Primal Heat 04 - Forever in Darkness by authors_sort Page B

mate.
    He had no damn idea how she'd come
back to him after she’d died, but she had. And he'd failed her twice.
    Ian bellowed his rage as he
accepted the responsibility for her death. For his inability to do right by
her. His one job as a male was to protect the woman chosen for him as his mate,
and he'd let her die.
    The agony hit him hard, dropping
him to his knees. He dug his fingers into the fresh dirt marking her grave and
howled his anguish, like a beast consumed by instincts too powerful to rationalize.
    His forearms burning, Ian looked down
at the brands on his arms. One on each forearm, black brands in the shape of
the flanged mace that was his weapon. What good were they? Useless pieces of
shit.
    His self-loathing surged, and he
called out his weapons. There was a flash of black light above his forearms, a
loud crack split the night, and then his weapons appeared in his hands. Ian
clenched them, and lurched to his feet.
    "I am not worthy," he shouted
as he raised the weapons.
    It ended now. There was only one thing
a man like him deserved.
    Death.
    His upper lip curved in disgust, he
reared back to plunge his weapon into his heart and—
    He saw a flash of blue across his
palm, and he froze, the word carved there leaping into his mind. He went still
as his ancestor's voice echoed through his mind. Honor.
    Honor his legacy.
    Honor his ancestors.
    Honor his mission.
    Honor. The word he had lived
by for six hundred years.
    Ian suddenly became aware of the
magnitude of the darkness trying to take him, and he stumbled backwards, shocked
by how deeply the curse had its claws thrust into him. "You don't get to take
me," he shouted at the night, even as his soul bled onto the grave beneath
his feet.
    With a roar of fury, Ian hurled his
weapons at a nearby tree. They thudded into the trunk, nearly splitting the tree
in half. Ian sank to the earth, the damp ground seeping through his jeans, a grim
reminder of the grave he was kneeling on. Anguish tore through him, so
powerful, so devastating, he screamed from the force of it.
    No. He would not succumb. He.
Would. Not.
    Ian dug his hands into the dirt and
dropped his head, his muscles rigid as he fought the urge to retrieve his
weapons and use them to destroy himself.
    Sweat streamed down his temples, and
a vast chasm of despair beat at him, commanding his capitulation. Words thundered
relentlessly through his mind, that grating, mesmerizing voice that had haunted
his family for generations, the one that had destroyed every male before him. Failure.
Unworthy. Loss. Isolation. Loneliness.
    “Fuck you,” Ian gritted out, his
body shaking with the intensity of resisting the urge to call his weapons back
and use them to finally wipe out the Fitzgerald line forever. “I’m going to
uphold my family’s honor, and you’re the one who’s going to die,” he spat out.
    Ian opened his palm and stared at
the word he’d carved on his skin as he’d watched his ancestor die, a reminder
of the vow he’d made on that day to resist the curse that had destroyed
Augustus and doomed every male in his family. Honor.
    Die. The voice reverberated
in his mind. You cannot survive without her. You owe her your death.
    Ian gritted his teeth, the brands
on his arms burning with the need to call his weapons back to his hands. He
watched the blades quiver in the tree trunk, working their way free, responding
to his instinctive call. “No,” he swore. “I will not succumb.”
    He bowed his head, fighting against
the agony coursing through him. Beneath his hands was the damp earth, freshly
turned from the grave Ian had dug to bury the woman who had plunged deep into
his soul and ripped past the shields he'd fortified so religiously for six
hundred years. Dead. She was dead. She was dead. As he should be as
well.
    Slowly, unable to resist the need
to call his weapons back, he raised his head, watching his weapons,
instinctively knowing how long he had until they would vanish. Calydon