Darker Side of Worlds (Guardians Book 2) (The Guardians Series)

by Lexi Ostrow

  Dale could feel every muscle in his body twitching. More from the overwhelming desire to press Breena into her bed and make love to her again than the growing agitation over what he was about to do.

  The power Breena held was lethal, he knew as much from the books. She could gain access into someone’s brain waves while they slept and manipulate them so that they drained, rather than rejuvenated. As he’d been reading, he’d found the idea extremely seductive. He was stronger than before, but he’d seen Stryder in the end. He was absolutely not a physical match for the Horesman, and the idea that he’d be going up against men and women possibly that big and certainly as powerful, made him nervous. Not all the power in the world would be enough if they met on some anti-magic field, that was a possibility, everything was a possibility.

  His eyes shifted over to look at her. She looked perfectly at ease, lying on her stomach with her feet bobbing back and forth in the air. For the first time, she looked almost innocent as if he could see through the warrior she was trained to be. But then his mind flashed back to how quickly she had murdered the Initiative members who had come that first day, and all he saw was the warrior again.

  “I can feel you staring at me, Dale.” She didn’t even bother to look up at him as she said it.

  “Sorry, I just can’t seem to figure this out.”

  She did sit up on her elbows and cock her head at him then.

  “This thing between us. What Ciara had with her Guardian was soul deep. We don’t have that, one of us would have to know. But I feel like I want to be with you, to protect you. I know I shouldn’t, I know I should be fighting against it, but aside from that day you first stepped through the doorway, I haven’t truly seen anything that makes me think you belong to Leather Jacket’s side of the war.”

  She swallowed hard, and he wondered what secrets of her own she was hiding. They hadn’t talked much, and when they had, she’d steered the conversation toward him and their relationship.

  Could she be hiding something large enough to ruin us?

  “I don’t think there’s any answer for that, Dale, but thank you. I don’t know what I feel for you. I don’t think it’s just a connection though. We’re too alike, whether you want to admit it or not. We have similar experiences, similar goals.”

  Her words pissed him off, not because she said them, but because she was right. He’d been wrestling with that small fact since the beginning. The week that he’d left the book alone had been the hardest week of his life, even harder than the reality of losing Nessa.

  He knew what called him to her, it was their similarities. It was the things they shared that were too dark to ever be able to share with a Guardian that would fight for the side he believed was the side of good. And it had scared the shit out of him because that knowledge had only made him doubt himself more. He was pretending to be someone he wasn’t, or at least it felt like it when he thought how much he had in common with Breena and the simple fact that Leather Jacket had sent her, claimed her.

  “You’re not listening to me. Human men are not different,” Breena spat at him.

  He laughed. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly with a smile.

  “No, you’re not, but whatever.”

  She pushed up off the bed, and he couldn’t help but watch the muscles in her torso ripple.

  “Someone is asleep nearby. I can sense it. Close your eyes, focus on the energy around you, tell me if you feel one that seems almost, well, groggy.”

  He wanted to point out that he had no fucking clue what energy felt like. Instead, he closed his eyes. He felt absolutely nothing, except the sexual tension in the room as Breena shifted the weight on the bed by scooting toward him.

  “Do you feel me? Not physically, but in your space, can you sense me?”

  There was a faint crackling around him, but not an audible one, more like what the electricity felt like as it ran through him during an attack. “Yes.”

  “Good, now remember what that feels like, open your mind as best as you can and feel around for more patterns like that.”

  He popped open an eye, saw how dangerously close to him she was and licked his lips, suddenly feeling parched. “You do realize I’m human, that’s outside my abilities.”

  She smacked him upside the head, and he jolted.

  “You do realize that you control the elements and can walk in fictional made up worlds? Come on, Dale, seriously. If I can do it, and you get my powers, then you can.”

  It was his turn to flush. The thought hadn’t even occurred to him. He took a deep breath in through his nose and closed his eye again. Instantly, the waves of energy patterns slammed into him.

