As Jasper walked toward the door, his steps faltered, and he stumbled against the frame. A thick, viscous substance spat from his lips, not the familiar crimson of his human disguise, but the oily, light-sucking black blood of his true demon form. This could mean only one truth: his magic, the power meant to protect Daniela, had been attacked, enough to cause a vicious backlash in his own body.
His eyes, now burning with a desperate urgency, snapped back to the door. He yanked it open, the wood scraping against the floorboards.
Daniela was a sight of devastating carnage. Her body was impossibly limp, yet coiled in a terrifying tension, her nails dug so deep into her own palms that her hands were slick with her blood. Her skin, everywhere, was filmed with a disturbing layer of gore. As she squeezed her eyes shut, a thin, wicked-looking power—neon green and needle-sharp— erupted from her core. It pierced her skin like a thousand glass splinters, leaving tiny, immediate wounds that blossomed into fresh arterial sprays.
Before the feral magic could lash out further, Jasper's own magical barrier instantly snapped into place, a thick, dark wall intercepting the escaping green energy. Jasper's gaze was fixed on the raw spectacle. He watched with a detached, almost scientific fascination—this was the first time he had seen her magic erupt in such a dangerous, uncontrolled way. The opposing forces collided with a bone-jarring impact that threw a powerful backlash through Jasper's own system, making him grunt in pain. Ignoring the agonizing jolt, he lunged forward, sweeping her ruined body up into his arms. He kicked the door closed behind them with a vicious crack before gently depositing her onto his expansive bed.
Without hesitation, Jasper conjured his most potent defense. Black, oily smoke billowed not just from his hands, but from his shoulder blades, coalescing into the nascent shape of his demon wings. He hovered over her. Daniela's fingers twitched, desperately trying to touch the bleeding wounds erupting all over her skin, instinctively trying to claw at the pain. Jasper's large hands shot out, gripping her wrists and pinning them at her sides, ensuring she couldn't inflict further damage upon herself. The dark, coalescing smoke expanded rapidly, forming a massive, pulsating dome of solid shadow and raw power that encased them both.
"Something's wrong with me!" she bit out, her voice a ragged tear through gritted teeth. Her eyes snapped open, but they were not her own; they were a dull, milky-white, hazy and vacant.
Jasper leaned in, his nostrils flaring. He took a sharp, guttural sniff of her skin, and his hands clenched tighter on her wrists. The sickeningly sweet, cold-fire scent of Miguel clung to her like a shroud. The wendigo's presence was the answer, a sickening, undeniable proof of what had befallen her.
His tongue darted out, a visceral, predatory action, and he licked a stripe of her blood-filmed skin. Everywhere his saliva touched, a thick, white, gritty residue was instantly left behind. His demon saliva exposed the invisible traces of Miguel's influence, making the undeniable bone dust of the wendigo's magic suddenly visible to both their eyes.
With a sound of pure disgust, Jasper spat the taste of Miguel's foul power onto the ground. His gaze became murderous, the intensity of his loathing chilling the massive room. The air itself grew thick and brittle with his brewing, volcanic discontent.
Two jagged, obsidian horns ripped through the skin of Jasper's forehead, tearing from his skull and jutting out like weapons as he stared down at the woman he claimed. "What did you do?" His voice was a cold, venomous whisper, an inhuman rasp that made Daniela's blood-soaked body flinch in a deep, instinctual fear, even in her delirious state.
"Miguel! Miguel did this to me. I don't understand! Make it stop!" she begged, her voice climbing to a fever pitch. A sickening, violent sensation yanked deep within her core, a magical convulsion trying to rip free her deepest, most hidden desires and project them onto the world.
Jasper released her wrist to grip her chin, his large palm forcing her cloudy eyes to meet the swirling chaos of his own. His anger was a palpable, throbbing entity coursing through his very veins. "That filthy wendigo's magic works best on someone with affection toward him. The deeper the affection, the tighter the hold!" A cold, sharp doubt twisted in his gut. He silently questioned, When? How could she have been enamored enough by Miguel to allow such a strong hold? Had they been meeting in secret, right under his nose? The whites of his eyes had completely disappeared, swallowed by the abyssal blackness of his demon irises, swirling dark pits of danger on the precipice of a chaotic, catastrophic spiral.
"I didn't ! -I thought he was harmless! Fuck! Please. I- I lowered my defenses!" Daniela screamed, the denial not just about Miguel, but a desperate, wounded cry about Jasper himself. She had put away her defenses, only to be cut down by the one she thought safe.
A potent wave of virulent green magic pulsed out from her chest, a silent, crushing force. Blood instantly bloomed all over her skin as the uncontrolled power battered Jasper's dark barrier. The dome shuddered, but Jasper's counter-magic surged, pushing hers back with a brutal force. His power was outmatching her own, even with the impossible, raw gift of a God churning in her chest.
"Did you let him touch your?" Only now did Jasper's eyes register the state of her gown. The laces were completely undone, her dress hanging open, revealing the bloodied skin beneath. If that bastard touched a single inch of her skin, Jasper swore he would soon have every wendigo's head mounted on his kingdom walls.
