Chapter 23
Iwoke to the sound of my watch buzzing on the nightstand. Gabriel was curled around me, and Sebastian was nowhere to be seen. Fumbling my first attempt, I managed to grab my watch on the second try and answered the call.
“Eva, thank the gods.” Braxton sounded breathless, like he had been running.
I sat bolt upright in bed. “What happened?”
“There’s something here. In Willowvale. I’ll admit I never fully understood all this business about the darkness, but I’m pretty sure this is it.”
My stomach sank. “Where exactly? Is anyone hurt?”
“It’s Harry. He went inside of it.”
“Shit.” I threw back the covers. Gabriel was already sitting up beside me. “Where?”
“Eva, it sprang up in my mom’s house. She got out okay, but—”
“We’ll be there soon,” I promised, hopping as I struggled into my jeans. “Just don’t let anyone else go near it.”
Following my lead, Gabriel was already getting dressed. “Where?” he asked simply, strapping on his sword.
“Willowvale. Braxton’s mom’s house.”
Gabriel looked a question at me, but I couldn’t take the time to explain.
My stomach churned. The darkness that had followed Crispin’s path into the elven realm had gone to his favorite place as a child.
And now the darkness here had gone to mine.
Braxton’s entire pack was in danger because they had taken me in and showered me with kindness and a feeling of family.
This seemed like one hell of a way to repay them.
I tugged on my boots, then flung open the bedroom door to find Sebastian just about to enter. “What happened?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No time. We have to get to Willowvale.” I held out my hands to both him and Gabriel, spotting Ringo perking up on the couch. The sun was just starting to rise.
We all turned at the distant, muffled sound of arguing. Someone was down the stairs, outside the hidden doorway. Several someones. I would have just left them there, but I recognized Crispin’s voice. Lowering my hands, I jogged past the kitchen and down the stairs, flinging yet another door open.
The arguments cut off, and everyone turned toward me abruptly. Crispin, Mistral, Penelope, Varian, and Isadora.
“No time for questions,” I said. “We have to get to Willowvale.”
Varian fumed, “I have waited—”
I held up a hand, cutting him off. “Do you have any more vortices?”
He bared his teeth, but answered, “Yes.”
“Good.” I glanced at everyone else as I instructed, “Grab them and anyone who can help. The darkness came through in Willowvale. If there are going to be any more pathways, then everyone needs to help out.” I looked at Penelope as I said the last.
She wrinkled her nose, but nodded. I held out my hands to the guys just as Ringo made it down the stairs and scurried up my leg. “Bring everyone you can,” I repeated, then each of the guys were holding onto me, and away we went.
We touched down amidst a pack of werewolves. Several of them jumped back while Braxton ran toward us, a hand lifted to keep anyone from attacking. Theresa’s house, the place where I had spent so much time after my father passed away, was now nothing but a swirling black vortex.
There were several hands on me holding me back, but I was too overwhelmed to note who they belonged to.
I trembled as I looked at the darkness. It was like a portal but much larger, and black as pitch instead of silvery or opalescent.
Was this what my great grandfather had wanted?
Was this swirling darkness here to suck up all the magic that was never supposed to be on earth?
I shook myself when I realized Braxton had been speaking.
His eyes were wide, and it was unsettling seeing a hulking werewolf look like a scared little boy.
The other wolves had all stepped far back, but if their pack leader had gone into that swirling darkness, they weren’t going anywhere until they knew there was no chance of saving him.
Braxton repeated himself. “One of the kids got too close and Harry ran in to pull him back. It was like the thing grew dark tentacles to wrap around him and pull him in.”
I stood frozen to the spot, not knowing what to do or say. I had promised I would keep the darkness away from earth, and I had failed. It wasn’t just sentient. It was smarter than us.
I started to lift my hands, but Sebastian grabbed my wrist. “Don’t even think about it.”
“We don’t have any other options,” I hissed.
Crispin had gently grabbed my other wrist and was lowering my hand. “It seems contained for the moment. We can take time to figure this out. Maybe Marcie—”
“She tried to warn us,” I said. She had tried to give me to my grandfather, and now I understood why.
She thought the only way was to convince my mother to fight him with her.
To risk my life if it meant keeping the pathways closed.
With my grandfather dead and my mother alive, there would be no reason to open them.
So what if I ended up dying in the process?
Without warning, the dark mass pulsed outward, almost like it was absorbing the air to make itself larger. Within seconds it stood as tall as the trees.
“Everyone back!” Braxton shouted, and the guys dragged me back too.
But I couldn’t take my eyes off the darkness. Something tickled at the edge of my memory. Memories my mom had stolen that never fully came back. Darkness flowing from my hand when I was just a little girl.
I shook my head, because that couldn’t be right. Maybe the darkness I had absorbed was messing with my memories. After my experience in the bath, I could believe it was capable. Everyone gasped as the darkness flared larger.
“A power capable of destroying realms,” Mistral said. “I hadn’t truly understood it until now. This is what they were afraid of. Those who agreed to have your mother destroy the pathways.”
“But where did it come from?” Crispin muttered.
“It does not matter,” Sebastian growled. “It is here. We should flee and sever the pathways behind us.”
Suddenly coming out of my dream-like stupor, I eyed him sharply. “We’re not abandoning everyone.”
