out what she was saying. I knew I needed to get up and move because we were still in danger... but what was the problem in closing my eyes and just resting for a little bit?

I was about to do just that when I heard a very distinct, very loud yelp of pain. I don't know how I knew, but I knew it was Warrick.

Pain was replaced with white hot rage. I sat up, saw Warrick ten meters away with an enemy towering over him. A sick, twisted smile marred the handsome face of the angel as he slowly withdrew a blade from Warrick's side and raised it over his head to strike again.

Because I'm dumb, emotional, and not capable of much forethought, I threw myself into the fray before anyone could have stopped me. I didn't know what I was going to do, my only thought was that I had to save Warrick. There was so much wild, out-of-control magic pent up inside me that I felt like I could do anything!

I made contact with the angel, knocking him away from Warrick. The second I touched him, before we even hit the ground, he started shrieking in pain. He shoved me off, and I scrambled away to watch him start writhing and clawing at his skin on his arms and face. His whole body was swelling, and bumps of discolored flesh grew from every part of him.

In hindsight, I realize now that it was the raw magic of Khaos that caused that. Khaos exists in a vacuum of never-ending creation, expansion, and transformation. So, it makes sense that my magic does something similar, especially in a situation like that.

Some of the growths burst from the internal pressure, sprouting root-like tendrils from the sores. It was a horrible death, and he screamed the whole time. Even after he died, the effects of the magic continued until what I could only describe as a disgusting, flesh-colored, tree of horrors with a face twisted in mutilated pain stood a proud six feet in the middle of that forest.

I... I don't know what happened to it. I don't want to know, either. I still have nightmares about what I did to that angel. I can't say that I didn't want to kill him, I did, but... I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I didn't mean to do it, I just...