"Stop- questioning!" she gasped, her frustration boiling over as she fought to contain the agonizing, growing need welling inside her. "Help me!" she cried. Fat, desperate tears tracked paths through the blood and grime on her cheeks, lost in her hair. Every time her feral magic pulsed out, it ripped and tore through her flesh without mercy.
"This will hurt! Don't black out!," he hissed, the threat laced with dark promise.
With the suffocating dome firmly in place, Jasper condensed a staggering amount of his pure, dark magic in his palm, molding it until it was a tight, fist-sized ball of coalesced shadow. He slammed that palm down over her mouth, muffling her immediate cry. His other hand covered the side of her body, and he flooded her with his own raw energy.
Daniela's body became a shadow of itself, a figure temporarily rendered in dark, oily mist and smoke. His magic coursed through her, trying to contain her corrupted core. The black, smoky power tried to escape through the gaping wounds on her ribs, but the magical barrier he'd built around her skin held it all firmly locked inside.
"If you betrayed me—" he let the words hang in the air like a noose tightening around her neck, his eyes merciless as he stared down at her agony.
Daniela screamed a silent, internal shriek! Her body felt as though it would shatter at any moment, the intense internal pressure pushing down on her bones, just a moment away from breaking her. A searing, white-hot burning sensation traveled throughout her entire system, as if a rival entity was trying to take over her very existence. The milky haze in her eyes suddenly cleared, and she could see Jasper's furious, terrifying face hovering above her. His dark, glaring eyes were the last thing she saw before her mouth opened on a silent scream. She no longer had enough air to push the sound out.
"I will slaughter every wendigo. You will spend an eternity in the dark realm if you have betrayed me," he pronounced. His words were an immutable truth that even caught him off guard. Jasper had not expected to be this possessive over Daniela, but the thought of another creature touching her made his skin crawl and his teeth ache. They were not monogamous in the traditional sense, but he would never tolerate anyone touching what he already deemed his property.
Daniela couldn't speak, her throat swelling, feeling as if air was being pressed outward against the columns of her esophagus. She felt the urge to vomit while simultaneously feeling suffocated, every breath a desperate, agonizing gasp. Even through the unbelievable pain, she heard his deadly promise, saw his dark, merciless eyes boring down into her green orbs—a clash she lacked the strength to reply to.
For what felt like hours, they stayed in that position. Jasper, his own body growing pallid with the exertion, held her down. The fury in his eyes never diminished as he hovered above her. At some point, a tiny wisp of her magic escaped her mouth. What she could not see was Jasper silently and brutally destroying it the moment it breached the surface of the dome.
A flicker of curiosity, a cold intellectual detachment, crossed his mind. Jasper needed to know what Daniela truly desired at her core. Without a second thought, he allowed the small bead of her condensed will that had left her body to breach the dome and escape, free to wreak its havoc upon the world.
After hours of physically and magically suppressing Daniela's power, her ravaged body finally gave in. The moment he felt the profound release, he swiftly yanked his power from her. Dark, oozing shadows streamed from her mouth and nostrils as she choked on their weight, her throat spasmodically.
The instant all of his power had evacuated her body, Daniela hurled viciously. The veins in her throat bulged as she hacked incessantly, a geyser of thick, black blood mixed with crimson leaving her mouth with brute force. Her fingers gripped the pale white rug, now slick with the horrific, sickening mixture of blood.
Jasper lifted Daniela's ravaged body. A clean cloth was already materialized in his hand, and he methodically wiped the black and red filth from her mouth. Like a routine, he stripped off her ruined clothes, but this time, he was sure to wipe down every inch of her skin, even cleaning the tangles from her hair before resting her on the clean sheets.
An intense, hateful stare was fixed on Jasper's face as Daniela watched him methodically clean her body. No amount of tender action would lessen the ferocity of the betrayal she felt. She had so much to say, but it felt as if her vocal cords had been scorched with acid. Every time she thought about moving, her vision would flicker with a dizzying haze, a harsh warning that she did not have the strength.
Daniela wanted to protest, to scream for him to stop touching her, to slap his hands away. No amount of agony she'd endured would make her forget what he had done to her earlier; more pain didn't somehow balance the ledger. But she was tired, impossibly exhausted, and her eyes drifted closed. She fell into the deepest, most necessary sleep.
Jasper had used his core magic earlier to simply stop the bleeding from the deep wounds surrounding her ribs. But now that she was unconscious, he easily tended to the marred flesh. His magic acted as a powerful, secondary skin, a sterile magical barrier that would allow her body to heal without the risk of infection. Her skin looked unblemished wherever his magic touched her, expertly hiding the damage beneath. Once they were away from this immediate danger, he would get a true healer to remove all of her scars.
Once he was sure she wouldn't wake up, Jasper pushed open the balcony doors, the cold air rushing in. He walked to the edge and took to the skies. He was morbidly curious to see what her unleashed power would do, how it would react to true freedom. His massive, dark wings unfurled with a sound like tearing silk as he followed the trace of her wicked-green, escaped magic into the night.
Author's note:
Can't believe we made it to chapter 50. But here we are! Hope you enjoy the read?