Tasting Darkness

Read Tasting Darkness [Tempting Darkness] By Jessica Hall Book 2 Chapter 41 - The next memory morphed to their eighteenth birthday. Tobias heard a portal open and sat up, rubbing his eyes, his powers had manifested during the night, but too exhausted to care he never checked his infinity mark. He knew the familiar energy to be that of Darius. He yawns, stretching his arms above his head. Darius smirked as he stepped through the portal into Tobias’s room, holding up his wrist. “It appears we are destined, brother,” Darius tells him.

Tobias’ brows furrow as he yawns, looking at his wrist when Darius rubs his fingers over the infinity mark on his own, and Tobias gasps, glancing at his own when warmth spreads up his arm. Tobias chuckles. “Well, looks like you're not getting rid ofnow,” Tobias smiles. He was glad that his best friend was destined to be part of his life. Their brotherly bond is now completely solidified.

Tobias stares down at the names on his wrist. “F***k, feel sorry for whoever she is. | wonder who the other two are?” Tobias says, brushing his fingers over Kalen and Lycus’ names.

“No idea; | called on them but got no reply,” “Probably saw our names and went to hide under a rock,” Tobias groaned.

“I'm more interested in why her nis faded,” Darius says, reaching for Tobias’s to see if he is the same. My nwas etched into both their wrists, yet mine was faint. Tobias glances at Darius’.

“What do you think it means?” Tobias asks him, and Darius’ eyes darken.

“One way to find out is to get dressed,” Darius tells him.

“What about the other two?” “They'll cto us when ready. Give them a chance to caround to it, and the idea of us, that would be a bit much for anyone to take in. Their magic is strong, hers | can hardly feel,” Darius tells him, and Tobias gets to his feet and grabs sclothes, pulling on sblack jeans and a gray shirt. Just as Darius stepped toward him and grabbed his wrist, Thomas entered the room.

Tobias instantly rushed to him and snatched up his hand, only for Thomas to pull away. “What is it?” Tobias asked him, grabbing his twin’s wrist to see who he was destined for. Only when he does and turns Thomas's wrist over.

Thomas’ wrist was blank. No mates, his infinity symbol was there. It just held no names.

“Wait? But-" “It's fine, Tobias. Maybe my mates were white fae,” Thomas tells him, but they all knew what that meant, that one day Thomas would run out of magic without his Keeper and mates.

“Who did you get?” Thomas asked him, grabbing for Tobias’ wrist. He turns it over to see our names and smiles.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Go find them and bring them home,” Thomas tells him. Tobias’ stomach sinks. Guilt set in that he had four mates and a keeper. In contrast, Thomas wasn’t granted even one.

“It’s fine, Tobias; the fates just havedestined for bigger things, you'll see,” Tobias’ guilt nags him, but once Thomas leaves, Darius steps closer and grabs Tobias’s wrist drawing his attention back to what they were doing.

Darius’ thumb brushes over the mark and power sings up his arm, yet it is different from before, different from the rabbit, darker, twisted, cold. It was like everything darkness could be, amplified but so much colder from when he healed the rabbit.

“Let’s go find her then,” Darius laughs, excited that they had both fully manifested, that their magic was strong; it appeared by their markings and the surging bonds that their Keeper would be a powerhouse. They both saw freedom, and sadness bled into me, realizing they thought | was their freedom from their parents and their parents’ demands.

With me, they could take them down. No longer would they be bound to their families. They could both take their freedom back, and | was that freedom to them. Until the portal took them somewhere, they didn’t expect. My school..

“Okay, then. She is a teacher?” Tobias asks, scratching the back of his neck and looking around. He was confused until the bells sounded and | walked down the front steps. | walked straight past them without feeling anything, not even paying attention.

| remembered that day, | felt sick, and now | wonder if it was because they had manifested and | wasn’t of age. | didn’t even glance up as | walked out of the school gates.

“FHrrxkl” Darius curses.

“Bro, | know she is our keeper, but | am not dragging syoung girl off who has no idea who we are to her,” Tobias says as they watchwalk away from them.

