Chapter 125
Read Tasting Darkness [Tempting Darkness] By Jessica Hall Book 2 Chapter 42 – Wind rushes past me as I fall, and I watch the
ground grow closer. It was like time stopped, everything slowing down, and I saw every particle in the air, every vapor and streak of
light from the moon when suddenly arms wrapped around my waist. The stone glows and burns hotter in my hand as I try to fight it
from taking his magic through me when Darius opens a portal directly beneath us.
My eyes widen when Darius grips my wrist, shaking my hand, but I refuse to let go, knowing what
dropping that stone would do to the city he opened a portal to. When I refuse, he sts me with his
magic, stunning me, and I scream as my arm spasms, my fingers twitching, and the stone slips through
them, falling toward the portal. I grasp the air, trying to catch it, when Spark caws loudly, swooping off the
roof toward us.
My fingers outstretched, reach for the stone, as I try to stop it, knowing the destruction it would cause,
the power it would absorb, when talons caged around my body, and I scream as Spark grabbed us,
plucking us from the air and he takes flight, his powerful wings taking us higher. In contrast, my scream
of horror rang out loudly as I watched the stone disappear into the portal before closing.
He killed them; he killed them all. Spark moves toward the field below before dropping us to the ground
and I round on Darius the moment my feet hit the ground, my hands mming against his chest, and he
staggers backward. Sparknded on the ground not far from us, but my anger was ignited like a match
had been struck, and my rage was the fuel it needed as I called on my Phoenixes.
“How could you?” I scream at him, tears streaming down my face as I shoved him; Darius puts his hand
up, backing away from me. The phoenixes on the roof caw loudly, feeling my burning anger and take
flight. They circle the sky above while Darius’anger also rippled, his energy amplifying, and the air
around us heats as the tension simmers between us, my shred tries to override my anger, calling on his
power I could sense while mine was lost with the Moonstone.
“Don’t put this back on me! You brought it back home; you lied! You should have told us!” Darius yells at
me. “I did what I had to do!”
“The city, that city. You just killed them all, led the power hunters straight to them!”
“I had no choice. That stone would have absorbed you, absorbed the wards and the power of your
phoenixes,” Darius says, walking away from me toward the castle, and I charge and tackle him, furious
that he would sacrifice an entire city when I could have led the Phoenixes straight to them.
“You monster, you just wiped out a city,” I scream angrily, and Darius rolls, pinning me beneath him.
“It’s better than leading them here!” Darius bellows at me before pushing off me and getting to his feet
and I shake my head knowing that that stone would absorb any protection of the city’s wards offered,
absorb the power of those that lived there, and lead the power hunters directly to them while they are
defenseless.
“I could have taken them down; I have the phoenixes,” I scream at him, getting to my feet when the sky
suddenly ignites, glowing crimson, as lightning streaks across the sky. We all look up at the trees toward
the city as the power of the st, ripples over the dome encasing the castle from Darius’s wards,
shielding us from the st, but I knew the city’s wards with an explosion that strong would have
shattered, leaving them open to attacks. My eyes widen; I cup my mouth with my hands in horror before
getting to my feet. I whistle calling on my phoenixes when Darius charges me, mping his hand over
my mouth.
I struggle against him, shoving him off.“ I can help them. I can save them!” I spit at him, and he stumbles
back.
“You don’t know that! I am not willing to take that risk,” Darius screams back at me “But I am!” I yell at
him as Tobias, Lycus, and Kalene out of the castle, jogging over to us, their eyes casting nervous
nces at the sky where light sparked and illuminated in the distance. Tobias waves his arms in the air
trying to calm us. I wanted to beat Darius senselessly for his stupidity and for mine of believing her,
trusting the one woman they warned me about.
“Picking up a rock, I chuck at him as he walks away, it hits him in the back, and he whirls on me, stalking
toward me and Tobias backs up. Our mates watch from the sidelines as he reaches me, and I pummel
Darius, hitting him wherever I can. My Phoenixes above caw and swirl in the night sky above like glowing
beacons of infinite power, their magic zapping and recharging me with each cawing st. “I could have
taken them; I would have ended them,” I scream at him when he grips my arms.
“And at what sacrifice, your life? That sort of power, the power needed to kill the power hunters would
have killed you. You can’t harness that kind of power blindly, you aren’t ready!” “Better me, than them!” I
cry as our mates draw nearer.
“How could you?” He was a monster. Thousands, and thousands of lives he has just put at risk because
of me.
“Better them than you, because if it is between choosing between you and them, I choose you. I have
lost you once. I won’t lose you again. I can live with their deaths on my hands. I can’t live with yours!” he
says, shaking me.
“We don’t know that! I could have taken it, I could have absorbed the Phoenixes – “. Darius grabs my
face in his hands.
“Look up, Aleera, there aren’t enough of them. You think you could, but you can’t. That stone was a
power absorber. The moment you touched it, you activated it. It wouldn’t stop absorbing you or your birds
until it contained everything you had left. Then what? You were giving the power hunters the ultimate
weapon, the ultimate power.” I shake my head, tears streaming down my face at my stupidity. I was
angry at him but mostly angry at myself, knowing this was my fault, I should have killed her when I saw
her, should have told them.
“We don’t know that.” I croak.
“I do! Because the magic that was used to create that stone. Is mine. For years I was their weapon,”
Darius says, letting me go and I stagger back and look at him.
“What?”
