Surrendered To The Lord Of Sin-Chapter 29: Silent rage

Lorcan’s body hit the frozen earth with a bone-deep thud causing the impact to shudder through the clearing as snow burst around them like dust shaken loose from a corpse. Vaeron didn’t blink— didn’t breathe — as his fingers tightened around the brown-haired throat unmercifully.

Any trace of warmth in those hazel eyes disappeared into the abyss, leaving nothing but a terrifying expression capable of sending the dead into internal death.

Those orbs were dark in rage blistering through his veins, searing the muscles in his body. The darkness emanating from him sent both heat and chill spreading through the entire forest.

Lorcan didn’t fight back, letting the creature pour his wrath as veins popped at his forehead, displaying his silent ordeal. He met Vaeron’s blackened gaze with something far more dangerous than defiance no matter how much he tried to hide it, and it was the truth.

Barely audible, "Perhaps if you let me explain..." he wheezed, but Vaeron’s hand tightened around his throat, earning a gasp from him, and the forest shuddered.

A growl, low and hell-born, coiled out of Vaeron’s chest, "My patience has always been limited," he said calmly, but his eyes held no calm. The more he realized her scent had suddenly faded into thin air, the more infuriated he became. The urge to slay became stronger.

He didn’t know what was happening to him. The moment he saw Lorcan, something dark dispersed his body like a toxin and all he wanted was to spill blood.

It would’ve been easier to track her if they had mated. The bond gives much advantage in cases as this; he could track her, feel the rate of her heartbeat, tell her emotions, her thoughts, her dreams, and her whereabouts without being close. However, he’d been able to sense half of those perks without the bond which happened after he tasted her blood.

It ran him sick and starving in things he had never felt before. Desperation, be one of them. It was so strong that it almost blinded his rationality if not for a part of him in control, and worse of it, that wall kept cracking as seconds went by.

Behind them, the men dared not move. Not even Darian with his scar and spear, Eryndor with his trembling mage-marked hands, and Soren, who had seen Vaeron break a man’s spine for a smaller offense. They all stood quietly, letting the two most powerful creatures handle themselves, however, their eyes held a tinge of apprehension.

Did something happen to their master? The thought ran through their minds simultaneously. It was obvious that a situation as this had never happened before, making their reaction totally understandable, and all they could do was stand and watch.

Lorcan didn’t seem really affected, but those eyes reddened at the effect of suffocation, almost choking him in his own blood. "W-Walkers..." he started, and Vaeron’s eyes darkened. It seemed to have gotten worse.

A subtle distortion rippled through the air around them, twisting the snowflakes into unnatural patterns. Vaeron’s grip on Lorcan tightened. Not because he doubted him, but because the dark presence, which seemed like a malignant force, was wearing his face. It was precise and cruelly perfect. And yet... something was wrong.

Lorcan’s chest heaved. Blood stained the snow beneath him from his open wounds but those eyes still burned with truth. He was trying, struggling silently, to pierce the illusion suffocating the clearing.

"They’re... not me," Lorcan rasped, making each word trembling from lack of oxygen and the sheer strain of the magic pressing down on him, but he knew he had to continue. "It’s—some sorcery... a dark mimic. Someone—someone’s using my form..."

He didn’t need to complete the statement as Vaeron’s gaze narrowed. His vision sharpened, causing the forest to fall away until all that existed were two obvious truths: the absence of her heartbeat and the unnatural pulse twisting Lorcan’s form. It was faint but he caught it.

"How?" he demanded.

His voice was a growl that split ice from bark, deep, consuming, and void of mercy. It carried through the clearing like a living thing, pressing against the walls of the forest and searing the snow with heat at one question.

It wasn’t impossible, but it still wasn’t believable. There was only one creature that could perform those, and the darkness in him intensified. But Vaeron didn’t want logic. Logic didn’t matter.

The image of his little wolf crying, screaming his name, calling for him while some false man dragged her into the dark had already rooted itself into him. His chest tightened at that pull once more.

What made him think she’ll call him? He killed someone important to her. Though naive, her defiance burned brighter than any he’d witnessed before. How would a prey call his murderer for help? Someone like her would rather throw herself to the peaceful beckon of death than return to her living hell. The hell she belonged in now.

Any sane person would escape sweet torture to a painless demise. He’d seen them, witnessed many, and they all had the same fate because he wasn’t and has never been a sane man to things that interest him.

As infuriated as he was, he desperately wanted to get rid of whatever was happening to him, turning him into what he had never felt in ages. And the thought of its cause being the little wolf Princess almost sent him to madness.

He wouldn’t care if something bad might’ve happened to her, but her death was his part. That was something he would never tolerate. Vaeron let the coldness slip into him, however, the thought of someone laying a finger on her boiled his blood.

He would burn them.

Lorcan coughed as blood flecked his lips, driving Vaeron out of his reverie. His eyes never left those hazel ones when he spoke, "I-I don’t know... They—they wear my face. But it’s not me..."

A shiver ran through the clearing and Vaeron’s fingers dug into Lorcan’s neck, not with the intention to harm anymore, but to steady — to pull truth from him. However, those wouldn’t have happened if he were dead, even though he knew he couldn’t kill him.

And with that, he finally released Lorcan who instantly twisted to his side, drawing in fat gasps of air in desperate bursts. Those eyes remained fixed on the creature which looked terrifyingly made from the depths of hell.

The forest seemed to lessen, but not fully eradicate, the darkness surrounding the atmosphere, casting a cold blanket.

"You will tell me everything," Vaeron said, ignoring the man who struggled to stabilize his breath. "Or I will tear the answers from your mind myself."

Lorcan’s eyes flashed in restraint, but he nodded faintly. Barely sitting up properly, "It’s... a dark sorcerer. One of the old east-mages. They’ve... learned to manipulate faces, forms... shadows, and make use of the Walkers. I was distracted by their appearance on my way to the Dreadwyn, which took... longer than expected," he confessed. "When I received your message, I had to hurry— but it seemed it was already too late,"

Vaeron’s chest tightened, coiling like a living furnace. He could feel the malevolence seeping into the forest, twisting snow and ice into unnatural shapes with every tree, and every frozen stone, seemingly pulsing with anticipation, waiting for him to act.

The information sank deep into him, and his jaw tightened firmly. The longer seconds turned into minutes caused something to itch inside him, making the rage palpable in the air.

For the first time, time was something he couldn’t endure. The seconds turned to minutes, which drove him to the edge.

And then, faintly—so faint he could have missed it if he weren’t listening with everything he had—he caught her heartbeat. It was a slow, panicked thrum, but not hers alone. This one was mixed and distorted intertwined with something else, and he sniffed the air.

The darkness inside him roared. His men flinched instinctively as a tremor passed through the clearing. Darian’s spear trembled, Eryndor’s hands glowed faintly as the mage-mark burned, and Soren’s grip on his sword tightened so much his knuckles whitened. They knew something had happened, and whatever it was, only the creature could feel and sense it.

Vaeron’s shadowed eyes narrowed to slits making the black energy coil around him like living chains. His fists clenched, and unconsciously, the ground beneath him cracked. He didn’t think—didn’t plan before disappearing into thin air, leaving the men shocked to their bones.

Because Vaeron knew only one thing: whoever had taken her, whoever dared to manipulate him, would die before sunrise. His little wolf belonged to him.