by Ivy Carter
My magic is back. I feel full to the brim with power, almost completely back to normal. I snap my fingers. My magic cleans and clothes me in something that isn’t covered in blood. At the same time, my magic diapers and clothes the little one in my arms. I snap my fingers again, wishing for a blanket to wrap around her.
As I am wrapping the new purple blanket around her, I notice that there is a sharp intelligence in her flashing green eyes. I lock eyes with her and she suddenly smiles. A smile that should be months off. A smile that is accompanied by an airy, delightful giggle. She reaches up and grasps two fistfuls of my hair and pulls. Everything around me seems to fade out as I concentrate on her beautiful features.
Raven.
The names suddenly comes to me, it just feels right.
Raven.
“Hello little Raven.” I smile and coo at her. A deep sense of love and devotion fills me. And I know one thing for certain, I would burn the world to keep this little one with me and safe.
I don’t know how long I sit in the silence that surrounds me and ignore everything but her. When strong familiar arms wrap around me from behind, I look over my shoulder and see the amazed look that Tristan is wearing as he stares down at little Raven. She is smiling and gurgling at his shock-widened eyes.
“You are okay?” I whisper, still looking at Tristan over my shoulder.
“Yes. Perfectly okay.” He smiles. “And who is this little one?” He asks me as Raven grasps one of his fingers when they come within inches of her face.
“I don’t know how it happened. I woke up in a dark cell and I was heavily pregnant.” I shake my head and give a little laugh. “It was the weirdest thing in the world. I thought when she stabbed me I was going to die, but then I wake up in that damp, dank place with life moving inside of me.” Tristan holds me tighter to him as he feels me shudder when I think about that dark pit.
I turn my head and stare at the warriors that helped fight against their master to save us. They betrayed him and now they look as if they have each become their own person. Tristan looks to see what I am looking at and I feel him stiffen behind me. I clutch Raven closer to my chest and use my free hand to grasp his wrist.
“Don’t hurt them.” I whisper under my breath. “They betrayed him to help us. They were fighting their friends while you fought off the Shadow Master.” Tristan is still stiff behind me, but I feel him loosen his hold on his death magic. I don’t even know if he felt himself bring it to the surface or not. The black mist that had been leaking out of him, starting to surround us, fades away…
I turn my head to look at the strange girl with the fire-red hair, then take in the Shadow Warriors… “Who are you?” My voice is laced with magic, compelling those that aren’t known to me to obey. I don’t know who is friend or foe and we are surrounded. “And can someone please tell me where the fuck we are?”
Chapter 10.
Ella
Tristan lets go of me and moves to my side. I look around again and notice how different this place is from the shadow realm. Everything is green and bright. Almost too bright. It looks like something out of a fairytale. Everything is flowers and green plants. There isn’t even a spare patch of dirt showing through the green grass under my feet.
I link my free hand with Tristan’s, our fingers threading together tightly. Once I feel his skin, everything in the world feels right in the world. It is such a shock to my system that I jump a little. I feel my eyes widen and wonder what is going on. I trace the feeling with my mind and I find a connection, almost like a path that connects Tristan to me.
I see the path that connects me to Jaxx, but this one is completely different. Tristan’s connection to me is thick and bright, new and shiny. I am almost saddened when I feel and see that my connection to Jaxx looks like it has been eaten away by something dark… and hateful. It’s a ragged and dirty thing. Looking at it with my inner self makes me want to rip it away. To get this dirty, foreign thing out of me.
So that is what I do, I thrust my magic at it and obliterate the foreign strand of magic that connects me to the boy/man that I thought was my Fated. But I now know that it wasn’t a true connection between us at all. It was trick, a spell that bound us together.
The feelings that I have for Tristan are strong and true, not ugly and complicated like the ones I had for Jaxx. Who would do something like that? Who would want me to be connected to someone with a fake bond, and why?
Just one more question in the never-ending list of shit that I don’t know and have no way of understanding.
This realization and me destroying the bond I had with Jaxx takes no more than a split second. I come to myself again and notice that Tristan is once more glowing black with sparkles and mists that are starting to wrap around me and Raven as well. The shadow warriors (note to self… they need to tell me their names) are tense and reaching for their weapons, starting to surround the red-haired girl once more. They’re moving silently across the vividly bright foliage on stealth feet.
“Freeze!” I snap out. No one moves a muscle. Tristan looks at me with a smile in his eyes and a smirk on his amazing mouth. I shake myself and realize that this isn’t exactly the moment to be getting all tingly over Tristan’s mouth…
“Don’t attack her again.” I shout at the wierdos in front of me. “I don’t think that she means us harm or she would have killed me when the baby was making its way out of my stomach.” I tighten my hold on the baby. Holding her closer to my body so that I can smell her unique scent and know that she is okay.
I look at the girl standing tensely facing off the ten huge men. What makes me start is the fact that her arms are covered in dense black fur, her long fingers are tipped with wicked looking claws, and there is red and black smoke swirling around her feet. I shrug it off, chock it up to her being completely kick ass, and yell to her.
