by Sennah Tate
"Alina! You know you shouldn't be using your abilities before you're bonded. You could compromise ever finding your Traveler," her aunt scolded.
She looked down at her hands, ashamed of herself.
"I just want to help," she muttered.
"Leave the worrying to us," her uncle said.
Alina picked at her dirty fingernails in the present, wishing for simpler times. The Darkness came for them. Her aunt and uncle fought it off, but the Darkness never relented. Once Preston learned how to control it, the Darkness was unstoppable.
She remembered the night all too well.
“Alina, hide in the closet. Don't come out for anything,” her aunt said with a bruising grip on her shoulders. She was fifteen now and they'd been on the run for over a year. Uncle George was constantly trying to relocate Soul Shifters away from the ever-present danger of the Darkness. It kept spreading, growing and destroying everything it came in contact with.
"Aunt Poppy... please let me help!" she cried.
The front door imploded into the kitchen sending shrapnel and splinters down the main hallway.
Alina screamed, but Poppy shoved her into the closet.
A shimmering white light bounded down the hallway toward the intrusion: just like the man himself, George's animal transport was large, hairy, and intimidating. The glowing grizzly attacked the Darkness with everything he had. Claws, teeth and brute strength ripped gaping holes in the wall of darkness that flooded in, but more and more shadows poured into their home, diffusing the light, suffocating the bear.
Alina watched through the slatted closet door, silent tears streaming down her face. The bear began to fade as a tendril wrapped around its neck like a boa constrictor.
A young man walked in, the shadows parting to clear him a path.
Aunt Poppy desperately tried to feed energy into her dying husband – his human form laid on the couch, while his soul traveled into the bear. If the bear died, so would he. If his connection to the bear was severed, he may lose his soul. Poppy didn't have any other choice but to try to feed the bear as best she could. Her abilities couldn't hurt anyone, they were designed to help.
Shadowy tendrils wrapped about Poppy's arms with a sizzle. She cried out in pain and the smell of burning flesh made Alina want to gag. Her heart beat wildly in her chest. They were going to die! She had to help. She couldn't just keep hiding in a closet.
"Stop!" she cried, bursting through the door.
The young man turned his attention to her – he couldn't have been more than five or six years older than her, what had happened in his life to make him turn to the Darkness?
He sneered at her and flicked his wrist in her direction. The shadows slithered toward her, flowing across the floor like tar, bubbling ominously.
"Alina, no!" Poppy shouted, turning her attention away from her dying husband.
"She can help you! Don't kill her!" Poppy screamed.
Preston paused then, tilting his head to one side with a sly smile spreading across his face.
"I'm listening."
"She... she can find others like us," Poppy panted, her face pale and haggard from the effort of keeping them alive.
"No, I won't help him! You'd better just kill me," Alina said, bracing herself for her inevitable demise.
"No, I don't think I will," Preston said cheerfully.
“You’re our best hope, Alina,” her aunt rasped, struggling to breathe as the shadows engulfed her.
He caught the teen off-guard and knocked her out before she had a chance to say goodbye to her aunt and uncle.
When she later awoke, she was bound, caged, and alone.
Now, years after her fateful abduction, Alina wasn’t even sure she could feel any more. Preston had tried to do so many things to her – he did so many awful things to her that she’d withdrawn into herself and become completely numb. She didn’t know what made Preston Waters the monster he was, but she hoped against all evidence that someone would be able to defeat him before he and the Darkness consumed everything.
Preston returned after a brief absence. Cathy’s body had been taken away by his goons – he got a sick satisfaction out of seeing their mangled twisted bodies, but once they were cold they were no fun.
“Did you find one for me?” he asked, dark eyes without pupils gleamed back at her. She shivered, unable to forget the abuse she’d faced at his hands.
“Please, stop this. You’re never going to get what you want. The Darkness won’t take your orders forever, it will consume you too,” she pleaded. He didn’t look like the kind of man to be a homicidal maniac. He was young, clean-cut with rosy cheeks and a boyish style to his sandy blond hair. Other than his other-worldly eyes, Preston looked like any other middle class white guy. But he wasn’t any other guy. And he certainly wasn’t middle class.
He reached through the bars of her cell and grabbed a handful of her shirt, yanking her against the bars.
“Did you find me one?” he hissed. The stench of his breath made Alina retch. He smelled rotten from the inside. Like he’d been dead and decaying for years.
“Y-yes,” Alina cried, cold metal biting her bruised and battered flesh. She just wanted it to stop. She didn’t want another girl to die. She just wanted it to end.
Two years after his rejection from Elena, he had the answer. It came to him in a dream. It was all so simple. How could he have missed it before? The women were the keys. The so-called Travelers were nothing without the woman. If he could harness that power and channel it somehow, that’s all it would take.
Preston Waters was a household name now; he sold his company making himself one of the youngest billionaires on the planet. He had to be careful about what he was doing. With enough grease, he could steer the wheels of justice if any law enforcement came calling, but he didn’t want to make himself a target. It was still too soon. There were still too many Travelers. But the Darkness was coming. He would destroy them all. Elena wouldn’t have a choice then.
