Chapter 110


    Read Tasting Darkness By Jessica Hall Book 2 Chapter 31 – “What is this ce?” I ask him, looking


    around. This ce gave me the shivers like it was full of dark energy. It felt like I walked into a tomb or


    over someone’s grave. Darius says nothing, making me look back at him to find his eerie demonic eyes


    watching me.


    “You shouldn’t havee down here,” he snaps at me as his hands m against the wall on either side


    of my head. The moment they do, lights flicker, and I 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 ask me how


    because I don’t know how,” I tell him, looking around the space. I 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.


    I move around the space, looking around, yet I feel his gaze on my back as he follows me. Yet the more I


    looked, the more I was sure of where I was.


    “This is where your mother and sister hid during the gue?” I ask him, ncing at him over my


    shoulder. He neither agrees nor denies, but I know I am right.


    “Have the others been down here?”


    “No, and you shouldn’t be down here.” Turning around, I face him, looking him over. He seemed pissed


    that I intruded, but that are whanian


    but at least here, we had some privacy away from our mates. And maybe he might tell me something.


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


    “We were talking about his brother,” I mention feeling the bond when he ms his walls up, blocking me


    out. But he wasn’t quick enough, and I noted the sh 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 I knew I was


    onto something.


    “Doesn’t know you me yourself for his brother’s death,” I whisper. Darius stares


    at me for a few seconds.


    “You think because I have guilt, it has to do with Tobias?”


    “Does it?” I 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 ce is, isn’t it? Your closet full of skeletons, though I 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 mark me won’t set me free, Aleera. It will only make you the next skeleton kept here.”


    “Maybe I already am one of your skeletons,” I muse. Dariusughs, the sound as demonic as he is.


    “No, Aleera. You aren’t one of my skeletons. You’re one of the gatekeepers. If I let you in, all this


    bes yours to live with, too. Don’t you get it? It isn’t just about losing them but protecting you,


    “Protecting me from what? Your past, the shit you have done?” Darius says nothing, but I could tell he


    was getting annoyed with this situation, annoyed with me intruding on his privacy and creeping into his


    creepy bunker of sins.


    “Tell me something, Darius. Because if you don’t, I will keep prying until I figure it out for myself.”


    “You killed my father. And I forgave you! What else could you be protecting me


    What else could you be protecting me from?” I scream at him.


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


    “Everything I touch, everyone I love, I kill, and you will be the same as 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. I lost count of the amount of time he died because of me because he


    couldn’t have you. I could have brought you home, and I didn’t. Tobias, what I did, killed him, maybe not


    physically, but in here, I definitely killed a fucking part of him,” he punches his chest.


    “I broke that and destroyed him, and Lycus, my father, destroyed because I swouldn’t give him what he


    wantedl 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 I have done to our mates. That will kill you! “he tells me, gripping my arms, his hands


    heating, and I know he is about to toss me back to our room.


    I hear the portal open up behind me as he walks me backward, and I grit my teeth, gripping his arms


    back and turning his magic on him.


    I warned him that I would find out what he was keeping from us, so instead of arguing with him; I plunged


    him back into my memories of the night Tobias’s brother died.


    The cast fizzles at first as I try to siphon his magic, yet his resistance is hard to manage. But I am his


    keeper, and once my bondtched on to his power. I


    pushed it outward, setting the castpletely 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 left me as he


    watched the scene y out.


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


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


    “Why this ce?” he asks.


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    “I was looking for Astrid City. I tried to envision what Kalen had told me, and it sent me here, but nothing


    was here. I


    portaled to the wrong spot,” I whisper to him. Not that the memories of my past self could hear us.


    I was running, running for my damn life, which was a regr urrence now that I look back on it.


    I hade to 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 I was running from.


    “That is Thomas,” Darius whispers, and I nod. Watched as he approached me in the memory, stepping


    out of the shadows of a portal.


    “Well, don’t you burn brighter than the sun? The first time I have seen a rainbow aura? I knew there


    would be something special about you,” came a voice that had me spinning around to face it.


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


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


    “If he had, I would be dead,” I whisper, ncing at Darius over my shoulder before nodding back to


    where I 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 I could feel the activation of the wards surrounding the ce.


    They were blocking me in. That realization made my blood run cold when a portal opened up ahead of


    us. What I


    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 andnding on the pavement. Thomas had grabbed


    my arm and ripped me back as the hellhounds came for us.


    Turning, I 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 I stumbled as I


    peered at one of the Fae. Something about them was off.


    I could sense it. Sense the familiarity with them, which made me falter 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 wille for you,” He screamed when he slicked his wrist and opened up a portal. He shoved me,


    and I tried to grab his coat, but the portal sucked me in.


    “You could feel her, couldn’t you?” Darius whispers to me. My brows furrow in confusion as I watch


    myself get dumped into the woods.


    I was tossed violently against the hard ground and rolled into a tree. Lifting my head, I screamed as the


    portal shuddered just as I saw the hellhound’s teeth rip into his coat. I jump to my feet, running for the


    portal to help him when it evaporates, leaving me stuck where ever he sent me. When I tried to portal


    back, I 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 watches me try to open a portal only for it to


    fizzle.


    I wasn’t even aware of what city I was in or where I was within its limits. He blocked mepletely and


    now I was in a forest. God knows where and all I 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 y. I had


    walked in circles for days before finding a road, yet in the memory, I 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 watches me


    copse 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 I found my memory being rewound and altered, and it was suddenly no


    longer my memory of the night but his.


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