Soul of Darkness (9 page)

No relief was to be had. For I dared not take a breath…dared not disturb the silence and give my presence away. I knew it was crazy…ludicrous. Of course they knew I was there between them. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I took even the slightest breath, I would draw even more attention to myself.

I felt like a rabbit caught between wolves, and the second I disrupted the silence with the sound of my breathing the beasts would pounce.

I could sense their bodies very close to mine, their heat radiating toward m
e―
making me shiver. The air was heavy with tension and…magic.

I could feel the mystical energy of our bonds flowing through us, circling around us, gradually drawing us togethe
r―
tighter and tighte
r―
constricting me…drowning me…making the breath I desperately needed seem even further beyond my reach.

I felt moments away from blacking out…a dangerous path to tread under the circumstances, for I needed to stay in control.

In the end, there was nothing left for me to do but to mentally fight my way through this oppression and finally take the breath I’d been dreading. My intake of air was violently loud. In my attempt not to make a sound, I had waited far too long. Now my breathing was greedy in my despair to ease the burning of my lungs.

There was no way to keep quiet…

And as I realized my mistake, adrenaline rushing through my body, it was already too late: I could sense movement on either side, bodies turning toward me, their advances not sudden but stealthy…like predators moving in on their prey.

I felt the influence of the curse’s magic as it tried to weigh in on my actions…tugging at my resolve…trying to get me to give in to the instincts imbedded in my blood through my terrible heritage.

Upon opening my eyes, I should have seen nothing but dark surrounding us, for one of the men had switched off the lights before coming to bed. But as my eyelids flickered open I saw numerous glistening strands of bright golden light weaving around the three of us…enveloping our bodies in a cocoon that was becoming tighter and tighter as my eyes followed its progress in disbelieving awe.

And before my terrified mind could even dredge up the consequences of not acting fast enough to escape this web of catastrophe, instinct took over, making me lash out with the only means of salvation at this point.

Without any conscious thought about what I was doing, or how the hell I even knew how to, a surge of power blasted from me, radiating bright blue light as it rushed toward anything that stoo
d―
or in this case
lay
―
too close to me.

Instantaneously, the searing blue light tore through the strands of the golden cocoon, ripping it to shreds, before it sent Aaron and Aidan flying from me in high arcs toward opposite ends of the room, where they crashed violently into the walls and landed on the floor in heaps…unmoving…and quite possibly unconscious…or even hurt, for all I knew.

What have I done?
  I thought anxiously, fear creeping into my mind as I thought about the damage I’d just inflicted on the two people closest to my heart.

I could have killed them
, I suddenly realized.

Oh my god, I can’t have killed them?

I wanted to get to my feet and check on them…I needed to know if they were okay. Yet the fear I felt was crippling me to the bed. I seemed frozen in place…by my own actions!

And before I could will myself to move, the unthinkable happened. Shocked out of my senses by the suddenness and unpredictability of the incident, I viewed it as an out-of-body experience…in slow motion…detached…unable to do anything to fight against…

…my own demise.

My body, only just drained of the power I would have needed in order to defend myself, lay weak and vulnerable as I watched a thin, glowing crack appear in midair, from where it gradually spread outward and tore its way through the fabric of reality, opening a portal right in front of my eyes.

With no time to react, and without the use of my magic, I could do nothing but watch in absolute horror as three huge, aggressive-looking men came through the portal and charged at me with hate-filled features…and murder glinting in their eyes.

Even before they reached me, I already knew all was lost. And though I tried to fight them off with my body if not by magic, I was of course no match against the powerfully built brutes before me.

While two of them pinned me against the mattress, the third plunged his hand into the inner pocket of his jacket and extracted a mean-looking, curved knife. It glinted dangerously in the light emanating from the still open portal as he swung it in a high arc right above my heart.

My thoughts jumped to a time when I’d found myself faced with the same kind of danger, when Aidan had saved me an instant before the blade had been able to strike.

But no one would rescue me now. I had personally seen to it when I’d knocked Aaron and Aidan out cold in an attempt to salvage the situation.

That salvation was now proving to be my downfall. I had a moment to appreciate the irony before the swinging blade plunged into my heart.

A searing pain shot through my body…and I lay stunned, a deafening silence enveloping me. Around me I could sense commotion and the vibrations of loud and jeering voices, but I didn’t hear a sound. My eyes followed the movement of the blade as it was pulled back out of my heart, its once shining metal now coated with blood.

I followed the blood’s progress as it leisurely dripped from the blade, almost seeming to hover in the air before sailing toward my body…as though it were waiting with purpose, positioning itself at the right angle before letting itself fall…wanting to create the perfect painting on the pristine white canvas of my silk pajamas.

‘Bloody Art’, as opposed to Andy Warhol’s ‘Piss Paintings’,
was all I could think in my shocked state of mind.

I looked up into the eyes of my murderer and saw only a cold glint of contempt. That seemed to be all I would get from him.

