Page 31 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
‘You’re wearing a mortal body,’ he replied calmly, unperturbed.
Eris laughed softly. ‘True. But I still wield godlike power,Hagan. Would you like to see?’
Before he could answer, she pressed her hands over his face.
In an instant, the world tore away. Hagan was wrenched from his body and flung into another realm. What it was, he could not say. He only knew he was no longer bound to flesh, no longer standing upon mortal ground, but drifting somewhere far beyond it.
He lay upon a bed fashioned from skulls, and beyond it stretched a vast emptiness where war raged without end. Eris stood before him in her true form, terrifying and exquisite in equal measure. She was no longer wholly mortal; her body was shaped from chaos and fury, a living nightmare given form.
Hands—dozens of them—seized him, dragging him down against the cold curve of bone. They roamed him, clawed at him, whispered curses and promises alike, until he felt himself ignite beneath their touch. And then Eris climbed over him, this creature born of darkness and wrath, of ruin and desire.
Her mouth opened wide, and it felt as though she was drawing something from deep within him. His soul, perhaps, though Hagan was not entirely convinced he had ever possessed one. Whatever she took, it sent the world reeling, stripped reality bare, until everything became impossibly sharp, impossibly clear, and devastatingly beautiful.
She positioned herself above him, her hand closing around his already hard and aching cock. The countless hands tightened their hold, tugging at his skin, sinking into his flesh as though intent on tearing him apart. But Hagan welcomed it. He revelled in the way this nightmare realm sought to unmake him piece by piece.
Nothing here could destroy him.
He had been broken long before this.
He was alreadyruined.
The instant Eris drew him into her, Hagan screamed. He screamed as the pleasure surged, white-hot and overwhelming, as her mouth widened further, as though she were dragging something vital from him, drawing it ever deeper into herself. She moved above him, faster and faster, and within moments he shattered inside her.
Eris only laughed.
She did not stop. She continued, relentless, even when his body failed him, even when his strength ebbed. The hands tightened their grip, some plunging into him, anchoring him in place, tearing and holding all at once. And still she fed from him, still she rode him, still she took.
His body betrayed him again, hardening once more, and she drove him to the brink a second time, forcing another release from him.
It did not end.
What had begun as ecstasy curdled into torment.
It did not end.
He stared up into eyes as black as oblivion. Eyes that reflected no soul, no self, nothing at all.
It did not end.
Her face was the stuff of nightmares; shifting, warping, never fixed. It changed again and again, sometimes settling into faces he recognised. At times it was Alina above him. At others, Ash. On certain occasions, against his will, his sister Vera stared down at him. It was always Eris’ body, but the face was a cruelty all its own.
He begged her to stop.
She did not.
She forced him through every grotesque illusion, compelled him to endure each borrowed form, again and again. Hours passed, perhaps days. Time dissolved into suffering.
The hands that belonged to nothing and no one continued their work, roaming him, slicing into him, prising him open until there was nothing left to resist.
Hagan screamed into the void, pleading for mercy that never came.
And then, suddenly, it was over.
The nightmare collapsed, and he fell back into his own bed, body trembling with exhaustion yet strangely unharmed. Eris stood at the foot of the bed, laughing. She slipped her dress back over herself, her face alight with exhilaration, and without a word, she turned and walked away.
For a moment, Hagan wondered if it had all been imagined. But his body was slick with sweat, his breath ragged, his heart still racing. Either way, one truth settled heavily upon him as he lay there, staring into the dark.
Eris was farmore dangerous than he had ever understood.
