Darkness Bound: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (The Witch's Rebels Book 2)

by Sarah Piper

  The effect was dizzying, no sense of up or down. It felt as if someone had dropped me into the void.

  In that dark, empty moment, words came to me unbidden, a thought that began not in my head but in my heart, taking root as the truth so often did—painfully at first, and then blooming into something so starkly beautiful it could no longer be denied.

  “We are, all of us, bound for darkness.”

  A thrill shot up my spine as I spoke the words out loud, and I shivered, feeling something deep inside me unfurl like a spring bud.

  “Do not fear the dark,” Liam said softly, his strange shadow-voice oddly comforting in the pitch black. “Fear a world in which there is only light whose radiance remains unknown, for one cannot truly exist in the absence of the other.”

  He was right, as always. I’d been struggling to accept this part of myself since it first began manifesting in the alley when I’d brought Bean back. Maybe even before that.

  The struggle itself was holding me back. Creating another layer of resistance between me and the pure source of my magic.

  “The darkness isn’t just a part of me, like some separate entity,” I said. “It is me.”

  “As is the light, and all the shades of gray that fall between.”

  “Shades of gray?” Smiling, I nudged his shoulder with mine. “Another joke?”

  “Of course not. A pun, perhaps, but not a joke.”

  I felt him shift before me, and then the light came back, all at once and overwhelming—stars, moon, and magic, flickering once again in my hands.

  I cupped my hands before me and blew, and the magic scattered, floating away like a child’s dandelion seed wishes.

  The ground rumbled, then shifted before us, the tangle of vines and brambles retreating to reveal a vast lake, black as night. Ripples cascaded across the surface.

  I gasped. “Where did that come from?”

  “The lake is your unconscious mind, and as such, will seek to give you clarity on that which you know to be true in the depths of your soul.”

  “It’s… it’s breathtaking.”

  The lake stilled, it’s surface turning glassy, mirroring the stars so clearly it was difficult to tell where the sky ended and the water began. I was mesmerized, compelled to walk down off the rise and kneel at the water’s edge.

  Liam didn’t follow, but I didn’t need him to. This was my place; I wasn’t afraid.

  I peered into the dark water, and peace settled over me, everything inside going calm and silent. Reflected in the lake’s obsidian surface, the stars began to swirl, winking out one at a time until there was nothing but blackness.

  A shape appeared in the water, unrecognizable at first, then slowly coming into focus.

  A face, with haunted blue eyes framed by dark, unruly curls…

  “Reva!” I gasped, reaching for her. But the instant my fingers touched the cool water, the image of her face shattered, reforming in the shape of a shadow so dark and dense it swallowed up the stars.

  Terror gripped my heart and I froze, but a strange, inexplicable compulsion urged me to step into the water. To feel it. To feel him.

  Jonathan…

  The name slithered into my ear, and my senses were suddenly flooded with him: His scent, like fresh-cut grass and sweat. His red hair, coarse and wavy, stiff to the touch from the gel he used to like. His voice, older now, menacing and full of hatred.

  He wasn’t in the water—not physically— but I could feel him all around me, threatening me. Taunting me.

  I’m waiting for you, Rayanne…

  The water turned as thick and heavy as tar, sucking me in deeper, dragging me down. It swallowed my legs, making it impossible to move. My chest, crushing the air from my lungs. My shoulders. My neck. My chin.

  I opened my mouth to scream for Liam, but no sound came. Only Jonathan, shouting in my head.

  You belong to me, Rayanne…

  I took a final deep breath and held it as the lake surged, sucking me under, dragging me down to the depths.

  When I find you, I will burn you…

  I struggled to break free, legs scissoring through the viscous black water, my fingers reaching for the moonlight that still glimmered on the surface. Raw, hot fear threatened to eat away my insides, but I had to stay calm. To find a way out of this.

  I didn’t know how it was possible, but Jonathan was here. Changing the landscape of my magical realm. Turning it against me.