  “Holy shit!”

  Breena chuckled. “I think he’s got it.”

  He ignored her laugh and continued searching through the crackling waves he could feel. He had no idea where his brain was wandering, as he’d never seen the castle himself, but he suddenly felt one that was much quieter than the rest. It didn’t crackle and jump at him. Instead, it was almost lethargic, calm.

  “I, I think I’ve got it, Breena.”

  “Good, now it’s simple, you focus on the energy. Focus on gently plucking it away like a thread or a blade of grass.”

  “Are you doing this with me?”

  “Heavens no! It would kill the sleeping woman instantly if we both did it.”

  He blanched. This isn’t right, it’s too dangerous! Dale, back out. He didn’t listen to himself. Instead, he found the little jagged strings of energy and imagined his hand gently pulling one away. The instant he did, he felt a jolt of energy slam into him. His whole body felt alive, singing and bursting with a freshness he hadn’t ever felt before. It was nice. It was addicting.

  “That’s good, Dale. You’re doing it! Be careful, don’t take too much. It will make you stronger as it makes them weaker. It’s great for your enemies, but, in this case, just take a strand or two more. I don’t need you holding this over my head, since I can’t control what you choose to do.”

  Her words from before screamed in his mind. ‘I can’t control what you choose to do.’ She was right, he needed to be careful, but he wasn’t able to keep hold of that thought as he gently stripped away a second and a third string of energy. His body was pulsing with energy. He literally felt as if he could jump up and run a mile. Every fiber of his being knew he had enough energy to last him days, enough to take down any foe that came his way. But it didn’t hit the rational part of his mind that should have told him to stop. There were still three threads of light beaming at him off whomever he was touching with his mind. Dale wanted those three strands, they were his to have. He’d never felt so alive, and nothing was going to take that feeling from him.

  With great caution, he reached out with his mental hand, and it hovered just above the strands. Breena hadn’t said how many he could take, or even how much would kill her. He felt the fire and electricity that sat deep inside him warring to get out, and as he pulled a fourth string, a shriek came slamming down the halls of the castle.

  His eyes slammed open as he felt Breena jump off the bed. Her ombre hair swished behind her as she bolted out of the room. His heart was pounding in his chest so hard he thought it would burst free from all the extra energy in it, and his body twitched. He felt as if his skin was crawling, and all he wanted to do was expel it. He would damage her room, he had to contain it until he could leave, but he didn’t think he had too much longer.

  Breena came flying back into her room as quickly as she’d left, a horrified look on her face. Suddenly, despite all the energy in his body, he felt drained, sick and already aware of what she was going to tell him.

  “Dale, you killed her. You took too much.”

  Breena’s face was a mask of horror and her voice trembled, but he could tell there was no judgment in her tone. There was plenty in his own.

  “How could you have sent me to do that without telling me how much was too much? I’m not fucking you. I don’t inherently know these th
ings!” His voice was at fever pitch, and it wasn’t until his hands were around her throat that his brain computed what he was doing.

  Breena wasn’t struggling against him, or if she was, it was useless against the extra strength he had. Dale pulled his hands off her neck as if she’d burned him, his eyes stared down at them, and they were trembling.

  “No. Just no. I almost fucking killed you, Breena! I did kill her!” Shit, shit, shit. It was a mantra in his head as he jerked his eyes to her face.

  Tears dotted her lashes, and he knew it was from his verbal assault.

  “This is exactly what I was afraid of happening, Breena! Why couldn’t you just have listened to me when I warned you I liked power! The darkness is a part of me Breena, and I let you fucking tempt me with more.”

  Rage rippled through his body and coupled with the energy he had stolen. The doorway to just inside his condo ripped open so quickly he worried it would keep growing and consume the world.

  “Dale, Dale wait. Please!”

  Breena’s hand touched his forearm, and he thought about the fire as he ignited it across his arm.