“So Red, you got a name?” I smirk at her when she turns bright blue eyes toward me. Her eyebrows arch and she smiles at me. A full-blown, gorgeous, in your face smile. And that is when I realize that she is stunning.
I catch one of the boys stepping toward the woman as if he can’t help himself. His face is blank and he seems enraptured with her. I snap my fingers once more and freeze him on the spot.
“Red will do, my lady.” She drops down to her knees. I take a step back, not understanding why she is kneeling. Red peeks up at me through her hair and smiles once more. Oookay. Whatever.
“What are we going to do with our guests?” I ask, turning toward Tristan.
He is staring at the girl kneeling at our feet with a look of concentration on his face. Like he is trying to place her and can’t seem to remember where he has seen her before. My question jerks him out of his inner thoughts. He smirks at me before turning toward the new men that still surround us.
“Lady, if I may? You asked if someone could tell you where we are?” Red is once again looking at me while kneeling at my feet. Before I can tell her to get up, that she is weirding me the fuck out… she starts to talk once more.
“You are beyond the barrier that protects the Isle of Mann from outsiders.” I am racking my brain, trying to place that name… “You shouldn’t have been able to break through my master’s barrier.” She continues, shaking her head as if I am a marvelous mystery to her. “You are in Dark Lands, my lady. My master sent me out to investigate the disturbance and I found all of you here, on this side of the barrier.”
Looking around me once more, I do realize why someone would want to hide this place away from the world. I get that. What I don’t get is why she keeps calling someone else her master, as if she is their property.
It is pissing me off. Stirring an anger inside me that I just can’t stamp down. My fingers start to sparkle bright green, making Raven giggle and try to swat at the magic.
Chapter 11.
Red
Looking up into the face of the being above me, I must swallow at the power flowing off and around her. The earth is wet and spongey und
er my knees and I dig my nails into the leaves, praying for calm. I want to run and hide from the fury burning in her eyes. I don’t know what I have done to anger her, but I don’t want to be here this close to her if she decides to punish me for my trespass.
She releases the hand of the man standing beside her and waves her hand at me to rise out of my crouch. I must lock my knees. They are shaking so hard. I need to lock them so that I can stand upright.
Keeping my eyes lowered, I slowly rise from my position on the ground, shaking out my hands to remove the dirt and leaves stuck to my palms. I am mute. I don’t know what to say to her to make her anger go away.
“Hun, it’s okay. I am not angry at you. But what in the blue hell did you mean by ‘masters’?” She asks me, still clutching the newly born child to her chest.
Her mate looks at me as if he knows me. Searching my face for some clue. His dark eyes flash and I feel as if I know him. Like I should remember something… But then the feeling vanishes as if it never was.
I try to speak, but the man standing next to my lady speaks out before I have the chance.
“Let’s make camp first, then we can get the answers that we need.” He tries to smile at me but I am instantly afraid. I want to fold into myself for feeling this way. As if this fear isn’t something that comes naturally to me. “I can’t, I have to return to my masters or they will punish me severely for dallying.”
I gulp, fighting the compulsion that makes me want to run back to the black as night castle sitting in the cliffs to the west of here. Where my master and his Lady wait for me to return with news of the disturbance that they felt.
This Lady snaps her fingers and I am amazed as I look around me. A second ago we were standing in a small clearing and now we are surrounded by fabric tents, placed around a roaring campfire. There are chairs sitting around the fire, chairs of all colors unlike any I have ever seen before. I can feel my eyes widen at the amount of power this Lady has inside of her. I have never felt anything as powerful as her. Not the man standing next to her, and not even my Master or his Lady.
I smile shyly at the Lady before I walk past the frozen men and sit in one of the seats near the fire. I hear laughing and smile again.
The lady and her mate follow and seat themselves around the fire next to me. Then the questions begin.
“So, we are in the Dark Lands? This is a magically hidden area that your masters control?” I nod at the Lady and smile at the baby in her arms when I realize that the infant’s eyes are locked with my own.
I feel a pulling sensation inside my head. It starts off as a small tugging, then a burning inferno erupts inside my head. I scream before falling out of my chair and hitting the ground. Hard.
I hear a commotion around me. Loud yelling and the shuffling of feet running toward me. But all I can concentrate on is the fire raging inside my mind.
For endless moments, I feel as if I am burning alive. Tossing and turning on the ground, screaming for relief that doesn’t seem to come. Then the haze and heat lift and I can remember.
I remember that my name is Talia. That I am a shifter with shadow magic. I remember that I am a prisoner in this place, controlled by the Dark Master and his Lady. Punished for their enjoyment. Made to live as a lesser thing, because they think it is funny to demean me.
My eyes widen as I remember my past. I once worked with the reapers. Hunting down lost souls before they can prey on humans.
I was once something fierce, something to be feared. Before I was taken, imprisoned, and made to forget who I am. I know the man standing over me. I have trained with him, he taught me how to use the shadow magic I inherited from my bastard of a father.
I watch Tristan’s eyes widen as the spell lifts, and he remembers me as well.