  If I didn’t breach the surface, I was going to die.

  Still holding my breath, I forced myself to relax. I pictured my blue-green flame again, imagining it surging up inside me, then radiating outward, encasing me in a bubble of warm, pure light that lifted me up from the depths.

  My body began to rise, slowly at first, then faster, the water thinning, the moon and stars becoming visible overhead.

  Your friends will die, Jonathan’s voice warned. You’re fighting me, and you’re leaving me no choice.

  My heart skipped, but I pushed the fear aside again, still concentrating on the magic. I couldn’t falter, couldn’t lose my focus, or it would be over.

  The little one will break first…

  I punched through the surface of the lake just as his final words echoed, and I gasped for air, sucking in big gulps, spitting black water from my mouth as the sky began to spin, the world collapsing in on me from all sides…

  Twelve

  LIAM

  I shattered into billions of tiny particles no more significant in size than atoms, exploding first, then reassembling in a violent collision that knocked me back to the earthly plane.

  Gray had somehow expelled me. Whether she’d done it intentionally was another matter, but it was the only explanation for my current predicament.

  I found myself deposited rather roughly into the woods that bordered the property of her current home. In the clearing where we’d begun today’s lesson, Gray sat in the lotus position undisturbed, her eyes closed, her body deathly still.

  Her shield encased her in an iridescent dome, impenetrable to all, including the angry incubus presently hammering it with his fists.

  I shifted into my human form and approached silently, but he must have sensed my presence, for when he rounded on me, his eyes were already black with demon rage.

  “Do something,” he demanded.

  “There’s nothing I can do until she returns.”

  “Returns from where?”

  “She’s in her realm. I assure you, she’s perfectly safe.” At least, I hoped that was the case. The fact that I’d been expelled didn’t bode all that well.

  “And you’re creeping out of the woods looking like warmed-up shit with a hangover, so forgive me if I don’t take your word for it.”

  “Death neither forgives nor—”

  “Colebrook?” He stepped closer, sucking all of the oxygen from the air. “I’m only gonna say this once. Shut your damn death hole, zoom back into outer space, and bring her back to me. She’s been zoned out in there for two hours already.”

  “Gray’s magical realm is not located in outer space, demon, but inner space,” I said. “Retrieving her is not that simple.”

  “Why?”

  “Time and space work differently there. It’s not a simple matter of packing a suitcase and catching an airplane, or—as you say—zooming.”

  I hoped the partial explanation would be enough. Lingering on the earthly plane in human form was foolhardy enough; traveling back and forth now would severely weaken me in ways that could have a ripple effect on the entire cosmos. After Gray’s interference with the natural fabric last night—the overdose of necromantic magic she’d called forth—I couldn’t take that risk.

  Not even for the Shadowborn herself.

  “The shield protects her,” I said, calm and cool in the face of the demon’s fire despite my own very real concerns. “We’ll simply have to wait.”

  He glared at me, but finally relented, returning his attention to Gray. Pressing a hand f
lat against the dome, he said, “So why aren’t you with her? I thought you two were working together today.”

  “We were.”

  “And?”

  “And now we’re not.”

  “What happened?”

  I drew myself up to my full height, looking down upon him as best I could manage given the fact that Liam Colebrook was scarcely more than an inch taller than the incubus. “Death explains himself to no one, hellspawn. I am beyond comprehension, vaster than the sky, older than the sea, more infinite than—”

  “Can Death die?” he asked, then grinned. “I’ve always wondered how that would work.”

  I released a breath, shrinking beneath his unwavering glare. “One moment I was by her side in the realm. The next, I was hurtling through stardust and galaxies and… In any case, I arrived in the woods through no action of my own.”

  “And you don’t know how that happened?”

  “I do not.”

  Fortunately, Gray’s shield vanished, interrupting what could’ve become quite an ugly conversation.