“Our parents can’t find out about her,” Darius murmurs.

“We wait, speak with her parents. If my father finds out about her; he will drag her hhimself,” Tobias tells Darius.

“Yeah, mine can’t know either. He'll forceto mark her,” “So what do we do? What if the others cfor her?” Tobias asks him. They both knew why my mark was faded, | was underage, and |, as an awkward teenager, made that even more painfully obvious for them.

“Follow her. We will find out who her parents are. Speak with them, and we cloak her,” “Cloak her?” Tobias asks, knowing the amount of power that would take to do.

“Yes, | am not about to turn her world upside down and have Kalen and Lycus cfor her, we don’t know them or what they are willing to do if they find her,” Darius tells him.

All night they camped outside my house up the street where the bus droppedoff, waiting forto go to school; it was odd because | was terribly sick that night. They had slept in their car at the end of my street.

My house was the last one next to three vacant blocks and almost completely obscured by trees that ran either side of the dirt driveway. The three vacant blocks on either side made the place look like a dead end. Until you cto the dirt driveway, you wouldn't even know a house was there.

Watching through Tobias’ eyes, had | noticed them, | would have thought it creepy, yet their intentions were anything but. Their only intention was to make sure my other two mates didn’t try to cfor me. They stayed to keepsafe, unsure of who Lycus and Kalen were.

Yet that day, for sreason, had stayed with me, etched into my brain no matter how much I tried to forget it.

My mother forcedto go to school, | had begged and pleaded to go to a real school, and now I was tossing it in her face by saying | wasn’t going. Instead, dad droveand the shock of Tobias and Darius seeing him drive out of the driveway withwas nearly as strong as finding out | was a teenager.

Darius growls and Tobias grips his arm as he went to start the car to go after my father.

“He is her father, Darius. You're his daughter's mate. He wouldn't hurt his own daughter's future,” Tobias tells him. But what they were most confused about was why | was kept a secret, why | was never registered with the council. They figured that out when they tried to go down the driveway.

Nausea washed over both of them, and they had to back out of the driveway. Darius and Tobias both got out to find they had crossed wards, wards my father put in place to hide our house, hide my mother andfrom the world. It took them half the day to break through them to find my mother at home. She immediately called my father, who rushed home.

It was also the sday my house burned to the ground, the day I lost my parents, only I relived it from Tobias’s point of view, and | found everything Darius had toldwas the truth. They left and only returned when they felt my distress, Tobias suffered severe burns trying to save me, while Darius exhausted a good chunk of magic breaking the wards and getting us out.

Tobias used his magic to healinstead of himself. Healed sgirl he barely knew because | was theirs and they would do anything to keep me, knowing | was their only future, and they were mine.

Darius then cloakedand they tookto my grandmother and cloaked her too.

Tobias’ memories weren't as dark and twisted as Lycus’ or Kalen’s, yet his struggles were just as brutal when he returned hwith Darius. Both of their fathers demanded answers from them both. Tobias even endured watching his brother be tortured with magic. It was the only tTobias forced his brother to suffer.

He refused to giveup despite knowing he was causing his brother pain. He choseover the one person he spent his entire life protecting, and Thomas, | found, took it without complaint, trusting his brother had good reason. Darius, too, refused to give up my location.

Yet as the last of Tobias’ memories fizzled and died out, | learned Darius was the only reliable constant person in Tobias’s and Thomas's life; | understood why Darius felt guilty. Seeing Tobias’ grief as he tried to heal Thomas, begging the fates to take him instead.

That was when Tobias turned to the bottle. For years he held himself together, and all for Thomas, everything he did, he did for his twin. For his other half and Darius unknowingly took him from him, and so did I. Darius loved him just as much, and | now understood the destruction | had caused by running, no wonder Tobias hated me. | took the only person he truly loved from him.