  She screamed and pulled away as he ran toward the door. It was too much. He had known better, he’d known this wouldn’t work, and he’d been too power hungry to stop it. He raced through the doorway, and as quickly as he’d forced it open, he tried to slam it shut. Ciara had never told him how, and he cursed as Breena began to run toward it. His eyes slammed shut, and he pictured the doorway slamming closed. When he opened them, it was closed.

  Dale’s body gave out from under him, and he hit the carpeted floor in front of the physical door. His body heaved, and he wretched, but he couldn’t get the feeling out of his system. He’d just killed someone, and all he could think about was how damned good all the energy coursing through him had felt.

  Chapter Twelve

  Eldan turned the corner and saw his daughter staring at the ground in the hall long before he had felt her. He’d known for the past several hours that she had managed to bring Dale to their home. He had chosen to assume she was working on convincing him to help, but the sharp sting of pain he felt radiating off of her indicated something entirely different.

  He was torn. On one hand, he was the king, and he could sense her failure as strongly as the death of the sprite two floors above. However, as her father, he wanted to see that she was alright. Duty won out, as it always did.

  “Is he gone then?”

  Breena turned her head toward him. Tears shimmed in her eyes, highlighting the flecks of dark green and purple in the brown depths. She was chewing on her lower lip, and a tear slipped down while she nodded her head. “I’m sorry, Father, I thought, I thought—”

  A sob wracked through her body and he let himself be her father, just for a moment. Gently, he ran his hand down her back and focused on grounding her. She knew how to do it herself, but Breena had never been very wise about not letting her emotions control her. She was always rash and often dangerous, but rarely did his daughter cry.

  After a few moments, her shoulders didn’t heave as hard and her sobs quieted down. No one had walked near them during the ordeal, and he assumed it was because Breena had never broken down a day in her life. They probably feared how fierce her reaction to the collapse would be. Convinced that she was ready to report like a warrior, he removed his hand from her body.

  “Will he back?”

  He saw his daughter’s nostrils flare and watched as she sucked in a lungful of air. His own hands clenched as anger ran its course throughout his body.

  “I don’t believe so.”

  He narrowed his deep blue gaze on her, and the ground began to shake. As an elementalist, when he grew emotional, his powers manifested in a way that even as king, he couldn’t stop. News of the death had spread quickly though the castle and those that it had woken were milling about and shrieked as the floor trembled.

  “Father! Father, stop this now!” Breena shouted as a whirl storm of air whipped around her. Her hair flicked around her head, the lighter tips slashing across her cheeks as it did so.

  Eldan shook his head, and the created wind grabbed Breena and threw her at the wall before dying down as suddenly as it had begun. He shook at what he’d done, he had rarely struck his children, but her failure had set him off. It hadn’t truly been his fault. Cautiously, he walked over to where she lay curled in a ball on the floor.

  “Get him back, Breena. You had your chance to compel him. I’ve been made an offer by Leather Jacket myself. Bring Dale back and lock him up, or I will make a move to follow up on the offer I was given. I will have that Word Speaker to end our clan’s war, with or without your help. You have never failed me before, and I will give you a chance to bring him back.”

  Eldan turned, his cape swishing as he did, and her words turned his blood cold.

  “I will not, Father. Dale shouldn’t be here. He killed Destinia, it was him, playing with my powers. He has no control over his lust for power. And neither do you.”

  He turned back to see his daughter had risen and was standing in a battle crouch with her daggers both drawn and trained on him.

  “Very well, Daughter, if that is how you wish it to be,” his voice was utterly neutral as he took out his own dagger and sent it sailing toward her.

  Her cry was sharp as the dagger pierced clean into her shoulder, pinning her into the wall from the gale force speed his powers had given it. He walked, his steps heaving and booming in the halls.

  “You will do as you are commanded.” His hand struck her across the face then. The sound caused him to flinch, even though she made no noise. He had never struck his children before.