“As soon as I saw that stone in your hand and the rune on it, I knew it was mine.” I shake my head. He
was wrong. It was my mother’s magic. I felt it inside that stone.
“No, it was my mother’s power. I could feel it.”
Darius clutches his hair and screams in frustration. The tormenting through the bond from him
caused him physical pain, and my chest was restricted.
“I couldn’t save them, you, I can save,’ Darius yells at me.
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“What are you talking about? It was my mother’s magic!” I scream at him.
“It was mine, think Aleera. Think about it, think about everything I have told you, what you have seen!
What you know!”| shake my head when he grasps my face in his hands.
“Think, Aleera, the second gue. How did your mother survive it?” Darius asks me.
“My father, he did something to her.” Darius nods before he whispers. “He fed her my blood.”
“But that makes no sense,” I tell him, gripping his shirt and pushing back against him as the shred
coursed through me, sensing his magic, and I try to ignore it, try to focus on my anger instead of the
burning lust writhing and coursing through me, knowing he was thest one, with him I would awaken to
my full potential, and my body sensed that with every fiber of my being, and it wanted his power, wanted
him.
“It does if I am the gue. I created it; I unleashed it. You want to know how I can sacrifice an entire city
for you? Because I already sacrificed the entire world thinking I was saving you all. I told you I have
blood on my hands, and I told you that you didn’t want to know the sort of monster youy beside at
night. I am the gue Aleera, the reason it exists, the reason it got out, and the only cure, or I was
before,” he stares up at the sky, at my phoenixes. “Before I destroyed that too,”
“You were just a boy. You have this stupid idea in your head that you did this, but you didn’t!” Darius
laughs. “Didn’t I? My father wanted to destroy it, told me to destroy it when we learned what it was
capable of -” he shakes his head and clenches his teeth.
“You think you know, but you don’t,”
Darius tells me, and I reach for him, but he pulls away, cing his hands in the air, not wanting my touch.
That stung, but I refused to let him escape it this time. “Then tell me?” I growl at him, recharging off
slivers of power off my Phoenixes to hold him here, but he breaks it easily, feeding off my energy.
“It all leads back to me, all of you, Kalen, Lycus.” Darius looks over his shoulder at Tobias. “Thomas, it’s
all my fault.” He tells me, looking back at me. “You can hate me all you want, but I stand by what I did,
their lives or yours?” He tells me, pointing off to our mates. “Their lives!”
“I’ll choose you all every d*mn time. No matter the sacrifice, I did not kill the world to lose what’s left of
mine. You are mine. Every single one of you, mine, my life. I won’t lose you again. I just got you back,”
he growls at me, with a sheen of madness in his eyes.
“You are making no sense, you— ” “It doesn’t have to make sense, Aleera! I did this. Not you, so what I
did doesn’t taint you. It’s all my fault,” he tells me, and I shake my head while he growls, . turning on his
heel.
“Show me!” I plead with him.
Darius opens up a portal. “Darius?” Tobias asks, and Darius stops looking at him. “What have you
done?” Darius looks back at me.
“I chose her.”
He steps through the portal. “Wait, that’s it? You choose me and f**k the rest of the world?” I scream,
charging in after him as he steps back into our room.
“I told you who I was. You didn’t want to believe me.” his anger was palpable, and his voice cold and
devoid of emotion.
“Then show me, let me in,” I snap at him, and he shrugs me off as our mates follow us into the room, and
sweat beaded on my neck as the heat of the shred tries to overwhelm me when Darius moves toward
the dresser.
“They’re going toe for you, but I won’t let them take you,” he says while digging through the dresser,
and I could feel his intention through the bond loud and clear. He was going after them. He knew where
they would chase the beacon once set off, which is why he tossed the Moonstone into the city because
that was his Demonic-far Kingdom’s city, one he was familiar with. He knew they would stoping for
me if I didn’t possess the power of fully merging with my mates if the bond was broken. He turns around,
and I see the devil’s bane in his hand.
“Darius!” Tobias hisses as he pulls the, syringe from the pouch. “I won’t lose you all. They’ll stop. You can
keep her safe,” Darius informs them, and my brows scrunch.
“What?” Lycus says, stepping past me toward him.
“Her power will die out, she’ll be safe, you all will be safe,” Darius tells him, and I realize fully what that
intention I could feel through the bond is. He was going to go after them, knowing that if they killed him, I
would nevere into full power, and our bonds would eventually break.
“No!” I snarl at him.
“It’s the only way. It started with me. It ends with me,” Dariuses toward me, and my skin buzzes with
my anger.
“You’re right; it does end with you,” I tell him, feeling the bond sizzle as I flick my wrist at him, giving
myself over to instinct; the syringe goes flying. He won’t escape me this time, I thought as I lunged at
him; I was taking his power, and I was ending this, ending my mother and the power hunters for good.
Darius growls, catching me, and before he can toss me off, I kiss him, absorbing his power. Darius
gasps, feeling his power bleed into me as I take it, and he struggles, trying to toss me off instead
stumbling backward and hitting the bed. I crash on top of him, my legs straddling his waist, and I pin with
his own magic, my hands pressing against his chest.
We were going toplete the shred. He will give me his power even if I have to take it myself.
Darius growls, ring up at me, and our mates back off. Their energy ripples behind me as I stare down
at him.
“Three down, one to go,” I tell him before giving myself over to my bond and watching as it forces his
bond out,tching onto it.
*************
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