13. Aflora
Zeph and Zakkaiwere being particularly cruel today.
We’d been living in this paradigm for five weeks now, almost six, and they’d decided it was time for me to face them collectively.
Which meant they were attacking me from both sides.
Kols and Shade hadn’t been able to watch, their instincts to protect overriding the cause of today’s session. But as the hours drew on, I started to wish they’d return and whisk me away from this hell.
I understood the purpose of this test, that Zakkai and Zeph were merely trying to prepare me to handle the ascension on my own, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.
They were both lethally serious, their spells ones that would have killed me a year ago.
Fortunately, the dark source leapt to my aid, consistently allowing me to dismantle each enchantment thrown my way.
I tried to engage my earth side as well, but today’s exercise required me to use my Midnight Fae powers instead.
Which I suspected was the point.
They wanted me to learn how to rely on the Midnight Fae part of me over the Earth Fae part, as they assumed Constantine would do the same.
I shivered as Zakkai’s silver-blue eyes flared with power, his long white strands billowing in a magical breeze off his shoulders. The calculating edge to his cruelly handsome features told me I wasn’t going to like whatever he did next.
Zeph attacked from my side, his fiery incantation wrapping around my leg as Zakkai hit me with a strategic web of magic that rendered me speechless.
I fell to the ground beneath their joint assault, wincing when they didn’t stop.
Shield, Zeph demanded.
I threw up a mastery of defensive arts, the barrier invisible yet studiously deflecting their spells while I attempted to undo whatever they’d incapacitated me with.
It burned through my veins, stealing my breath and drowning me in a toxic chemical that fractured my ability to think.
Instincts, I thought numbly. They want me to rely on my instincts.
Zakkai had warned me that today’s lesson would be difficult. I understood now—they’d purposely dismantled my ability to recall spells by verbal memory.
This was about relying on physical reactions.
I hated them.
Loathed that they struck my shield repeatedly while I futilely tried to undo the harsh restraint on my mind.
We were beyond kindness today. Hell, this week. They’d been on me repeatedly, barely letting me sleep, forcing me to learn, learn, learn.
There were so many spells, too many spells.
I was being given a crash course in five weeks that should have been delivered over twenty-five years. As Kols had pointed out, I wasn’t even of age to ascend. At least not according to previous Midnight Fae rituals.
All of this was being thrown at me because of a devious, underhanded, wicked male who wanted to use me to make a point.
I refused to let him win.
But in moments like this, it was easy to see how effortlessly he could best me. Because I couldn’t fight this. I didn’t know how. They’d handicapped my mind, leaving me defenseless beneath my deteriorating shield.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself and fix it,Zeph berated me. You’re more powerful than you realize.
I hate you, I seethed.
Good. Then I’m getting through to you. Now fucking dismantle the charms.
I growled at him.
He snarled back.
And I suddenly wanted to cut through his magic just to return the favor.
There’d been this weight of darkness hanging on my shoulders for weeks now. A sense of foreboding. A thick feeling of dread.
I tapped into it now, wrapping myself in the black web of magic and allowing it to flourish through me. Ice drilled through my veins, dismantling my inner warmth yet bolstering my resolve in the process.
It coiled.
Strengthened.
Coiled some more.
Until I couldn’t hold on to it for another second, the magic too intense and terrifying to maintain.
It exploded out of me in a cerulean flame, eating through all the enchantments in the room, including my shield, and seeking the two males attacking me.
Zakkai absorbed the tension with a wave of his hand.
Zeph created a shield that deflected the blast.
Then the two of them stared at me on the floor. The power had destroyed my clothes.
Zakkai walked over to a bag on the floor, found a new pair of pants and a tank top, and tossed them to me. “Get dressed. We’re doing that again.”
I shivered, my body too weak to repeat all that. “No.”
“Yes,” Zeph interjected. “Now, Aflora.”
“No,” I repeated. “I’m done for today.” That power had been too much. Too dark. Too destructive. Too not me. It’d overtaken my earth, leaving me without a single glimpse of light. I refused to accept that. Refused to embrace it. Refused to allow it to happen again.
But Zeph wasn’t having it. He slammed me with another bolt of power, this one sweeping my legs out from beneath me and pinning me to the ground. “We’re not done.”
A rumble started in my chest, my irritation mounting. He wasn’t hearing me. “I’m. Done. For. Today.”
“That’s too bad, little star,” Zakkai said, tossing my clothes to the side. “Because I agree with Zeph. We’re doing that again.”
I wanted to scream. To maim. To kill them both. I needed a break. I deserved a break. We’d been at this for hours. Days. Weeks. I hadn’t complained once, taking everything they’d given me and memorizing their rules.
I’d put up with their treatment, Zeph’s volatile behavior and Zakkai’s wicked spells, and I wanted to take the rest of the night off. Right now.