  She stared at him with tears in her eyes, but her mouth pressed into a firm line. He would have missed the slight tremble of her lips had he not been so close to her. She was holding her breath, her chest didn’t rise and fall, and he snarled as he tore the dagger from her shoulder.

  Breena’s cry echoed as it had when the dagger had pierced her the first time. He watched as blood flowed steadily from the wound, and she immediately slammed her hand over it.

  “Go to a healer, tell them to remove any chance of scaring and then find a way to get that human back here. Go to Cassandra and have her craft a love potion if blind obedience is the only way. I will have him here, and you will go and get him because, if my men are the ones to do it, I can’t ensure they won’t rough him up simply for being a human.”

  Breena said nothing, just stood with her shoulders hunched inward and her hand covering the flow of blood down her arm.

  “Daughter, go, now.”

  She blinked then, her eyes twitched in rapid succession before her upper lip pulled back in a snarl. She thought better of crossing him, despite the fire shining in her eyes behind the tears. Her head inclined sharply, and she turned to walk toward the healers’ level.

  Eldan sucked in a deep breath through his nose as he bit down on his lower lip. The war was turning them all into things they didn’t want to be. Breena should have already learned that lesson, but perhaps the way they both guarded Megara from the darkness had given her a false hope that she could be different.

  His eye caught one of the harem girls and his whole body tightened. Anger did that to him sometimes, but seeing the sprite so close to him, wearing nothing but a golden chain around her waist, sent his lust reeling. Eldan curled a finger in her direction and a smile spread over her lips.

  “I don’t believe you’ve ever shown me why you’re in my personal harem. I think the time has come for that.”

  Thoughts of his daughter and of the war melted away as the dark haired sprite sashayed up to him and trailed her hand over his muscular chest. Some nights, it was good to be king.

  When this was all over, he would send his best men to through the doorway next time it opened. He’d been told he could do such things, and he couldn’t rely on Breena to bring Dale down any longer.

  Dale’s whole body was shaking. He’d stood under the burn
ing water for so long it was hardly even lukewarm, but his body hadn’t stopped trembling. The energy was jumping around inside so quickly, he felt as if he would be physically sick, but nothing had happened. His head pounded with every second that he didn’t expel the power. Fear had kept him on the brink of control. The shower had always helped ease his rage in the past, but the anger at himself was still constricting around his body, warring with the energy within, daring it to come out.

  He tilted his head back and leaned it into the heated tile wall. Dale sucked in as much air as he could and released it slowly, choking as some of the water spray got into his mouth. As he sputtered, he pulled off the wall and slammed his palm into the one opposite, to balance himself before he fell over.

  “This isn’t working.” His teeth were still grinding together as he spoke and the action caused a pain to shoot in his head.

  Dale squeezed his eyes tightly closed and tried to focus on anything but the crackling of energy coming from his neighbors. Breena’s power was intoxicating, and he had no fucking clue if there was a way to turn off. He couldn’t go back to her, not now, possibly not ever. He had to try and get rid of what powers she’d given to him. He might not be able to harm anyone in the real world, but there was no telling if he would seek another world out to feel the rush of power again.

  The image of her cheeks turning white as he choked the life from her flashed in his mind. Dale screamed, and his eyes flew open. He knew the image would haunt him, killing an innocent had been bad enough, but attacking Breena was the part that he was most afraid of. He felt something for Breena, something soul deep. Every time he was near her, he wanted to protect her, to learn about her and to help her in any way he could. However, he hadn’t hesitated to put his hands on her.

  That terrified him.

  Tears slipped down his cheeks, and his mouth parted in a surprised gasp. He cried often, every time he’d been attacked as kid or thought about his dad leaving actually. But he hadn’t even realized the tears were falling, the water from the shower had covered them. His body was still trembling with power, and he couldn’t even feel the cold since he’d stepped out from under the water. He could feel the wetness of the tears on his slightly drying cheeks though.