Follow the Screams (The Executioner Trilogy Book 2)

by Kindra Sowder

  The struggle to survive in this place finally took its toll on me in that moment as he looked down at me with nothing but love in his eyes. The love of my life was here with me, and I didn’t have to fight alone anymore. I believed I had lost him forever when Lilith took him from me, but I was wrong. Here he was, looking down at me with understanding eyes. I felt the muscles in his body relax and he leaned down to kiss me and stopped, like he was asking permission. I quickly closed the gap between up and he let my arms go so I could wrap them around him.

  The kiss was so passionate that it left me breathless and I felt the beast inside of me calmly purring away in contentment. When I pulled away and looked into his eyes I realized he was crying as well. His dark eyes were sparkling with joy and tears.

  He caressed my cheek and pushed the hair out of my face. I was sure his heart felt the same way as mine. He has spots of soot on his face that I wanted so badly to wash away, but the dirt didn’t mar his perfection. He was still beautiful. As he looked down at me, wonder in his face, I felt a little bit closer to home.

  Chapter 8: Survival

  We sat silently by the fire and looked at each other. I hadn’t yet cauterized my wound and I was still bleeding pretty heavily, but I didn’t care. All I could do was stare at him. I heard a few drops of blood hitting the ashy ground, responding to the life force in my blood and hissing. Gordon turned his gaze to my nearly mutilated collar bone and reached out to assess the damage. I winced as he moved the torn collar of my shirt away and as he got closer I could still smell the sweet scent of him under the soot and smoke.

  I wanted to reach out and touch him the closer he got, but I resisted. I was still in wonder myself as to how he ended up here and survived.

  I had done a number on his arm, but that had already stopped bleeding unlike my collar bone. His gaze was deep and calculating while looking at the wound and I couldn’t help but smile at him past the agonizing pain. He looked up at me and grinned in response. That crooked smile still made me melt.

  He leaned back and said, “It’s not as bad as it looks, but it definitely needs to be cauterized. You’re still bleeding pretty heavily.”

  “I’ve got something on under this if taking it off will help,” I said, pulling at the shirt to emphasize my point. It was blood soaked and caked with ash anyways, and the tank top underneath was drenched in crimson. Somehow the clothes you die in are the ones that you stay in. Not sure how that works but I’ll take that over showing up down here in the buff any day. I began to take the shirt off and winced as I raised my arm to do so. Gordon reached over and the look in his eyes caused me to look away. He began to cut the shirt away with the blade and it was all I could do not to shrink away from it as the cool metal grazed my skin. The pain from my injured collar bone was nearly agonizing as he pulled the sticky remnants of the fabric away from it, causing my teeth to clench and a hiss to escape from between them. He grimaced in response. Once it was removed from my body he tossed it to the side. It wouldn’t be coming along with us.

  I moved the strap down and fidgeted. This was going to hurt. If it didn’t have to be done I wouldn’t do it at all, but I would slowly bleed to death if I let it continue. That’s when Gordon brought an even bigger knife then the one I had stolen out of his boot and my eyes went wide. Compared to mine, it was massive. It winked at me in the firelight and he forced the cool metal into the hot flames. He set it down on the ground, the blade in the fire so it could thoroughly heat. I sighed as I watched the metal slowly turn bright orange. I trusted Gordon, but that blade was menacing enough to make me have second thoughts.

  I looked at him and I had so many questions flooding my mind, and I think he could see it in my eyes. He smiled at me and looked at the blade in the flames. It was ready.

  “How about we take care of this first,” he said as he removed it from the flames and pointed it in the direction of my wound. Granted this wasn’t going to be the most painful thing I’ve had to do, but it would hurt enough. Even dying wasn’t as painful as cleansing yourself after a vampire bite. Nothing was. Every muscle in my body tensed and Gordon took my hand in his, giving it a soothing squeeze. He never took his hand away. “You ready?”

  I nodded and squeezed his hand in return. I was as ready as I could ever be. I braced myself as best as I could for what was coming. I held onto his hand like I was holding on for life itself, and braced my other hand on my knee.

