Ascension - Book Eight - Man x Man

Chapter 4

Yule is not serpent-like in his demeanor, he's much more like a wraith in that he looms on the edge of what a normal soul could tolerate. It was a novelty for him to be close to me as well, for the group around us was slowly starting to dissipate without their own knowledge. "I believe you are much closer than anyone has ever been. You see me, don't you?" 

"Of course I see you." I scoff.

A grin pulls onto his lips. "That's because I laced your drink with an enhancer. It hurts me, Your Majesty, just as it does all of us, that you are without your abilities." My teasing hedges, I carefully inhale but the drink smells like nothing other than champagne. "You ordered an adult drink, I gave you one. A cocktail of a miracle drug that will give you just a little taste of what you were missing in this useless body."

"You drugged me?" I repeat, letting the surprise come through. 

He nods, with a casual shrug. "We run a business, a business that your husband would very much like to stop. I'm not really afraid of him, he can't smell us, but you..." He raises a carefully arched brow. "Can. We aren't the bad guys, we are evening the playing field with magic that was wrongfully harvested by Master. We are simply returning it to our people."

"At a price." I spit. 

Yule smiles, for a moment his teeth are gnarly black fangs, then return to stark white. "Everything is for a price, you know that. All I'm asking is if you want to be normal again, you keep him off our tail. If not..." He sighs, dusting his sleeve half-heartedly. "Well, I've heard withdrawals are a real bitch."

My mind flashes back to Verando's words when he spoke of the gods and why they chose me for Darius, because they knew that I would say yes. Here I was, in my heart of hearts, thinking of saying yes again because I so desperately wanted that piece of myself back. With each beat of my heart, I could feel the fingers reaching out with so much familiarity that I would have given anything to never let it go. 

"Feels good, doesn't it?" The black eyes watch me so intently. Using had always felt much like drug addiction; a deep goodness that seeped through one's bones and fibers in a delicious vibration. 

My glass freezes in my hand and for a moment, my breath chills in the air. I drop the glass only to grip the frozen liquid with a clutch of my hand and carefully setting it down on the floor. It was as if it had never gone, it was as easy as breathing, I was the master of my own world once more. A break from the relentless heat, it felt so good to feel cold. "It does," I admit, wanting to sell it but unable to stop myself from the honesty. 

"You would never have to give it up." He wets his lips, hungry for the sale. 

I would. Verando would never approve, I wouldn't approve if I was in my right mind. Swallowing back the realization that this was temporary, I turn my gaze to him once more, "What are the side-effects."

"Their man-made. The enhancement only gives you back what you lost, the withdrawal comes from the grief of losing it all over again. I'm curious to see just how strongly that hits you, you are quite the powerful little thing. A deadly mixture, Solomonari and that hint of dark magic." His mouth practically waters and I see my opening as I slink closer to him. I feel myself entering the mirage, I feel the dark magic pouring off of him like heavy waves of radiation. 

Wraiths were strange creatures, never forced into a human form, they fed off of energy and souls. They fed off of dark magic, my remaining strands of darkness must be driving him wild. "How long has it been since you fed on dark magic?" I ask, catching my lip in my teeth as trail my fingers over the opening of his suit. "Not a drop of it left on this godforsaken place, is there? Save for each other..."