Soul of Darkness (10 page)

That wasn’t what Malcolm had wanted, but it was too late to undo any of it. He’d been an ass regarding the way he’d treated Aaron, but his behavior toward him had sprung from a place of insecurity
―
he hadn’t known how to approach him. Even after having spent some time together, he was still lacking confidence because he didn’t really know his son, and he was afraid of what Aaron might think of him or that he might blame him.

Instead of behaving in a way that would earn Aaron’s respect and affection, his insecurity and fear of rejection tended to make him act in just the opposite way, making him do and say things he didn’t mean. He hoped he still had a chance to make it up to Aaron, but he wasn’t sure if he ever could.

Tired of pacing aimlessly around his study, Malcolm finally pulled back his wingback chair and sat down at his desk, his tired gaze resting on the large rotating globe which floated above the desk’s surface.

Earth’s essence.

Malcolm had been waiting night after night to see what would happen, carefully watching the globe and looking for the smallest of hints that something could be amiss. He felt sure that if anything with the potential of endangering the earth had occurred between his sons and Persephone, the globe’s appearance would have indicated as much.

So far, there hadn’t been any change in the strength of the golden light the globe emitted, not so much as a flicker to indicate that the world was not as it should be.

Suddenly tired beyond words, Malcolm decided to turn in for the night and at least
try
to get some sleep. He got up and started to turn away from the desk when a sudden movement caught his eye, causing his head to spin back around so fast that he nearly hurt his neck.

There it was: the very thing he’d been waiting fo
r―
and had hoped never to witness.

The golden light of the globe had started to flicker irregularly. In-between flashes of light, the globe looked sickly and grey…devoid of life. Malcolm guessed that when the last of the golden light blinked out of existence, so would the human race.

Something must have happened between Persephone and one of his sons…or maybe both…how the hell would he know. And he was too far away to interfere.

He hated this feeling of utter powerlessness.

If he only hadn’t let them go alone…He should have gone with them, after all. Now, all he could do was witness the end, for he would never get there in time to stop them.

But before Malcolm’s eyes, a bright, golden burst of light suddenly erupted from the center of the globe and spread outward. No longer flickering, the globe shone as steadily as it had before. The danger had passed, though Malcolm couldn’t fathom how.

He’d thought that was it…the end.

How glad he was to have been wrong…

But his joy lasted only for about a minute, as he could suddenly feel an immense disturbance in the atmosphere.

Something was, indeed, very wrong. But it seemed unconnected to an immediate threat to the earth, for the globe’s radiance remained consistent.

Yet the natural order appeared to have become unstable…something must have upset the balance of Earth’s magical energy.

As fast as he could, Malcolm reached out with his power and honed in on Aaron’s, Aidan’s, and Persephone’s energies to find and lock on to them, prepared to open a portal and rush to their sides.

A
idan had a hard time opening his eyes. He felt as though he’d been hit over the head with a sledge hammer. A persistent knocking on the B&B’s room door had him trying even harder to find his way through the fog in his mind. The sound just wouldn’t stop…every rap on the wooden door reverberating painfully in his throbbing head.

“Moment…please,” Aidan managed through gritted teeth.

Thankfully the knocking stopped, at least momentarily. Aidan wondered if he could get himself up off the floor and to the door fast enough before the next round of pounding started. Groaning inwardly from the pain in his head, he at last managed to open his eyes.

Squinting through the dark, he was unable to make out his current location. He certainly wasn’t on one of the beds, for he could feel the hard, unyielding surface of the floor pressing against his body. Why was he on the floor? What had happened? Aidan couldn’t recall a damn thing after he’d lain down next to Persephone.

Another sharp rap on the door swiftly tore him out of his musings, and he struggled to get up off the floor. Once he’d managed a standing position
,
shaky as it may be, he was able to manifest a small flame in the palm of his hand which helped him find his way across the room to the door.

He flipped the light-switch on the adjacent wall and extinguished the magical flame. Slowly opening the door, he positioned his broad body in the middle of the opening and plastered a friendly, innocent smile on his face.

“Yes?” he asked the owner of the B&B, the woman who had given them the room.

She was standing opposite him with her fist in the air as though she’d been about to deliver another head-cracking blow to the door, her face a livid shade of red.

When it didn’t seem at all likely that she’d be able to talk any time soon in her flustered state, Aidan added:

“Can I help you?”

His question and the obviously artless way in which he played the fool seemed to be the last straw.

Exploding into a tirade of accusations, such as what must be going on in their room judging by the noise they were making, and what kind of ungodly practices were taking place under her roof, she then stated that she was of half a mind to throw them out, when Aidan decided there really was no polite way to gloss things over.

“Sorry,” he said before briefly closing his eyes.

When he reopened them, he stretched out his arm and lightly touched his forefinger to her temple. Her eyes turned inward for a brief moment…then she slumped heavily to the carpeted floor of the corridor.

Under normal circumstances, Aidan would have tried to talk his way out of trouble, would have done anything to avoid a magical confrontation with an outsider to prevent anyone from finding out about the Haven.