I took in Zeph’s offensive spell, copied the general structure, and sent it back at him. He deflected with his wand, already preparing another enchantment. “Enough,” I said through gritted teeth. I was too tired. Too done. Too?—
“Do you think Constantine would listen to you right now?” Zakkai asked. “Because I think he’d revel in your show of weakness and drown you in it.”
“I’m not weak!”
“Your current situation suggests otherwise,” he countered.
Then he slammed me with another of those webs meant to dismantle my thoughts.
And Zeph followed up with another spell.
And another.
And another.
I tried to build a shield, to counter them, to protect myself, but my energy reserves were depleted from the darkness I’d allowed myself to release.
However, it still lingered.
Hovering on my shoulder, waiting for me to embrace it once more.
But I couldn’t. It made me feel too cold. Too wrong. Too powerful.
I curled into a ball instead, denying that flicker of energy and absorbing the brunt of Zeph’s and Zakkai’s hits instead.
Aflora?Kols whispered into my mind. Are you all right?
No,I replied, trembling beneath the pain and agony of having my own mates attack me when I’d told them to stop. They were trying to make a point. I understood it. But that didn’t make me accept it. They won’t stop.
I sounded so weak. So pitiful. And I could almost hear Zakkai and Zeph taunting me for it, calling me out for giving up.
They wanted me to be strong.
To stand up to them.
To give them a display of power meant to destroy them all.
I hate them, I told Kols. I hate them.
I could hear the sadness in my voice, a perpetual moping that I loathed.
I’m stronger than this, I thought in my next inhale. So much stronger.
But it required me to block an important part of me. My earth. My tie to the element I loved and adored. Choosing strength meant I had to welcome the darkness.
I shivered, abhorring the choice.
However, the electricity roaming over me, as well as Zeph’s shouts to fight, left me no choice.
I tapped into that black hole, pulling it into me once more, and released it on a wave of energy that had tears falling from my eyes.
Everything stopped.
Inky flames engulfed the room.
Then Zakkai cut through it with a blast of cerulean magic that tamed the darkness back into a little ball of spinning power that seemed to seep back into me, inch by inch.
I didn’t move, my arms locked around my legs as I remained in the center of the room.
The spells were all gone.
But the aggression remained.
“Aflora?” Zeph asked, his deep voice holding a touch of concern.
I ignored him.
“She’s fine,” Zakkai said. “Or she would be if she accepted the dark source the way she needs to.”
“Does she look fucking fine to you?” Zeph demanded. “Because she looks broken to me.”
Zakkai snorted. “You’re allowing emotion to cloud your judgment. That’s why she’s not as prepared as she should be—because you’ve wasted all her time by coddling her. So now we have to resort to this to ensure she’s ready because you failed to train her.”
“I failed to train her?” Zeph’s deep voice reverberated through the room, making my skin crawl with goose bumps. “You’re the one who mated her first, Zakkai. Then you left her in the Elemental Fae realm to be raised by a bunch of Earth Fae. And you’re blaming me for her lack of preparedness?”
“She wasn’t ready then.”
“And she wasn’t fucking ready when she started at the Academy, either,” Zeph retorted. “But I did the best I could with what I had to work with. She couldn’t even make a damn sandwich right when we started.”
I flinched at the way he said it, like my lack of dark-magic skill made me somehow weak in his eyes.
“Maybe things would have been different had you been the one to take her that day instead of Shade,” Zeph continued.
“Oh, they absolutely would have. You’d all be dead right now. Instead, I’m stuck putting up with your arrogance on a daily basis—an arrogance you have not earned.”
“You say these things like you know what I can do,” Zeph replied, a lethal edge in his tone. “But how about you put that arrogance of yours to the test, hmm?”
“Happily,” Zakkai replied, a bolt of magic singeing the air.
Zeph responded in kind, causing the hairs along my arms to dance on end.
What’s happening? Shade demanded in my head.
But I was too consumed by the growing power in the room to reply. Danger, my instincts whispered to me. Protect.
I lifted my head to see Zakkai and Zeph engaged in an all-out duel, their aggression mounting with each strike.
They refused to yield.
Refused to acknowledge the other as superior.
Because they were the same—both dominant and proud and powerful in their own ways. Zakkai had the edge as the Source Architect, but Zeph had spent his entire life training for a battle like this. He was a Guardian, one assigned to protect the incoming Midnight Fae King. And he demonstrated that now by unleashing all his power into Zakkai.
My eyes widened, realization striking me in the chest.
He had been going easy on me. Even when I thought he was giving me his all, he’d never fought me like this.
And for some reason, that angered me.
They were supposed to be training me to fight Constantine. He wouldn’t even consider lessening his blows. Yet Zeph had held back, afraid that I couldn’t handle him in his full force of power.
