Tasting Darkness

Read Tasting Darkness By Jessica Hall Book 2 Chapter 31 - “What is this place?” | ask him, looking around. This place gavethe shivers like it was full of dark energy. It felt like | walked into a tomb or over someone's grave.

Darius says nothing, makinglook back at him to find his eerie demonic eyes watching me.

“You shouldn't have cdown here,” he snaps atas his hands slam against the wall on either side of my head. The moment they do, lights flicker, and | hear the sound of a generator turning on, the fluorescent lights on the roof blink to life, illuminating the space.

“It's a bunker,” he finally says, pushing off the wall and stepping away from me.

“Why are you here?” “I followed you. Don’t askhow because | don’t know how,” I tell him, looking around the space. | find a tiny kitchen, a bunk bed, and scattered belonging that look old and abandoned. Drawings were on the walls in crayons and pastels, and teddies were on the bed with more dust than stuffing.

| move around the space, looking around, yet | feel his gaze on my back as he follows me. Yet the more I looked, the more | was sure of where | was.

“This is where your mother and sister hid during the plague?” | ask him, glancing at him over my shoulder. He neither agrees nor denies, but | know | am right.

“Have the others been down here?” “No, and you shouldn't be down here.” Turning around, | face him, looking him over. He seemed pissed that | intruded, but that are whicomanian but at least here, we had sprivacy away from our mates. And maybe he might tellsomething.

“Tobias is awake,” | tell him. “He’s having a shower,” he says nothing, just stares.

“We were talking about his brother,” | mention feeling the bond when he slams his walls up, blockingout. But he wasn’t quick enough, and | noted the flash of guilt that hit me.

“Tobias doesn’t know, does he?” I ask him.

“Tobias doesn’t know what. There is a lot Tobias doesn’t know, Aleera,” Darius tells me, and | knew | was onto something.

“Doesn't know you blyourself for his brother's death,” | whisper. Darius stares atfor a few seconds.

“You think because | have guilt, it has to do with Tobias?” “Does it?” | ask in return.

“You know nothing, Aleera, and you are opening closets full of skeletons that need to remain locked away,” “That's what this place is, isn't it? Your closet full of skeletons, though | don’t think you realize the monsters you think you keep locked down here are spilling into your real-world haunting you. Wouldn't it hurt less to set them free?” “Everyone has a past, Darius. It doesn’t mean we should stay stuck in it.” “Allowing you to markwon't setfree, Aleera. It will only make you the next skeleton kept here.” “Maybe | already am one of your skeletons,” | muse. Darius laughs, the sound as demonic as he is.

“No, Aleera. You aren't one of my skeletons. You're one of the gatekeepers. If | let you in, all this becomes yours to live with, too. Don’t you get it? It isn’t just about losing them but protecting you, “Protectingfrom what? Your past, the shit you have done?” Darius says nothing, but I could tell he was getting annoyed with this situation, annoyed withintruding on his privacy and creeping into his creepy bunker of sins.

“Tellsomething, Darius. Because if you don’t, | will keep prying until I figure it out for myself.” “You killed my father. And | forgave you! What else could you be protecting What else could you be protectingfrom?” | scream at him.

“From me!” he screams back atwhile stalking toward me, and the lights flicker as his power surges.

“Everything | touch, everyone I love, | kill, and you will be the sas the rest of them,” Darius snarls.

“Tobias, Lycus, and Kalen are still here, Darius. They ain't dead yet!” “Aren’t they? Look at Kalen, Aleera. | lost count of the amount of the died because ofbecause he couldn’t have you. | could have brought you home, and | didn’t. Tobias, what I did, killed him, maybe not physically, but in here, | definitely killed a fucking part of him,” he punches his chest.

“I broke that and destroyed him, and Lycus, my father, destroyed because | swouldn’t give him what he wanted Yon wouldn't give him what he wanted! You think you know or want to know, but you don’t want to live with the guilt of what | have done to our mates. That will kill you! “he tells me, gripping my arms, his hands heating, and | know he is about to tossback to our room.

| hear the portal open up behindas he walksbackward, and | grit my teeth, gripping his arms back and turning his magic on him.

| warned him that | would find out what he was keeping from us, so instead of arguing with him; | plunged him back into my memories of the night Tobias’s brother died.

