Chapter 16- The Hunter in The Veil

POV – Me. The Demon. Whatever's left of me.

The air burned like ash and glass, cutting through my lungs like regret.

I stalked barefoot across the black plains of the in between, this cursed realm between worlds, every step silent, but the screams followed me anyway. The souls of the dead clawed at the void beneath my feet, howling for mercy they'd never get.

I didn't hear them. Not really.

I only heard her.

That damn voice.

Soft. Warm. Hopeful.

"Find me."

It wasn't a sound. It wasn't even a fucking whisper. It was a goddamn vibration in my bones, a sacred drumbeat pounding through every inch of me.

And I hated it.

I slammed my fists into the nearest pillar of bone and shadow until it shattered into screaming shards. "I DON'T WANT THIS!" I bellowed into the nothing. "I don't want her! I don't want to feel! I am not yours!"

But the Entity didn't give a shit what I wanted.

Its shadows twisted inside me, silent and smug, wrapping tighter around my soul like barbed wire. They didn't need words. I knew what they wanted. Knew what they were.

Hunt.

Track.

Break.

Obey.

I used to kill things like them. Hellspawn. Void cursed. Demons without names. I was born for it, bred to burn the darkness.

And now?

Now I was it.

Corrupted. Claimed. Poisoned.

The first time it happened, I was cocky as hell. Blood Eclipse, mid hunt, ripping a demon's throat out with holy fire. Something flickered. Just for a second. A breath of cold. A whisper on the back of my tongue. I laughed it off like an idiot.

But it didn't leave.

It waited.

And now it's grown. Now it moves inside me.

A second heart. Black, cold, fucking starving.

And every time her scent hits the wind, moonlight and stormfire, I lose another goddamn piece of myself. Rage claws up my throat. The shadows roar inside me.

"Find her. Break her." they hiss.

Fuck. Fuck. FUCK!!

I crossed the Veil with fire in my bones and murder in my blood. Didn't stop to admire the skies of Andopeer or the wind touched fields. Just left burned craters where my footsteps landed. I was hunting. Driven by the leash wrapped tight around my soul.

But I still fought it. Every step. Every breath. Every heartbeat that wasn't mine anymore.

Somewhere inside this hollow husk, the man still existed. Cracked. Shattered. Curled up in the corner of his own damn mind, screaming.

Not dead.

Not yet.

I saw her in flashes.

A laugh. A whisper. Those fucking eyes. Fire and moonlight and fury. I didn't know her name. But I knew her.

And the part of me that remembered what love might've felt like?

It burned. Bad.

And the Entity? It fucking hated that.

"Take her," it whispered in my dreams. "Breed her. Break her. Turn her into yours."

I tore through three villages in a blur of blood and screaming steel, always thinking I was close, just around the corner from her scent...only to feel it vanish like smoke in my hands.

I didn't realize I was being redirected. Manipulated. Nudged around her like a rabid hound on a short leash.

The Entity wanted me to kill her.

But something else… something older... kept nudging me the other way. I didn't know what it was. I just knew I didn't reach her.

Couldn't reach her.

That night, I collapsed in a crater of my own making. Shadow beast corpses surrounded me. I didn't remember killing them.

Didn't care.

I was shaking. Bleeding. My demon form danced just under the surface, burning me alive from the inside out. Horns. Smoke. Bone. Rage.

And then her voice again. Soft. Sweet. Stars in my fucking veins.

"Find me."

I slammed my head back and howled, the shift ripping through me. Wings tore from my back. Black mist erupted from my pores.

But deep in my core, that flicker of soul still burned.

Still fighting.

Still me.

"No…" I growled through cracked lips. "Not like this. Not yet."

And for a moment, just one tiny fucking moment, I resisted.

The Entity screamed. A howl of frustration that tore through my chest like fire. Shadow tendrils lashed out from across the void to reclaim me.

"I'll break him," it hissed. "Chain him. Twist him into my perfect weapon."

The shadows slammed into me.

I fought.

Gods, I fought.

But I was weak. Broken. And I lost consciousness as the darkness dragged me down, swallowed me whole.

Somewhere far away, under moonlight, I felt her heart break.

It cracked inside me like a mirror.

I felt her sorrow. Her tears. Her knowing.

She felt me.

And I was near.

But not me anymore.

Far away, Rhiannan opened her tear filled eyes. She felt him. She knew. She felt his pain. She fell back into sleep sobbing.