“Tristan” I whisper, reaching my hand out to my once-upon-a-time friend. I watch as the lady, his mate’s, face turns dark as Tristan take’s a small step closer to me. Jealousy clouds her eyes as Tristan kneels next to me.
“Talia.” He says and offers me his hand to help me to a seat. I stumble and fall into a seat. I look at the child once more and know that she is going to be something this world has never seen. Something beyond powerful. Someone that is going to need to be protected against the evil that haunts this world.
“I was taken and controlled by the Dark Lord. I was turned into a slave, and a spell made me forget everything that I was.” I look around me, feeling a pull to one of the frozen men. A connection that I haven’t felt before. He is sweating, fighting the spell that holds him in place. His brown eyes widen when his gaze connects with mine. I jerk my eyes away from him and turn my attention back to the couple that is seated near me.
“What is your name?” I ask the girl that is holding the child.
“Ella.” She mutters, still not sure if she likes me being so close to her mate. I wonder if Tristan even realizes that she is being eaten up with jealousy. Probably not. Males of any race are thick like that. Never noticing what is right in front of their faces. At least not until it bites them clean on the ass.
“Talia.” I smile back at her look of distrust.
My eyes are drawn once again to the child.
“You must protect her. I can tell that she is not yours. Not really. But you did carry her inside of yourself. She has absorbed much of you. She is yours in more ways than you can even imagine.” I take a breath and read the confused look on Ella’s face.
“She isn’t mine…” Ella shakes her head. “I mean, I didn’t get pregnant with her. I woke up inside a dungeon, pregnant, being tortured with spells by the Shadow Master. He was pouring my soul into my body. Somehow her soul was connected to mine when we were both dumped back into the living.” I can see by the look on her face that she doesn’t understand what has happened.
“Sebastian implanted her into your body when your brother’s mate was dying.” Tristan tells her as he links his fingers with hers.
Ella frowns at him as if to give him a silent what the fuck? I almost laugh until I once again feel the presence of the frozen warriors surrounding us.
“Umm.” Ella murmurs… “The Dark Master, yeah, He is my sperm donor from like a thousand years back.” She shrugs as if she didn’t just blow my reality apart for the second time in the last ten minutes. My shocked gaze finds hers and she goes on to explain how she is Goddess Touched, the Celios, and that she has never met the depraved fuck that fertilized her mother’s egg once upon a time.
I almost laugh. The most powerful being outside of the Gods is sitting next to me. This slip of a girl, I shake my head. Mind blowing.
She turns to Tristan and starts to ask him about someone named Jessa and Sebastian, her brother, and someone named Jaxx. At the mention of Jaxx, Tristan’s face closes and darkens. I can feel the anger rolling off him in waves.
That is when I notice something different about him. Something new and old at the same time.
“What are you?” I blurt out.
“Death.” Tristan chuckles at the blank looks that we are all wearing on our faces. I adjust my legs, getting comfortable.
“So. Yeah. How long have I been gone?” I choose to ignore the death comment. Tristan’s face compresses and I know I am not going to like the answer.
“Over 500 years.” He whispers. I sit stock still in shock. I was barely 23 when I was taken. How can I have been gone that long and have no memory of the years passing? It feels like months have passed, not hundreds of years. I feel tears trickle down my face at the overwhelming news.
“Fuck!” I explode out of my seat. I can feel the fur erupting on my arms. I must fight the urge to change. The panther deep inside me wants to come out to play. To kill whatever has upset us. I hiss as fangs erupt from my gums.
Chapter 12.
Ella.
I sit in shock and watch Talia’s beast peek out. Wow, that is some freaky shit. I smile down at Raven as she giggles, watching the giant black panther that’s now lying on the forest floor and panting.
>
“Tristan.” I elbow him. He is watching the scene before us as if he has seen it a million times. Maybe he has. When he looks at me, he can see the sadness in my eyes. “Were you and her…” I leave off, not wanting to ask the question that is rattling around my brain.
“No.” He speaks inside my mind. I jump when I feel our bond strengthen again. It’s like a living golden cord stretching from my soul toward his. Connecting us on a level, in a way, I have never felt before.
I know he remembers me from past lives. I know he has thousands of memories of us together. This is the first time that I am saddened that I don’t have those moments as well.
Moving on.
Time to get some answers.
Time to unfreeze the warriors and hopefully get some sleep. Maybe.
And some food. Yes, food sounds yummy…
The panther has calmed down and is now licking her paws. Tristan is looking at me as if I am his whole world. Then I smell it. This is so not a good smell. I look down at Raven in my arms and she giggles.
I quickly hand her to Tristan. “Diaper duty” is all I say as I walk away, trying not to laugh at the disgusted look now marring his gorgeous face.
I unfreeze the warriors and, as one, they all fall to their knees. This bowing shit is getting old fast. I shake my head and motion with my hand for them to get up.
It still astonishes me that they each have their own features. When I saw them with their Master in the shadow realm, they were like unfinished clay dolls. All blank and bland. Now they are all different kinds of gorgeous. One of them with deep, dark, brown eyes is staring at the giant cat bathing herself as if she is his universe.