The cast fizzles at first as | try to siphon his magic, yet his resistance is hard to manage. But | am his keeper, and once my bond latched on to his power. | pushed it outward, setting the cast completely around, wrapping us inside a bubble of his power, a bubble of my memories.

We stood watching it and my heart hammered as the memory pulled us.

Though watching it was like reliving that horrid night, Darius’ hand on my arms never leftas he watched the scene play out.

‘Where are we?” Darius murmurs next to me.

“I don’t know, | had portaled here. It was the one and only t| used my magic to portal,” | had told him.

“Why this place?” he asks.

“I was looking for Astrid City. | tried to envision what Kalen had told me, and it senthere, but nothing was here. | portaled to the wrong spot,” | whisper to him. Not that the memories of my past self could hear us.

| was running, running for my damn life, which was a regular occurrence now that I look back on it.

| had cto a dead end and was trapped looking between the forest at one end of the parking lot. A forest that no doubt had worse things hiding within its shadow than what | was running from.

“That is Thomas,” Darius whispers, and | nod. Watched as he approachedin the memory, stepping out of the shadows of a portal.

“Well, don’t you burn brighter than the sun? The first t| have seen a rainbow aura? | knew there would be something special about you,” ca voice that hadspinning around to face it.

| find a man behind me. He smiled before hearing the footsteps of the Fae that were chasing me.

“He wasn’t supposed to cfor you. We told him to wait,” Darius murmurs.

“If he had, | would be dead,” | whisper, glancing at Darius over my shoulder before nodding back to where | stood with Thomas.

The man turns, facing them and backing up.

“Run!” Thomas had screamed, and we took off across the pavement, running alongside the forest. The closer we got to it, the more | could feel the activation of the wards surrounding the place.

They were blockingin. That realization made my blood run cold when a portal opened up ahead of us. What | wasn't expecting was for them to send hellhounds after me. The shaky portal opened up down the end of the parking lot, four of the beasts jumping through it and landing on the pavement. Thomas had grabbed my arm and rippedback as the hellhounds cfor us.

Turning, | spun around to see the dark cloaked Fae blocking us from the other way, and my head whipped back and forth trying to keep an eye on the Dark Fae figures and the hellhounds stalking us when | stumbled as | peered at one of the Fae. Something about them was off.

| could sense it. Sense the familiarity with them, which madefalter as they approached. Thomas lets off his magic, sending it flying toward the Fae, and they forced back when the hellhounds charged toward us.

“They will cfor you,” He screamed when he slicked his wrist and opened up a portal. He shoved me, and | tried to grab his coat, but the portal suckedin.

“You could feel her, couldn’t you?” Darius whispers to me. My brows furrow in confusion as | watch myself get dumped into the woods.

| was tossed violently against the hard ground and rolled into a tree. Lifting my head, | screamed as the portal shuddered just as | saw the hellhound’s teeth rip into his coat. | jump to my feet, running for the portal to help him when it evaporates, leavingstuck where ever he sent me. When | tried to portal back, | couldn't grasp his location.

“Felt who?” he doesn’t answer my question.

“And you tried to go back for him,” Darius whispers as he watchestry to open a portal only for it to fizzle.

| wasn’t even aware of what city | was in or where | was within its limits. He blockedcompletely and now | was in a forest. God knows where and all | could do was pray he was alright. His power was strong. He should be able to fight the hellhounds off, but the Fae? “These woods look familiar. Where did he send you?” Darius asks as the memory continues to play. | had walked in circles for days before finding a road, yet in the memory, | was able to speed it up to when I finally found a road. Darius curses.

“Of course, all we had to do was go home, “Darius whispers, his hand on my arm as he watchescollapse on the side of the road in exhaustion.

“The A wasn't for Aleera,” Darius murmurs.

“Pardon,” Darius looks at me, his hands clutching my arms tighter.

“I'll show you,” he whispers, and | found my memory being rewound and altered, and it was suddenly no longer my memory of the night but his.

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