  Gordon quickly pressed the red hot blade into the wound and I couldn’t choke down the scream. I heard the sizzle and the pain was white hot. The smell of iron from my blood and cooking meat made its way into the atmosphere. It permeated my nostrils and almost made me gag. The pain was almost too much but as quickly as it came it was gone. Gordon took the blade away and stuck it back in the fire to sanitize it. The good thing was that the wound stopped bleeding and I was able to move and flex my arm without pain after a few minutes. All I could feel now was a stretching sensation from the wound. Hell fire seems to work better than Earth fire in this case apparently. It almost had an anesthetic property in cases such as this it seemed like.

  I rotated my shoulder and felt the pull of the now scabbed over wound as I did it. It was slightly uncomfortable, but I was okay with that. Better to be uncomfortable than to be in extreme pain, right? I took a quick glance at Gordon as he watched me. His face read like a romance novel. Love and lust wrapped into one. I was surprised he still felt that way towards me after seeing the beast and me being covered in ash, soot and blood. My hair was all matted and I felt absolutely disgusting, but somehow he still found me beautiful. Of course, he didn’t have room to talk. He looked almost the exact same way and he was still the most gorgeous man I had ever seen, and now I couldn’t pull my gaze away from his. His eyes were still so magnetic, if not even more so now. The only differences were the slight stubble on his jaw, the soot smeared on his skin, and the insignificant growth of his dark hair.

  One question was really bugging me though. If he has been staying out in the open like this how had he remained alive down here? Well, as alive as it gets anyways. He saw the question burning behind my eyes and smiled, a small chuckle escaping from between his lips. That was one of the best sounds I had heard in a long time.

  I cleared my throat and adjusted my sitting position. Then I asked the first question that was rolling around in my mind. “How are you still alive?” Now the question was out in the open.

  He sighed, “I’m a demon, technically. Even though I changed how I live nothing changes that. No one messes with me down here because of what I am. Demons normally form packs down here, like vampires on the surface. The only reason they’re coming after you is because of what you are. They usually only go after anyone that makes it out of the river. It’s a miracle you ended up here instead of in that river.”

  All I could do was look at the flames beside me and sigh. The only reason that anything was coming after me it seemed is that I wasn’t in the river where I should’ve been. But I wasn’t damned, was I? I was on a mission to save the world. I shouldn’t be. Right? I wouldn’t think so.

  As I stared into them fear was taking over again, and my heart began to race. The whole time I was here I was thinking I wasn’t meant to be here, but was I wrong? Was I wrong that Lilith cooked this up for me? The reality that I could be meant for Hell was becoming all too real, and I couldn’t handle it. I could see the beginning of the flashing of my heart beat and the beast was beating against my skull once again. I needed to learn how to control this, and fast.

  I took a deep breath that was meant to steady me, but didn’t. I closed my eyes, and took another breath. That didn’t help either. Then Gordon did something I wasn’t expecting. He took my hand in his and kissed the back of it lovingly, cuddling it against his lips. I didn’t want to look at him. I knew my eyes would be the color of liquid fire instead of the grassy green he loved so much. I would look like a monster.

  A silent tear rolled down my cheek. He let go of my hand and moved
as close as he possibly could and wiped it away. This was what I missed. The closeness, the understanding and the love. The love was what I missed most of all. I opened my eyes and looked at him and I was terrified of what I saw in the reflection. My eyes were golden, bright and wide with fear. Terror was written all over my face. Gordon smiled a weak smile and took me into his arms. The fear started to roll away and the beast wasn’t beating against my control and trying to escape. This was how I would get my control. He was how I would gain control over this beast that was fighting so hard against me to be free.

  He began to rock me back and forth. I closed my eyes again and breathed him in. I put my arms around him and pulled him into me and I continued to feel the beast fade away until it was just me again. I could feel the energies of a few straggling creatures, but now that I was calm I was sure they would lose interest completely. The life force I had didn’t mean as much to them without the ebb and flow of my power. I had what I needed now to keep the darkness away, and that was good enough for me.

