by Abby James
“Why aren’t you afraid?”
He stayed silent as he leveled his eyes on me. “I am acting out of character for a vampire. I shouldn’t trust you.”
“Maybe it’s the sorcerer in you.”
“Maybe it’s something else.”
What did he mean by that? Jesus, what did he mean? All I could do was stare at him while he withdrew and looked everywhere but at me. Did that something have anything to do with a particular emotion? I had to ask, but I could feel him building his internal wall. “I have to go.”
“Escape you mean.”
About to stand, he froze. “Escape what?”
“Where our conversation was heading.”
“The conversation had nowhere to go. It’s finished as far as I’m concerned.”
“You turn up to save my life every single time. You give me a crystal so I can protect myself. That’s more than anyone, including McGilus, has done for me. I can’t help but think I’ve grown on you a smidgeon.”
“Is that your opinion?”
“You tell me in your actions. Some day you may tell me in words.”
“You are right, I care for you. I don’t want to see you hurt, nor do I want to see you a servant of Scullion or McManus.”
“And that’s all?”
“As a vampire I can’t give you anymore.”
There was always that. “What about as a sorcerer?”
“Listen to the healers, okay. If they say give yourself more time to heal, then do it.”
He didn’t give me time to pull a face at his big brother antics before he left. I pushed back into my raised bed. This was how it would always be. There was no way around the reality. Attraction was not enough, perhaps even love would not be enough to outlast the truth. And did I want to condemn Luca to a relationship that would result in pain, result in him being left behind?
Amy always lifted my spirits. And I no longer felt any physical pain. It wouldn’t hurt for me to sneak off back to Nylph and let her know I was all right. She’d been banned from visiting me in medic, but I’m sure McGilus would’ve sent word to her. Still I wanted to see her and to lie in my own bed.
Bailey would dob me into Luca and McGilus, but by then I would likely be tucked up listening to Amy recount what had happened at the Draak party after I vanished from sight.
I slipped into my freshly laundered clothes, making sure to pocket the crystal Luca had given me and tip-toed out of the room.
I’d not made it far from medic when the mark tingled. It had never started so gentle before, but what had woken it? A spot of warmth heated the skin near my jeans pocket, and I pulled out the crystal and held it up. The center was glowing to life. Dammit, I didn’t want to waste Luca’s harnessed ability so shoved it back into my pocket, out of my hand, but the mark wouldn’t stop tingling.
This was a vast change from its usual assault of my body. Even so, the tingle ran throughout my body like fast spreading roots, taking over my arms and legs, moving along my torso further and further up to my chest.
It had to be the crystal. There was nothing in me that could feed it. It had to be Luca’s energy igniting its appetite.
Getting the crystal out of my hand made no difference to the feeling in my body. An urge had taken hold. Not to do something, but to go somewhere. I didn’t know where, but I was walking. And I had to get there, wherever there was, passed the hideous statues and quietened corridors because school had not yet begun. My steps quickened, and as they did the tingle throughout my body intensified. The urge consumed me. Soon I was jogging through parts of the academy I’d yet to go, around corners and down darkened passages, only to stop out the front of huge metal doors.
I stepped close and the hairs along my arms danced to attention. My body zinged with charge. The door was warded, I could sense the ripple, a powerful ward, the likes Luca could create. The energy reached across the short space between me and the doors when I held my hands up palms facing outward. This is what I craved, the need to feel the energy, the need to take it in and make it my own.
Slowly, I stepped forward and rested my hands on the metal. It came to me, all that glorious energy feeding into my body through the connection. The crystal heated to a burn, along with the mark, flaming up with excitement. That excitement became my own.
I inhaled, my chest expanding wide, then I shunted the energy outward with a huff. The doors flew backward, revealing a dark stairwell. For one moment the intense drive to be here ebbed. I blinked in confusion. What was I doing? All it took was a renewed wave of tingles from my thigh and I strode farther down the stairs into the darkness.
I pulled the crystal from my pocket and held it up for light as I descended. The green glow reflected off the walls and onto the steps in front of me. The dank air grew cold, the steps below my feet moist as were the walls where I placed my hand for support. The draw grew stronger, driving me downward. Despite the treacherous stairs, slimy in places, I picked up my pace, itching with the need to run. A heaviness blanketed my chest, weighted my lungs, making it hard for me to inhale enough air, but still I descended.
Down and down, seeming to the center of the earth before I stumbled onto the ground. This far down and the floor was nothing but rock, carved with rough tools such that the walls of the cavern were jagged and sharp and the floor uneven with juts and thin veining ridges, forcing me to slow my pace, even though everything inside urged me to run.
The cavern reached at least a story high. I could only see feet in front, but I knew where I was going. I could feel the power calling to me from across the darkness. As I neared, eyes fixed on the ground so I wouldn’t fall, my pulse ratcheted up, my limbs tremored, reacting to the throbbing energy in front of me, beating like a living heart.
The green glow fell on a door, rippling with a ribbon of white energy, which ran across the surface. When it did my whole body vibrated. As if beckoned, I stepped closer. The force of the power was such that I felt an invisible wall hover in front of the door, protecting the entrance.
A quake shook my body, a vibration hummed in my stomach, emanating from the mark, expanding wider and wider, coursing up my throat until I thought I would suffocate. I gulped and gasped a cry, scraping my arms through the air feeling like I had no control over them.
A sudden agony tore at my thigh. At the same time the crystal heated in my palm its strength such that it felt as though a hole had been burned right through. I fell forward, propelled by an invisible hand, punching through the shield and onto the door.
A great wail filled my ears, the energy coring me out as it passed down through my body to the mark. It took me seconds to realize the wailing was me. The channeling was driven by the mark as if it had a life and consciousness of its own, and I had become the medium through which it could work its magic. I was hopelessly stuck, my hands glued to the doors, while it felt as though all the spaces in my body were being filled with lava. My hands glowed, the crystal pressed against the door, burning so bright it had lost its green.
I couldn’t take anymore, but I was powerless to break free. Every hair on my body stood erect. I felt like I was about to explode.
Then finally, after the crescendo build, the energy vanished from within like it had been vacuumed out. I collapsed to the ground with the only thing keeping me standing now gone. I was lifeless, a rag doll unable to move any of my limbs when the giant doors exploded inward, blowing my eardrums. A great rush of air whooshed outward flattening me to the ground. I lay on my back. If I died right now there would finally be peace from the raging storms I’d faced over the last twenty-four hours. The green of the crystal, no longer in my hand died, but before it disappeared completely, I caught the swirl of a large black shadow swoop over me, bringing with it a darkness over my soul.
When the green light died for good, I was thrown into ink black. But as the black swallowed me the tightness and fear, which had spasmed my throat and constricted my lungs relented, then disappeared. I rolled to my side with a cry, coug
hing and gasping. The cold of the rock beneath me was the only thing that kept me conscious.
Blind to everything around me in the black of my surroundings, I sunk under the weight of what I had done.
I had just released the creature banished to the heart of Darkwells.
The evil at the heart of Darkwells is out
The curse is now fulfilled
Someone must pay with their life
Book 3
Death is Thy name
coming January
Author’s Note
You made it this far. Terrible things await Samara in book 3, Death is Thy name.
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About the Author
Abby James is an incurable romantic and a great adventurer.
Her list of loves is long. At the top is writing great romances, alongside reading great romances.
She hates the mundane, so finds herself creating fantasy worlds and heroes that are larger than life and far from normal.
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