And under normal circumstances, having moved on to plan B if a confrontation was unavoidable, he would have gone about it as gently as possible.

But there’d been no way he could have done so just then. Still reeling from whatever mishap had made him end up unconscious on the floor, he just didn’t have the calm presence of mind needed to smooth things over.

Furthermore, he felt absolutely no remorse about having rendered her unconscious and letting her hit the ground, seeing as this woman had regarded them as sinners and treated them with contempt from the moment she’d laid eyes on them.

There was no being gentle with such a mean old hag. Come to think of it, he wouldn’t have minded
at all
if there hadn’t been a carpet to soften her fall.

Now that the woman’s rants no longer echoed through the room, Aidan finally picked up on the ominous silence surrounding him.

In his confused state, and with the task of answering the door foremost on his mind, it hadn’t even occurred to him to wonder about the lack of reaction from Persephone and Aaron, who hadn’t shown the slightest signs of life during the persistent knocking on their door.

Suddenly very anxious to find out why they hadn’t moved so much as a muscle, he hurriedly grabbed a hold of the woman’s legs and pulled her across the threshold into the room.

She wouldn’t wake before morning, and he planned on being far, far gone by then. It would be a clean getaway, since the woman would have no way of finding them
―
they hadn’t given their real names.

Even if they had, no one would ever find members of the Haven unless they wanted to be found…well, no one except perhaps their gifted enemies.

After quietly closing the door…though, to be honest, it would have been a miracl
e
if the whole Bed and Breakfast hadn’t already been woken by the very loud and intrusive landlady…he leaned over his brother, who happened to be on the floor beside the door, and checked for a pulse.

Relief flooded him as he felt the soft, rhythmic throbbing against his fingers. He’d never before thought about how he would react if something happened to Aaron…had never dug deep enough to understand his true feelings toward the brother he’d only known for a few short weeks.

With everything that had happened between Aaron, Persephone, and him, it would have been easy to hate his brother or to simply not give a damn. Yet the relief he’d just experienced told him he
did
care about his brother. Not even having been aware of it, it seemed he already felt…something…deep down.

Storing away this revelation for later reflectio
n―
he didn’t have the luxury of thinking about it at presen
t―
he ran to Persephone and knelt on the mattress beside her, checking for a pulse.

Feeling certain that she wasn’t merely asleep but unconsciou
s―
nobody slept through such a rucku
s―
he didn’t even bother trying to wake her. Instead, he carefully examined her position on the bed.

Persephone lay still as a stone, the blanket pulled over her body to a point just below her chin, her arms buried underneath the sheets…making her look like a small child which had been tucked in by its parent. It seemed like a very strange way for a grown woman to lie in bed.

Suddenly feeling very apprehensive, Aidan had a difficult time concentrating on making out her pulse, his own heartbeat resounding loudly in his ears in his agitated state. Having placed his fingers on the side of her neck to search for her pulse, he should have at least sensed something through their bond by touching her skin…come to think of it, he should have felt
some
  kind of connection long before he had even touched her.

Something was horribly wrong; he could feel it in his bones.

Pulling back the covers to see if there was any physical indication of what might be wrong, he hesitated a moment before slightly pulling her grey silk pajama top up to check for wounds on her torso…that was weird, he could have sworn she’d been wearing a white pajama; he must be losing his mind…when a slight flicker of her consciousness suddenly registere
d
on his radar.

A moment later, he was relieved to discover that he could make out her breathing as well. She was okay…thank God. On the other side of the room, his brother seemed to be stirring, too. It wouldn’t be much longer before both of them opened their eyes and asked him what was going on. The only thing was: he had no friggin idea.

He couldn’t explain any of it…didn’t have a clue why his brother had been unconscious, why he, himself,had woken up on the floo
r―
he must have been unconscious,as wel
l―
and why Persephone hadn’t moved at all.

The last thing Aidan remembered was brushing his teeth, going to bed, and lying there in the incredibly awkward silence surrounding the ‘happy campers’.

After that…there was nothing.

D
arkness watched its child with greedy eyes. She belonged to Darkness…always had…always would. There had been no choice other than to protect her, for Darkness had invested too much in Persephone to allow her to die.

When the blade had sliced through her heart, Darkness had reached out and shielded it as best it could. The amount of damage that had nevertheless been caused, it had been able to heal in a fairly short amount of time.

The bigger issue was: in doing so, it had finally revealed its lingering presence inside of her. Before the incident, Darkness had waited so patiently while Persephone had examined herself over and over again in the bathroom mirror of the B&B. It had remained carefully hidden throughout and had finally managed to convince her that it had left her for good…only to have slipped up in the end.

And yet it was essential to Darkness’s plan that Persephone thought she had freed herself of its influence. If she didn’t truly believe it, she wouldn’t be able to convince Aaron and Aidan. And Darkness needed them to assume that it was no longer a part of Persephone, that she…and she alone…was in control of her actions. Yet to save her life, Darkness had ultimately been forced to show its hand.