His jaw twitched, then suddenly he was gripping my arms, giving me a shake. “Eva, can you not feel its power? It came to this place because of your memories. This thing wants you.”
I had been hoping no one else would put that part together, but leave it to Sebastian. “Exactly,” I said, sounding a hell of a lot more calm than I felt. “It’s here because of me. I won’t run.”
The Realm Breaker at my back felt like little more than a simple toy. It could create and sever pathways, but it wouldn’t help us here. Even if Varian brought ten more vortices, I doubted it would be enough.
There was no warning as the darkness flared again. Hands pulled me back, but it slammed into us. I had expected it to hurt, but it didn’t. Suddenly all was quiet. And I was alone with only a memory.
I wasn’t sure how young I was, but I was in our old apartment in the city.
It was nighttime, and only a single lamp lit the living room.
I had the vague knowledge that my father was at work, and my mom was doing something in the kitchen.
I was playing by myself on the rug, summoning stars to weave between my small fingers.
That was when I saw it. A little wisp of darkness creeping toward me from the corner of the room.
Eyes wide, I watched its approach, feeling more curious than afraid.
Once it reached me it lifted partially from the rug, like a little snake getting a closer look at my summoned stars.
When I remained still, it floated up from the carpet to weave around my fingers, just like I’d been doing with the stars.
I laughed, and I heard my mother’s movements pause in the kitchen.
“Is everything alright, Evelyn?”
“Fine!” I called back, not wanting her to come and chase the little dark wisp away.
After that, it visited me frequently. And as my magic grew, it grew too, like it was linked to my progress.
But now I understood something that I hadn’t back then.
My mom tried to cut the darkness off before it reached earth, but she had failed.
A wisp made it through, and it had hidden itself away.
My great grandfather believed conduits were born to restore balance.
That I quite literally became what I was because there was too much magic on earth.
But he was only half right. I wasn’t born to create destruction and balance out all the magic.
I was born to balance the darkness. It hadn’t been waiting to find the rest of itself.
It had been waiting for me. And when I forgot myself, it had waited until I remembered.
I might be half human, but the blood of something ancient coursed through my veins.
Someone grabbed my hand, startling me out of the memory. Even in the pitch blackness, I recognized his energy. Of course Gabriel was the first to find me.
His hand squeezed mine as a wolf howled in the distance. Then another. They were all in here with us, but where was here? The howling of an unearthly wind echoed the cries of the wolves. I needed to help them, but I wasn’t sure how. I wasn’t a destroyer of darkness. I was what balanced it.
And what balanced darkness…
“I need you to kiss me!” I called over the wind gusting my hair around my head.
Gabriel didn’t ask questions. His hands simply went to my waist, pulling me against him.
Sunlight flared between us as our lips met.
I arched my back and Gabriel molded against me, drinking me down.
The sunlight flared brighter and when I cracked open one eye, I could actually see the space around us.
We were still standing in the grass. The darkness hadn’t taken us somewhere else, it had simply enveloped us.
Now that my senses were returning, I could feel Crispin nearby.
He was using the golden cord to find us, and Gabriel’s sunlight was amplifying its shining light.
His fingers dug into my hips as he pushed his power into me until it was like breathing pure sunlight.
I felt it as Crispin stepped into our dome of light, then his hands were on me, his chest pressing against my back.
“Leave it to you two to make out at a time like this.”
I pulled my lips away from Gabriel with an exasperated huff of laughter. “Just shut up and help us.”
Chuckling even as darkness swirled around us, Crispin lowered his mouth to my neck. Hot breath mingled with cool moonlight, echoing Gabriel’s magic like two sides of the same coin. Sun and moon.
I heard a wolf whimpering and my heart lurched.
Some of Braxton‘s pack must have shifted to wolf form, but they were all still lost out there. I searched down the shimmering energy connecting me to each of the guys for Mistral and Sebastian. Mistral was closer. I sent my intent outward, trying to guide him to us. At some point the vortex had started humming within me, but I ignored it. Absorbing the darkness wasn’t the answer.
My eyes were drawn to the edge of the light as Mistral stepped out of the dark, his hair wind-whipped and his eyes haunted.
There was no time to ask him what he had seen.
I simply held out a hand as Gabriel knelt before me, lifting the edge of my shirt to lick a line up my stomach.
My core tightened, and the light flared brighter.
Mistral came to us, turning my head so he could cradle my jaw and kiss me. Shimmering stars flared to life, dancing in both moonlight and sunlight. “I tried to bring Sebastian,” he muttered against my mouth, “but it was like he couldn’t see me. This darkness can trap us with our fears.”
“I saw my mother’s ruined home.” Crispin’s agile fingers kneaded my shoulders. “But that particular memory has lost some of its sting.”
“I saw villages in the Bogs eradicated by wild magic,” Mistral said, pressing his forehead to mine.
I felt a tug deep in my gut, something painful and twisting, and the part of Sebastian I could always sense seemed to waver. Suddenly I could barely breathe enough to speak. “Whatever the darkness is showing him, he can’t pull out of it.”
“Then let us chase it away.” Mistral kissed me again, and Gabriel pressed his cheek to my stomach.
They were right. Sex had awakened our connections, and it strengthened them. If we wanted to pull Sebastian out, we would send him our light.