  “Gray!” The incubus dropped to his knees, taking her face between his hands. His eyes were frantic with worry, but they’d returned to their natural color.

  “Asher?” She blinked at him, slowly coming back to us. “I was… I ended up in the lake, and I…” Her gaze shifted to me, her brows drawn tight together. “What happened? Where did you go?”

  “There’s a lake?” the incubus asked.

  “I was… called away,” I said. “Tell me what happened at the lake.”

  “I thought I was scrying again,” she said. “Reva was there, just like in the fire. I tried to reach out to her, but as soon as I touched the water, it was like something just… I don’t know. Sucked me in.”

  “Did you fall?” I asked.

  She closed her eyes, shaking her head. In a pained whisper, she said, “I thought he was going to kill me.”

  “Who?” the incubus demanded.

  “The… the hunter. He was there.” She wrapped herself in a hug, her body trembling at the memory.

  “Did he take physical form?” I asked.

  She shook her head, and I sighed with relief.

  “But he was still there,” she said, blinking up at me once again. “Like a shadow almost, but… different. It reminded me of an oil slick, actually. Dark like that—like you could tell it wasn’t part of the water.”

  “And you’re certain it was him?”

  “I heard his voice in my head. I felt him, all around me. It was like he could see me—like he knew I was there. He told me he’d been waiting for me. That he was going to kill the others. That…” Her eyes widened. “Oh, God. Reva. He said… he said the little one would break first.”

  The incubus brushed her tears away with his knuckles. “We’ll find him. We’ll destroy him. He’s just taunting you, Gray.”

  “No, it was more than that. He… he did something to me.” She got to her feet and began to pace. “The water got heavier. Thick. He was saying that stuff inside my head, and somehow, he kept pulling me down. I couldn’t get free—it felt like trying to swim in cement.”

  “And then he let you go?” I asked.

  Gray pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, shaking her head. “I used my magic. When I finally got to the surface, everything started spinning, and then I ended up back here.”

  “So the hunter’s turning your own realm against you?” the demon asked. “How the fuck does that even happen?”

  “For him to access her realm at all,” I said, “he must have a deeply personal connection to her. As for effecting physical changes there and holding her against her will…” My mind whirled with the possibilities, but each one came to a dead end. I’d never heard of such a thing happening among any of my Shadowborn.

  “Sorry, but those are some bullshit rules,” the demon said. “This guy’s old man kills her mother, and now he can just, what? Take the reins in Gray’s realm?”

  “That’s… not the kind of connection we’re talking about.” I looked at Gray, wondering if she might elaborate. She looked supremely uncomfortable.

  I wished I could’ve made this easier on her, to say the words she was so struggling with, but hers was not my story to tell.

  “I… need a minute.” Gray turned her back on us and slipped deeper into the woods, where she sat down at the base of a large oak tree.

  Silence descended upon us like a yoke.

  When Gray finally returned, her eyes were red, her skin pale.

  “Jonathan Reese,” she finally said, her voice no more than a whisper. “At least, that was the name he’d gone by in high school. He was my… my first.”

  “First what?” the incubus asked, though I suspected he’d already put the pieces together. “Who was this guy to you, Gray?”

  Gray met his eyes, her own brimming with secrets she never should’ve had to carry.

  “Everything, Ash,” she said, her pale cheeks darkening with shame. “He was my first everything.”

  He opened his mouth, then closed it, falling silent once again.

  “I didn’t know who he really was back then,” she said. “We were kids. I’d never met his family, and we’d never talked about witchcraft or magic or any of the things that existed in my world. As far as I knew, he was just a typical boy. I mean, he was into video games and dodgeball and building forts in the woods. I never would’ve thought…” She shook her head, as if to clear the memories.

  “You have nothing to be ashamed of, Gray,” I assured her.

  “I have everything to be ashamed of.”