  As we held each other it seemed like everything was fading away. The darkness, and death, and evil, and the fire were all gone. My beast was a forgotten memory. The evil I have seen was gone. Lilith was even beginning to disappear from my mind.

  After a while we ended up woven together on the ground beside the fire and my eyes kept drifting closed. I was so tired and I was finally calm enough to sleep for a little while. Gordon was here to keep me safe. As I drifted off into a fearless sleep I felt the warmth of the fire to my back and Gordon at the front. His heart was beating in my ear and I knew I was safe.

  Chapter 9: Demon

  My eyes snapped open once I realized I had gotten cold. The only part of me that was warm was my back and the fire was blazing behind me like nothing could stop it. Gordon was nowhere to be seen and panic started to set in. I couldn’t lose him again. Not after I had just found him.

  I squinted in the firelight of the scattered fires around me and saw him in the distance, bent down and digging into the ashen earth. For what, I wasn’t sure. All I knew is the dimness of the near darkness was beginning to hurt my eyes. I looked away from him and rubbed my eyes, trying to get rid of the burning of straining to focus in this light. A low grumble sounded behind the fire and I could feel the strong and hot breath of a creature at my back. I froze for all of a second and knew I needed to get off the ground and away as soon as I could. I could feel my heart begin to race as terror swept through me. This was bigger than anything I had ever seen before based on the energies it produced.

  I sat up slowly and froze when the creature growled again. I was too afraid to turn around and look at it to even see what it was. Its breath was causing my hair to move slightly, and it was hot against my skin. It wasn’t just hot, but more like deep fiery bowels of Hell hot. I began to feel heat build in my chest and my heart began to pound. The beast was very persistent beating against my skull and ribcage once more. Not only was the beast behind me growling, but the one inside of me was as well. My own monster snarled a warning to the creature behind me that if it messed with me, it would meet its demise.

  Fear was a crippling thing and it made me almost not want to move, but movement was necessary to get a better position to end this creature. It was like Gordon had said, all manner of creature down here would be after my life force because I wasn’t in the river. This explained a lot about the events that took place since I got down here, wouldn’t it? I was spending so much time convincing myself I wasn’t meant to be here I had ignored the possibility that I had just ended up in the wrong place. Now, I had a gigantic creature behind me the likes of nothing I had ever seen or felt before. I had to move. I had to run for my life yet again. How much longer would I be doing this?

  I heard Gordon yell in the distance, but I couldn’t tell what he had said. Between the creature’s growls behind me and the beast inside of me begging to be free he was just a figure in the distance shouting and unintelligible. He was waving his arms. It was like he was trying to draw the creature away from me, but it wasn’t working. He began to run towards me and I wanted to yell to him to stop, but no sound would come out. I had to move.

  I got up as quickly as my legs would allow and took off like I was running for Olympic gold. My feet were slipping slightly in the ash but I managed to stay upright. There was so much heat building up in my chest that it was almost crippling. Roars sounded behind me which only made the beast fight my control even more. I had to get Gordon away. He wasn’t going to want to see the beast again. This, I knew.

  “Run!” I yelled, “Run!” He didn’t run in the opposite direction like I wanted him to. He was still coming towards me. I continued to get closer to him and heard the creature close behind me and I let the beast take control. I felt it spread through my veins and roar inside of me as it took over. I wasn’t going to let him die because he refused to listen, so he had to be prepared for what he was about to see. As the light spread through my veins it felt like liquid fire. A hard and almost crushing blow came from my left side, sending me flying. I hit the ground hard and it knocked all of the breath out of my lungs and the ash on the ground made me cough when trying to regain it.

  I rolled over onto my back and the creature was directly over me, only about two inches from my face. I was met with dead black eyes and a beautiful female face. Not something you expect when faced with a monster. Especially when it growled and roared like something much less pretty. Wild black hair framed her face and when she growled once more I could see a nice network of extremely sharp teeth behind her lips. She snarled. It didn’t help that she was completely nude and covered in soot and ash. So much so her hands on either side of me were completely black and she had razor sharp talons at the end of each finger. The wings springing from her back seemed to be made up of twists of the black tree branches from the forest. The energy coming from her made her seem like she was gigantic, but really she was my size.

