God Storm by Coco Ma

Author:Coco Ma
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 2020-08-28T21:30:21+00:00

Chapter Thirty-Two

The pain exploded from Quinlan’s abdomen, fifty fists and fifty knives rolled into one, driving into his stomach, knocking the oxygen from his lungs and folding him in half like a sapling. Hot tears seeped from his eyes, squeezed tightly shut to block out the garish bursts of color engulfing his vision. His lungs screamed for breath as he struggled to inhale, his body still convulsing from the aftershocks.

In the days leading up to Asterin’s early arrival, his magic had already begun acting up. He had done everything he could to avoid letting it out, but it was like being forced to stand on one foot—eventually he couldn’t help but lose his balance.

Before, when he was forced to repress his magic for situations requiring discretion, it had hummed beneath his skin, building in pressure with the passing of time. An itch needing a scratch—annoying, but bearable for at least a few weeks. But now . . . now, keeping it trapped inside him burned, like holding his hand directly over a fire from which he couldn’t pull away. Worse, reminding himself that he couldn’t use his magic somehow fanned that pyre. Every release felt as blissful as it had when he’d first awakened from his coma and summoned fire in his chambers, but the pain that followed each time broke him a little further.

And it was getting harder to piece himself back together.

Time ceased to exist as he crouched in the darkness, just floating on the cusp of consciousness. The pain continued to drill into him, digging its claws deeper and deeper still. He planted his clammy palms flat against the frigid closet floor.

It would be so easy to let himself surrender, to shut down, but he never allowed himself that mercy, terrified that he might never wake up again.

When the last of the pain ebbed away, Quinlan shuddered and collapsed to the floor, utterly exhausted. The absence of hurt felt like a divine blessing—and Immortals, did he savor it. Soon his breathing returned to normal. He grappled for a shelf and pulled himself to his feet. Even though he didn’t check the mark, the blight, he knew it had probably crept up to his shoulders by now.

No one knew about the blight yet, and he wanted nothing more than to keep it that way. Using the same concealing charm Taeron had discovered years ago to cover up the scars Gavin Holloway had branded into his back, Quinlan had managed to keep all of it hidden so far. For secrecy, casting the charm had been a small price to pay, especially since he didn’t have to recast it whenever the mark spread.

His greatest fear was that one day the pain would start and never end—which was why he had stolen a tiny tablet of poison from Avris and Avon’s caches. He kept it tucked safe and sound in the locket he wore around his neck. Harvested from toxic shellfish and intensified with magic, the paralysis would cause his lungs to fail within minutes.

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