Which was precisely what Zakkai had kept arguing, that Zeph needed to remove the emotional filter and test me. Really test me.
And I’d reacted like a brat today, telling them to stop. Just when we were on the cusp of unleashing my greatest power.
The chip on my shoulder… that inky spot that weighed me down… was my connection to the dark source.
I understood that on a level but hadn’t accepted it. That’d been the reason for Zakkai’s pushing. He wanted me to allow the darkness out to play so we could realize my true potential.
We’d spent five weeks going through trivial spells and historical potentials and studying scenarios meant to help me pass my trials.
But today was the first time I’d experienced the real power flourishing inside me—the one that would guarantee I excelled.
Zeph snarled as Zakkai hit him with a cerulean spark. Then he volleyed a green one underlined in black back at him.
I sat up, my eyes widening. They’re trying to kill each other.
There was no going easy here. No submitting. No acceptance.
They were part of the problem—the harsh point in my bonds. They didn’t trust each other. Nor did they like each other. And it was coming to a head now as they dueled in a way only alpha males could.
I had to stop them. To force them to see reason. If one of them was injured in this aggression, I’d never forgive myself, or them.
“Stop,” I told them.
They were too lost in their furious energies to hear me, their duel intensifying with every passing second.
I went to my knees, calling on that power once more and allowing it to consume me entirely, needing it to protect me and my mates.
It culminated, curled, and grew inside me.
Zeph cursed as Zakkai struck him with something harmful. It only seemed to enrage both men more, heightening their need to declare victory over the other.
“Enough!” I shouted, releasing my energy into both of them and knocking them to the ground.
They weren’t prepared for my reaction, too focused on each other to notice me. I used the final vestiges of my strength to stand, my hands on my hips as I glowered at them both.
“No more,” I stated, power flickering around me in warning as I replenished my depleted reserves directly from the dark source. It was foreign and cold, but necessary because my earth magic couldn’t refuel the blackened part of me.
Zakkai’s lips curled faintly, his white hair a tangled mess around his shoulders. “Well done, Aflora.”
“That was a fucking test?” Zeph sounded pissed.
Zakkai merely lifted a shoulder. “Does it matter? It worked.”
“I’m going to kill you,” Zeph threatened.
Zakkai pushed up to his feet and shook his head. “You’ll try,” he taunted, moving to stand behind me. “You’ll fail.” He kissed my neck, his lips going to my ear. “You’re burning so bright right now, Flora. Just like a star.”
I shivered beneath his praise, but a bolt of irritation still lingered in my veins. “You pushed me too far today.”
“I pushed you just far enough,” he countered against my ear, his tongue licking the shell before pressing another kiss to my thundering pulse. “And you were magnificent.”
Zeph left the floor and positioned himself across from us, his fury a palpable spike against my senses. “You need to learn to fucking communicate.”
“I’ve been communicating. You’ve not been listening,” Zakkai murmured, his mouth drawing a path to my shoulder. “You taste like darkness, sweet star.”
His touch sent a shiver down my spine, his hard body cradling my back as he more firmly pressed against me. He was shirtless—something all my mates seemed to do daily now for training—which allowed me to feel his heat directly against my skin.
“So decadent,” he hummed, licking back up my neck to my ear. “You feel it, right? The power? The intensity?”
“Yes.” I swallowed, my gaze on Zeph. “But I’m not sure I forgive you for provoking it.”
He chuckled against my neck. “I know. However, you will.” He slid his arms around my abdomen, holding me to him. “Would you like me to worship you with my tongue, my queen?”
“I…”
He nibbled my pulse. “We can make the Guardian watch,” he suggested.
Zeph narrowed his gaze and took a step forward, his hand finding my hip. “Or maybe I’ll make you watch.”
My heart skipped a beat at the intensity pouring off of them.
Zakkai might have provoked that duel to test my resolve and power, but Zeph had eagerly engaged back with the intent to kill.
A dangerous game.
A lethal provocation.
They were too strong, too dominant, to share. Yet I couldn’t pick between them. They were my mates. My future. They owned equal parts of my heart, and I needed them to accept that, to accept each other.
I went to my toes to kiss Zeph before he could speak again, my teeth dragging along his lower lip and demanding he reciprocate. He didn’t right away, his grip tightening against me in warning. Then my tongue slipped into his mouth, and some of his tension left his jaw.
Zakkai didn’t release me, his arms locked around my abdomen as Zeph stepped closer to press against me, sandwiching me firmly between them.
I reached behind me to grab Zakkai, ensuring he didn’t leave.
And used my opposite hand to wrap around Zeph’s nape.
You’re both mine, I told them through my wide-open links. I claim you equally.
Zeph growled in response.
Zakkai matched the sound with a vibration of his own.
I released Zeph’s mouth to meet his blazing green eyes. “I will not choose.”