  She roared and I looked directly into her black eyes with my golden ones. The light fighting the dark. I could see Gordon over her shoulder and he hit her in the back with a blackened branch and it splintered into tiny charcoal pieces, landing on the ground around us. She turned to him, still straddling me, teeth barred. She flexed her fingers and her talons ground against each other. The sound made me cringe. She got off of me and started to make her way towards Gordon, who now had his large blade in his hand and pointed in her direction in a defensive stance. He was ready to strike. As I looked at her back there was a human skull between her shoulder blades and it looked like it had emerged from within her skin. There was a split underneath where you could see it disgustingly joined with her spine and her wings emerged from behind the skull, joining at its base.

  I got to my feet in a flourish and took my blade from my waist band.

  She was quickly closing the gap between her and Gordon, moving one foot in front of the other and flexing her talons at her sides. I noticed how gracefully she moved as I watched her come closer and closer. The heat rising within me was making me sweat and it was dripping off of me, making the blade’s handle slick in my hand. This was going to be difficult if I couldn’t hold onto the knife.

  “Hey,” I yelled out. My voice had that gravely edge to it again as the beast was continuing to take over. The creature stopped and turned slightly to look at me, lifting one corner of her mouth in a snarl that twisted that gorgeous face. “You want me, not him.”

  She turned back to me, eyes taking inventory of the glow underneath my skin and in my eyes. She knew I had the power and the life she was craving, and the change in her expression confirmed it. There was no longer anger, but determination. I spread my feet apart and braced for her to make her move, the blade gripped firmly in my hand. I always knew there was a possibility I wouldn’t use it, but it never hurt to have a backup plan. I could feel the craving for my life and power pouring out of her and spreading over me and covering me like a blanket. It was almost hard to focus on her with an intense sensatio
n like that. It was nearly suffocating.

  She ran towards me and I spread my feet a little farther, bracing myself even more for whatever she had. Gordon made a move to come to my aid, but I shot him a look. He backed off. She lashed out with her talons and they barely missed my face when I dodged them. I struck with the blade and caught her in the shoulder, causing her to scream and back off a few feet. Then her anger washed over me in a wave, and the craving underneath was barely noticeable beneath the rage. Apparently the others have always been easier for her to take down and didn’t resist too much.

  She touched the wound and black blood thick as tar came away on her hand, and she shot me a look that vowed my demise. She screamed into the darkness and launched herself at me once more. I thrust my fist into the air and made a connection with her chin as she got closer, but she didn’t back down. She was fueled by a craving for my blood, my power, and her fury. She launched her vicious attack, swiping the air with her talons. I was easily able to dodge each swipe. She struck out again and she caught me across my right cheek, sending a stinging pain through my face. I could already feel blood flowing in small trickles from the four cuts as I stumbled.

  I caught myself before falling with one hand on the ground, and looked at the creature. At the sight of my blood she cried into the air and sniffed. She could smell my blood and it made her even hungrier. I could feel her desire rolling off of her like smoke and it filled my nostrils. I could feel the warmth in my body rise as it flowed through my veins, wanting to escape. I was going to let it as soon as I was in a better position.

  I stood and braced myself one more time for the attack I knew was coming. There was a sense of urgency in the air as she growled and took step after tentative step towards me. Instead of running she was walking in my direction. This only made me hold the blade up higher and I watch her as closely as I could. As she moved it was like she was swaying to music, just like how Lilith had moved herself. She moved one foot in front of the other, sliding through the ash covering the ground. She stopped right in front of me and a sly smile crossed her gorgeous face, all I wanted to do was wipe it from her face. Something stopped me though. I wasn’t sure what, but I just couldn’t do it. She raised her hand towards my face and I flinched as her hand touched one small line of blood that had trailed there. She chuckled and touched her fingertip covered in my blood to her tongue and sung in delight. I could feel a little bit of my own power move through her with that one small drop of blood.