Chapter 23 When the Darkness Arrives #2
He never got his answer, not when something rippled through the room.
A darkness that seemed to charge the air, thickening it at the same time, something cold slipped down my spine.
Something almost familiar in a way that made my pulse spike before I could fully understand why.
As for Walder, he went completely still, his attention fixed forward, narrowing at the entrance as a figure started to emerge as the crowd parted.
Then came the voice, dangerous and devastatingly familiar as it cut cleanly through the space.
“I believe you have something that belongs to me.” His voice blurred the line between human and demonic, proving that both existed within him at once.
My breath caught instantly, my body reacting before my mind could catch up, every muscle locking as recognition hit. Because I knew that voice. Of course I did. I would know it anywhere, fully expecting it to dominate my dreams for the rest of my life.
Which was why my gaze shot to the doorway, only to find that this was actually happening.
That he had found us… had found me. As there he was, framed in the entrance like something carved from shadow and fury.
His presence swallowed the space around him as his expression sharpened into something far more dangerous than anger alone.
Oblivion.
Who didn’t look like he had come here to ask for me back, but more like someone who had come here… to take.
The change in the room was immediate.
The music cut, and the conversation died mid-sentence. As though the sound itself had been ripped from the air, and what followed was not silence, but something far heavier. Something that settled over the space with a suffocating weight.
It rolled outward from him.
A dark, shifting presence that crept along the floor like a living thing, thick as smoke, yet heavier, denser.
As though the shadows themselves had been called to heel, spilling across the ground in a slow wave from which people instinctively recoiled.
Bodies moved without thought, stepping back and creating distance, because no one wanted to be too close to whatever that was.
Too close to him.
The air tightened with it, pulsing faintly, as though something vast and dangerous sat just beneath the surface, something barely contained.
I could feel it in the way my breath caught, in the way my entire body tensed as that same pull coiled low within me.
As if something inside me recognized exactly what stood before us.
His anger wasn’t loud, but then, it didn’t need to be.
It pressed outward in waves, controlled but only just, like something straining against a leash that had already begun to fray. It was a true sense of foreboding that surrounded him, enough to make the entire room hold its breath.
And I knew, without question, that I should have been terrified.
Because everything about this felt dangerous.
Overwhelming.
Uncontainable.
And yet…
Even as that fear curled through me, tightening its grip, there was something else there, too. Something that refused to let me look away. Like a small animal caught in a predator’s sight, knowing that one wrong move and it would suddenly pounce.
As for everyone else, no one moved toward him.
No one challenged him.
Because no one here was foolish enough not to recognize what he was.
Beside me, Walder had gone completely still, though not in tension or alarm, but in a way that felt far more calculated.
His posture unchanged, his presence just as solid as it had been moments before.
Yet instead of being focused on me, it was now entirely focused on the other Enforcer in the room.
His attention locked onto the man standing across the room as though he were questioning his arrival but not put out by it.
Although something in his gaze shifted then, especially when Oblivion’s eyes locked onto me, and in them Walder saw more than just simple recognition… he saw possessive ownership.
I froze when I felt Walder look down at me over the side of his shoulder. Swallowing hard, I looked at him, my eyes wide and far too honest as he simply said,
“I see.”
However, Oblivion did not, as we all heard the growl of anger, as my attention had shifted to another man, something he clearly didn’t like. Something he made known when coming to stand in front of us.
“Wyedari,” Walder said in acknowledgement.
“Tarik,” Oblivion replied, with a curt nod of his head.
“You say I have something that belongs to you, but I know this can’t be true, for she is mortal and therefore, forbidden,” Walder stated, leaning back casually, and I swear he must have had a death wish with what came next.
As he reached out and took a strand of my loose hair between his thumb and finger, playing with it whilst saying,
“It’s undeniable she is a beauty, but you know as well as I do the punishment for taking a bite out of that apple, my friend, and I do not wish to be the one to deliver that to our King.”
“Nor do I wish to be the one to explain to him why I killed one of his Enforcers, should you not remove your hand from my Fated,” Oblivion replied calmly, yet the obvious threat threaded through it was anything but.
“Fated?” Walder repeated, his hand dropping as he leaned forward, resting his forearm on his knee, his focus now entirely on Oblivion.
“She is my Siren,” he stated without hesitation, making me gasp as Walder’s breath hitched sharply. He straightened, his gaze snapping to mine,
“Siren,” he whispered as if he had just found out he was sitting next to some holy grail. Then his gaze lowered to my neck, seeing for himself the mark Oblivion had made there.
“One you have already claimed, I see,” he noted, and my eyes found Oblivion’s automatically, as if waiting for what he would say, holding my breath as I waited. Which didn’t take long, as he too held my gaze whilst giving his answer,
“I did.”
“Well then, that does change things,” Walder commented, making Bo snap,
“You made a deal to grant…” At this, Oblivion snarled at the same time Walder held up his hand to stop Bo from speaking.
“I did, where one should not have been made, for you weren’t exactly forthcoming now, were you, Boruta?” Walder argued steadily, making Bo hiss,
“It shouldn’t matter. She is mortal and therefore has the right of free will to leave him.
Even the Fates have no authority over that,” Bo argued in return, and I sucked in a quick breath, especially as Oblivion snarled, baring his fangs at him.
Fangs that grew dangerously, no doubt wanting to tear into Bo the first chance he got. Something I couldn’t allow to happen.
“That may be so, but regardless, I would never stand in the way of an Enforcer and their fated Siren, as I know what I would do to anyone who foolishly tried to stand in my way,” Walder said, gaining a respectful nod from Oblivion.
As clearly, he had an ally and that didn’t exactly scream good things for Bo and me.
Which is why I blurted out,
“He’s wrong… I’m…”
“I’m not his Siren.”