Free The Pentagram Child: Part 2 (Afterlife Saga Book 5) by Stephanie Hudson Page B

transferring his body weight from one foot to the other.
    He was worried.
    I closed my eyes as even I could feel time was getting closer to Draven’s crucial decision and I couldn’t imagine how it felt having the weight of the world on your shoulders. The realisation of what type of man Draven was caused me to suck in a deep and jagged breath. I knew he was a man of integrity and honour. I knew he could be kind and loving. I knew he could even be funny and damn but every girly cell in my body knew the man was the very meaning of sexy.
    But what I didn’t fully understand up until right this second was what he had to deal with. It was how he maintained the balance that was so crucial to not only human life but his own kind. The concrete sense of duty that was ingrained within him. Almost like he was engineered for it and I was the spanner in the works that made him question his decisions and act irrationally for the first time in all of his forevers lived.
    I was his Achilles heel and I could only pray to the Gods that I wasn’t the one that brought him to his knees.
    “You can do this…make the right choice…” I barely whispered the words but hoped their strength screamed out across the levels of Hell and were carried to Draven just when he needed it the most.
    However I was soon to find it had all been in vain. Movement in the corner of my eye got my attention and I turned in time to see Draven’s essence jerk violently on the altar.
    “What are you doing? Get away from him!” I shouted no longer caring if he knew I wasn’t unconscious anymore.
    “About time!” He snapped and for a second I thought he had been waiting for me to wake. But when it became apparent that I was being ignored I knew this had been the sign he had been waiting for. He turned away and dragged something the size of a body from behind one of the pillars out of view. I could barely make any details out but I saw whatever it was he had covered in a dirty sack.  
    He dropped his burden and snatched something up from the floor. Revoltingly it looked like a hip flash made from crudely stitched human skin and I had to repress the urge to gag.
    He popped the top and started to empty the black liquid all over Draven’s spirit. It poured straight through the shimmering hue of Draven’s form and dripped down the symbols carved into the sides of the altar.
    Each one started to spin and blur telling me something bad was about to happen. The whole sight made me feel sick and my head started to go woozy. The world tipped on its axis and it took me a moment to realise that for now, the world was fine. No, it was just me that was falling. I felt my head slap to the floor for the second time and I closed my eyes to wince against the pain. I knew that due to my injuries I didn’t have long but still wondered what was happening now to evoke such a response. It was as if something had passed through from the other side and I had the sickening feeling it wasn’t who I was desperate to see.
    I peeled back my lids in trepidation as one would do when knowing what they would see was going to haunt them. Like watching a scary movie and opening your eyes right before the crucial point the fleeing character is going to get an axe in their back. It was the horrific face of a killer that seemed to imprint onto your brain and flash up in your sleep when you were at your most vulnerable.
    Either way I knew what I needed to do and when I opened my eyes I found I didn’t need to be asleep to be at my most vulnerable. Because I was now the one staring at the horrific face of a killer and this one was straight from my past.
    His bare feet were the first thing to come into view. Black dyed skin that looked like they had been dipped in ink stepped closer towards me. The flesh looked as torn up as the trousers he wore and large chunks of skin were falling away almost like the body had begun to rot.
    “No…no… What have you done Draven?” I said letting my shoulders