Tobias and Thomas had turned their backs on their family for me, had his title removed because he took the others as his mates to keep power, and all to keepsafe, to letgrow up, andrunning made it look like it was all for nothing. I basically threw it all back in their faces as | felt the agony of Tobias’s loss. His brother clutched in his arms, his mutilated body tom to shreds from the hellhounds.

“We need to go,” Darius whispers to him, trying to make him let go of Thomas.

“I hate her, | f***king hate her,” Tobias sobbed as he stared at the letter drawn on the ground in his own blood.

However, peering through Tobias’s eyes, it wasn't all | noticed, and my heart sputtered in my chest in the waking world.

How had | never noticed it before? How did | not see it in Darius’ memories? So caught up in both of their grief as | watched that scene play out on a loop, first through my fragmented memories, then Darius’s, and now Tobias, yet it was Tobias’ memories | noticed.

The Moonstone clutched in Thomas's hand. Tobias even picks it up. He glances at it, feeling the energy in it, but unable to place it before tossing it aside, thinking his brother had found it, believing the power within it was mine. Yet | recognized the stone as he dropped it, recognized the energy writhing through it because | had the sstone sitting in our bathroom, a stone that | could feel contained remnants of my mother’s magic.

Just as that realization dawned on me, the memories faded, and I felt the sting in my thigh, felt the devil's bane run through me. Though it was weak and wouldn't stop my shredding, it would, however, give Darius time, and for once, | wasn’t mad he did it because now | had to confess something myself.

I unknowingly trusted a woman they warnedabout, trusted my own mother, and | had just brought a ward breaker into their castle, our home. The Moonstone was never intended forto call on her. No, it was intended to break the wards.

Tobias knew the energy felt off and tossed the stone, yet | brought it hwith me. | once again endangered my mates. My eyes opened to them arguing over Darius drugging me, yet | wasn’t angry at him for it. | was angry at myself as | opened my eyes.

“You promised,” Tobias hisses at him.

“I made no such promises. It's weak, she is still in the shred, but she needs a break, | will complete it, she needs rest though,” Darius snaps back at him, and | sit up.

“Don’t argue,” | groan, clutching my head as the heat rushing througheases off but lingers around the edges, my head pounding with knowledge and power in excess.

“Aleera,” Tobias hisses, rushing over to me, but my eyes go to Darius. Guilt floodsthrough the bond, only amplifying mine.

“I have done something stupid,” | murmur and Darius watchesfor a second waiting forto explode at him stopping the shred even if only temporarily. | just hoped he would forgivebecause | truly f***ked up, and that clarity hadshoving past them and running for the bathroom.

| rummage through the basket of soaps and pull out the Moonstone just as Darius comes in behind me. The furious growl! that leaves him as every hair stands on end as he stalks toward me.

“What have you done?” he asks, and | swallow. The moment my magic touched it, it glowed, and my eyes widened as | felt the energy inside it.

“Aleera,” Darius panics, but | step back, knowing if | didn’t get it out of here soon, it would absorb his ward's just as it was my magic, stealing it from me, every ounce | just absorbed, and | looked at them in panic as Darius reached for it. Jerking my hand back | shake my head.

“None of you can touch me. It will take yours too,” | tell them before groaning as cramps rippled through my stomach as it devoured the devil's bane and forced the shred, the stone urgingto complete it so it could take my power, our power, | would kill her. | would f****king kill her, This was never to protectbutto absorb my magic after i completed the shred, to weakenand take my mate's power from them, But she f**ked up, because ! figured it out before | completed il, and now the only power she would get was the wrath of phoenixes. She had taken so much from them, and | wasn’t allowing her to take anymore.

“Aleera, No!” Darius screams at me, feeling my intention through the bond.

Using the remnants of what I still contained, | toss up a shield blocking Darius as he goes to take it and run for my old room. Blasting the window, I grab a cloak, | spot hanging by the dark fireplace before whistling. The moment | do, | hear Sparks caw, and | do the stupidest thing | have ever done. | jump from the window, praying to the fates that Spark reachesbecause, with the loss of my power, | just lost my wings, and we were six stories high.

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