  Her incubus finally put a hand on her shoulder, his thumb touching the side of her neck. The barest brush of his skin seemed to calm her, and I felt a strange sensation in my chest—a pinching, electric burn that followed a path down into my stomach, where it pooled uncomfortably.

  “It’s not just the connection, though, right?” Gray asked. “He also needs something physical from me, like my hair.”

  “And some skill with magical workings,” I said, “regardless of his own lack of power.”

  The demon sighed. “He must’ve taken something from her house when he… The night…”

  He left his thoughts unsaid, which was probably for the best. It’s not as if Gray could ever forget that the hunter stalking her in her realm was the same man who’d murdered her best friend in their home.

  “But I still don’t understand how he even knows my realm exists,” Gray said. “I never even told him I was a witch. I mean, he found out, obviously. I just can’t figure out how. I’ve never been able to figure that out. No one at school knew—not even my closest girlfriends. Calla was always really strict about that.”

  “I wish I had an answer for you, Gray,” I said.

  The breeze picked up, making her shiver. The incubus put his arm around her, rubbing away the chill.

  “My plan for all this was to use my magic as bait,” Gray said. “To lure him out of hiding so we could eventually catch him. But all that was supposed to happen here, in the real world. Not in my realm.” Her eyes drifted to some faraway place, and she shivered again. “He must’ve been the presence we felt that time, remember? The one the hellhounds were supposedly protecting me from.”

  “That is my understanding now as well,” I said.

  “So how do we make sure this asshole doesn’t get his hands on her in her realm?” the incubus asked. “We can’t bring the hounds back in. They’re too unpredictable—they could end up killing her.”

  “I’m aware,” I said.

  “You’re aware? Oh, good! I’m sure we can all rest real easy now.”

  “Your anger is not helping,” I said.

  “It’s better than—”

  “Please,” Gray whispered. “Stop arguing.” She dropped to her knees, her strength finally giving out. “He’s always a step ahead of us. He’s got Reva and Haley, he’s accessing my realm… Can’t we ever catch a break?”

  I thought the demon m
ight offer her comfort again. But rather than sharing a kind word or a reassuring touch, he grabbed her by the elbows and hauled her back up.

  “Walk it off, Cupcake,” he demanded, new fire burning in his eyes. “It’s only the first day of training. You can’t fall apart on us now.”

  For reasons I couldn’t comprehend, she often seemed to find the demon’s brutish behavior endearing, and I waited for her smile to appear at this latest display.

  But she merely shook her head.

  “I mean it, Gray,” he said. “Pull it together.”

  “Is that really necessary?” I asked. “She’s been through—”

  “Take a hike, Spooky,” he said. “Amateur hour is over.”

  Gray sighed. “He’s not going anywhere, Ash. He’s still teaching me about my powers.”

  “Well, given how that turned out, I figured I’d teach you how to kick some ass instead.” The demon grinned, a look as frightening and feral as the ancient pit from whence his ancestors came. “Starting with mine.”

  Thirteen

  GRAY

  “Again.”

  Asher locked his hands behind his back and closed his eyes, waiting for my epic smackdown to resume.

  “This is pointless, Ash. I’m no match for you.”

  “You’re right. You’re no match for me or any other supernatural. Vampires and shifters are faster, stronger, and more agile than you could ever hope to be. Fae are master manipulators. And demons… Well.” Asher grinned, enjoying this way more than I was. “We’re just trouble any way you slice it.”

  “Then why are we wasting our time?”

  “Listen.” His smile dropped. “You’ve got innate magic, Gray. A lot of it. Once you learn to channel it properly, it’ll make you stronger and faster. Add a few solid fighting techniques into the mix, and next time you’re backed into a corner, you might have half a chance at getting out.”

  “Half? Not sure I like those odds.”

  “Half is better than zilch. Reading lore books and sparring with Ronan isn’t enough. Not anymore.” He gestured for me to come at him again. “Let’s go.”