Free Web NovelChapter 80: Touch Her One More Time
Violet’s POV
The weight of Zain’s body against mine was terrifyingly heavy. The heat radiating from his skin only moments ago had turned into a violent, unnatural fever, his muscles convulsing in a jagged, rhythmic pattern that I could feel directly through my own skin. ƒreewebηoveℓ.com
Beneath my palms, his dark, thick blood kept seeping around the shaft of the silver bolt, hot and steaming against the damp forest air. But it was the black veins, the toxic, crawling web of the concentrated eclipse-root that made my stomach violently heave. It was traveling up his neck, mapping out the contours of his jaw, fighting to reach his brain and shut down the god inside him.
"Stand up, Violet," April repeated.
The sound of her boots stepping closer was slow, measured, and entirely unbothered by the agonizing groans of the Demon Alpha dying at her feet. She was a Hawthorne commander executing a routine harvest. Nothing more.
"I said no," I choked out, my voice raw, though I didn’t look up at her. I couldn’t take my eyes off Zain. His lips were parted, a dark, frothy crimson staining his teeth as his golden gaze was completely drowned in a void of pitch black. He was looking at me, but I didn’t know if he could actually see me anymore.
I am here, I screamed down the mate bond, pouring every ounce of my will across the newly opened tether. Zain, please. Fight it. Don’t leave us.
A faint, pathetic spasm rippled through his fingers, trying to curl into the fabric of my trousers.
"You’re making a mockery of yourself," April said, stopping a mere three feet away. The shadow of her cloak fell over us, blotting out what little gray light filtered through the canopy. "You were sent to bring back a trophy, Violet. Not to become its shield. Look at you. You’re covered in its filth, weeping over a beast that would have eaten you alive if it hadn’t found a more amusing way to use you."
"He didn’t use me!" I snapped, finally lifting my head, my jaw tight as a tear cut a clean path through the dirt on my face. "You don’t know anything about him. You don’t know anything about what’s happening out here. You’re just doing what Father wants because you’re too terrified to ever have a thought of your own!"
April’s expression didn’t change, but the fingers holding the cross-stock of her weapon tightened. "I did my duty. I built a life. I secured our legacy. You ran into the woods to play hero, and instead, you let a monster ruin you. Father knows what you’re carrying, Violet."
The world went entirely still. The air in my lungs froze.
"He knows," April continued, her voice dropping to a chillingly casual register. "Our scouts tracked your symptoms weeks ago. A hunter’s daughter breeding with the first wolf’s blood? Father called it a parasite. He gave me strict orders. The beast dies, the abomination is purged, and you come home in chains to spend the rest of your days begging the family for forgiveness."
"Purged," I whispered, the word striking my chest like a physical blow.
My hand pressed harder against my stomach, my fingers digging into my clothes. They weren’t just here to kill Zain. They were here to kill my baby. The child that Zain had promised to drain his own veins dry to protect. freёwebnoѵel.com
"Step away from it," April commanded, raising the reloaded crossbow, aiming the glowing violet tip directly at the back of Zain’s neck. "This is your last warning, sister. Move, or I will put an arrow through your shoulder and drag you back by your hair."
The three elite hunters behind her shifted their weight, their silver swords catching the dull light. They were waiting for my move, ready to pin me the second I faltered.
I looked down at Zain one last time. His breathing was slowing down, the black lines on his throat pulsing aggressively. The mate bond was screaming, a high-pitched, deafening frequency of pure agony that threatened to split my skull open.
I chose you, I thought, a strange, deadly calm suddenly washing over me. Not war. But I will wage it to keep you breathing.
"You will kill my child, just because you want the Hawthorne legacy, April?" I whispered, my voice no longer shaking.
I slowly stood up, letting go of Zain’s trembling frame. I stepped directly into the path of her weapon, my chest inches from the silver bolt.
April’s eyes narrowed, a flicker of hesitation finally crossing her perfect features. "Violet—"
"You said I could barely lift my own bow," I said, a dark, bitter smile touching my lips as I remembered my mother’s words from that suffocating dinner table. "You all thought I was the weak one because I wouldn’t play your games."
With a sudden, explosive burst of movement, I didn’t reach for a weapon—I reached for April’s crossbow.
My hands slammed into the stock, twisting it violently downward just as her finger instinctively pulled the trigger. The heavy thwack echoed through the clearing as the bolt fired straight into the dirt, burying its toxic tip into the mud.
"What are you doing?!" April roared, her composure finally breaking into pure rage.
Before she could pull back to strike me with the butt of the weapon, I threw my weight forward, driving my forehead straight into her nose. A satisfying crunch echoed out, and April stumbled back with a shriek, blood instantly spurting from her nostrils.
"Kill her!" April screamed, clutching her face. "Don’t worry about bringing her back whole, I’m sure Father wouldn’t mind, just kill her!"
The three large hunters lunged.
The first man swung his silver blade in a horizontal arc meant to take my legs out. I vaulted over the low sweep, my boots planting firmly onto his shoulders as I came down, using his own momentum to drive him face-first into a sharp outcrop of stone.
But as I spun to face the remaining two, a sudden, blinding pain exploded in my abdomen.
I gasped, dropping to my knees as the white-hot iron from earlier returned with a vengeance. My vision blurred, black spots dancing at the edges of my sight. The herbs were completely gone, and the child inside me—sensing the extreme mortal danger, sensing its father’s fading pulse—was lashing out again, tearing at my insides to find a source of power.
"She’s weak!" one of the hunters shouted, raising his heavy sword for a downward strike. "Finish it!"
I braced for the impact, my hands covering my stomach, my eyes closing as I prepared for the cold bite of steel.
Instead, a deafening, monstrous roar shook the entire forest, so loud that the vibration knocked the attacking hunter off balance.
It didn’t come from Zain.
I forced my eyes open, looking over my shoulder through the haze of pain.
Zain was still on his knees, but the black veins across his body were suddenly smoking, burning away into ash as a torrent of pure, animal energy began to bleed from his chest wound. His eyes weren’t black anymore, and they weren’t gold.
They were burning, blood-red fires.
The demon lineage hadn’t just woken up to protect him—it had responded to my scream.
"Touch her again," Zain whispered, his voice sounding like a chorus of a thousand dead warriors echoing through the trees, "and I will turn your souls into ash."