Yet he owed me so much more…

But there was no compassion in this killer’s eyes.

And with thoughts of what I would be leaving behind, of all that was lost, and vowing not to forgive the one who had just taken my life, my exhausted eyes fell closed, and I listened as the men withdrew and the portal closed once more.

It seemed they’d only wanted me, and I silently thanked whatever power was responsible for sparing the lives of the two men who had given me so much.

As my blood slowly trickled from my wounded heart, I remembere
d―
vividl
y―
every moment I had spent with either of them…every look…every touch.

And I recalled having continuously doubted if what any of us felt was real, thinking that perhaps our feelings had been entirely fabricated by a higher power.

But did it even matter?

Yes, it matters,
whispered a small voice…my own…the part of me that had always dreamed of finding
the one
.

A very romantic notion.

Nevertheless, there it was…I admitted it: I was a hopeless romantic. And I wanted to believe in true love…epic love…and happily ever after.

However, until we could put the curse behind us, none of us would be any the wiser about the real nature of our emotions. Secretly hoping that day might come, I’d tried my hardest to sort out my feelings, not wanting to endanger the future I might have with one of them by getting involved too deeply with the other.

For, if there was one thing I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, it was that neither of them would forgive me if my relationship with the other exceeded a certain level of intimacy. Not even if I’d had no choice and my actions had been governed by destiny orother forces beyond my control
.
Their pride would not permit it.

Yet, none of this mattered any more.

The answers I’d sought would forever elude me.

I could feel my body slowly shutting down, the breath of life escaping me. My last thoughts went out to Aaron and Aidan…

…until darkness closed in around me.

Chapter 6 * Flicker

M
alcolm paced the length of his underground study, carefully weighing his options. He didn’t much like the idea of letting Aaron, Aidan, and Persephone out of his sight. There was too great a potential for catastrophe where the three of them were concerned.

Though they were caught up in a love triangle and the animosity between Aaron and Aidan was palpable, that was the least of his worries. What had him worried and continuously pacing his study since the three of them had gone on their little road trip, was the fact that Malcolm didn’t know as much about the curse as he would have liked to.

Up until now, Malcolm had never even encountered an instance where a spell meant for an individual had affected not one but two people. And in all his years of studying the curse and the history reports stored in the Haven’s archives, he had never come across the existence of cursed twins. Maybe there was a good reason for it. Perhaps the curse’s spell was not meant to be divided and to influence more than the two originally targeted individual
s―
this time around, Persephone and Aaron.

Whatever the reason for this anomaly was, Malcolm had a feeling that, divided or not, the magic behind the curse was potent and the constant proximity the three of them now shared coul
d―
  sooner or late
r―
have dire consequences.

That was why, lately, Malcolm seemed unable to sleep at night…as though he was just biding his time…waiting for something to happen, waiting for the big, and final, bang.

And though he’d had all of these doubts before sending them on their way,
not
sending them hadn’t been an option.

To defeat the curse once and for all, they needed Persephone, needed the incredible force that had created it in order to undo it. Ordinarily, undoing another witch’s spell wouldn’t have been a problem; but in this particular case, Morrigan’s spell, combined with the force of Darkness,was so powerful that no other magi
c―
not even join
t
magi
c―
had the strength to reverse it.

And so he’d had no choice other than to make them go on this journey so that they could try to get Persephone back by helping her feel again. Because if they couldn’t sever Darkness’s hold on her, then all hope to end the threat to humanity was lost. Malcolm only prayed that regaining her emotions would be enough to rid her of Darkness’s grip.

And since the undertaking could in no way include Aaron and Aidan’s father on a romantic road trip…too awkward…there he was: alone in a castle that was too large, the only one left roaming the ancient halls. Although he’d been alone on many occasions and it had never been of any consequence to him, loneliness suddenly weighed on his soul like never before.

And he believed he knew why.

After years and years of keeping his distance from Aaron, he had finally gotten him back, sort of. The boy did not trust him and would likely never forgive him, but at least Malcolm had been able to spend time with him, had gotten to know him better. After having lived for so many years with a hole in his heart, feeling as though a big part of him was missing, these wounds had been able to heal slightly ever since he’d laid eyes on his ‘lost’ son.

Of course, their first encounter hadn’t gone too well. He hadn’t been able to tell him he was his father…hadn’t dared divulge the truth, which had had the potential to make Aaron’s whole world come crashing down. And yet, as his father, and especially as the one to blame for Aaron’s circumstances, he had owed him the truth, had owed him the courage to take responsibility for the actions that had defined Aaron’s whole prior existence, that had separated him from his actual family.

But he’d been a coward.

True, he was a fearless and influential ma
n―
a trusted and respected leader of a very powerful and ancient societ
y―
but when it came to dealing with his own son, with matters close to his own heart, he was just as afraid as the next man.

And so he’d allowed Aaron to find out the truth by being punched in the gut by it. For, being confronted with his own face on a stranger’s body when he’d first seen Aidan must have been nothing short of a blow to the stomach.