He called her out of the blue one day, excited with his new discovery.
“I have something I want to show you,” he said after she asked why he was calling.
“Preston, I thought you understood… We’re not going to happen.”
“But I figured it out. I unlocked the secret to your little world.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked, suddenly concerned about his mental health.
“Please, just let me show you.”
She agreed. This was it! He would show her. It wasn’t about love any more. It wasn’t about passion or desire for companionship. Now, he wanted to prove that he was worthy. That she made a mistake by discounting him.
He met her at her home; she didn’t want to come to him. Just like Elena to play hard to get. He imagined the look of surprise on her face, the sudden realization that she let him go, the regret. Would she beg him to take her back? Just the thought of it filled him with glee.
She opened the front door, allowing him entrance to her humble abode. If she had stayed with him, she’d be in a mansion by now.
“Preston, I don’t know what you think this is going to accomplish…” she said, fear hiding behind her eyes. He loved it.
Yes, she should fear him. She made him this person. She destroyed him and everything he cared about. She should be very afraid.
“You said that we couldn’t be together because of the Travelers. Well, let me show you,” he said, standing in the middle of her living room.
He transformed into a humongous black lion with a bushy mane and startling red eyes. He roared and the sound waves caused Elena’s knick knacks to rattle on the mantle.
“Oh my god, Preston… What have you done?”
He changed back into a human, grinning from ear-to-ear.
“You see? You were wrong about me. You underestimated me.”
She clasped a hand over her mouth in horror, “This isn’t right. Whatever you’re doing, you have to stop. You’re not a Traveler any more t
han you were two years ago; you’re an abomination.”
“How… how can you say something like that?” He asked, hurt evident in his expression, “I… I did all of this for you. Don’t you know what I went through to do this? You ungrateful bitch,” he sneered.
“Preston, I never asked you to do this for me… I’ve found my Traveler. I told you, we’re not going to happen. You need to get some help, this… this isn’t right,” she repeated, at a loss for further words. He’d taken the beautiful magical bond between an Evoker and her mate and twisted it into something unrecognizable, monstrous and frightening. She wished her husband was home. She wished she never invited Preston over. He always seemed so harmless, but now… something in him was different.
Preston only saw red. His body morphed and changed of its own accord.
The next thing he remembered was Elena’s mauled corpse lying in a pool of her own blood at the front door.
Aaron sat in a secluded corner of Santorini’s restaurant just watching. Waiting for his opening. Isabel was as stunning as ever – the narrow hips and lithe frame he remembered from their youth was long gone, in their place were womanly curves that made his mouth water. She wore her hair styled in a sleek ponytail and she batted her eyelashes at her customers as she poured them drinks.
He’d faced down insurgents, IEDs, and ambushes and lived to tell the tale, so why did talking to Izzy scare the shit out of him?
His waitress, a pretty young blonde, brought him another beer. He knew he shouldn’t be drinking. He knew that only made the nightmares worse sometimes. But liquid courage was just the thing he needed to approach Izzy. He glanced at his phone for the time; it was already after nine and the place would only be open until ten. He needed to make his move.
Aaron told his server that he was going to move to the bar and tipped her for her trouble. He slid onto a barstool with a million bats beating up a storm in his gut. He was a nervous teenager all over again. Unsure of how to act around his best friend’s baby sister. For years, she’d been his baby sister too. Then things started to change. When she smiled, there was something extra in it just for him. They found excuses to hang out together without Carson, and before he knew it, Aaron realized he was head over heels with her.
Then he went and fucked it all up by going overseas.
She placed a napkin in front of him and said “What can I get you?” without ever really looking at him.
He took a deep breath.
“Well, I’ve heard this place has the prettiest damn bartender in four counties and I have to say the rumor’s true,” he said, turning on the charm.
She froze and spun on her heels.
It took a moment to recognize him – long gone was the scrawny teenager that she pined over; this was a man, muscular, scarred, in command of the room without trying – she recognized the haunted look buried beneath the surface and her heart leapt into her throat.
“You son of a bitch,” she snarled.
Aaron frowned; that wasn’t quite the reception he hoped for.
He held up a hand to ward off the torrent of obscenities he could see on the tip of her tongue.
“Izzy, Izzy, hear me out.”
“What’s there to hear? I told you I loved you and you ran away for eight fucking years?”
The alcoholic fuzz in his brain made it difficult to come up with a response.
“You’re right,” he said, defeated, “I know I fucked up. I know I missed my chance and I waited too long and you probably never want to see or hear from me again,” he said.
“Damn right.”
Her words sent a burning lance through him. Of course she didn’t want anything to do with him. Why had he even deluded himself to begin with?
“But you’re all I thought about, day and night in that Hell hole. Coming home to see you again was the only thing that got me through it. I hoped that we could start again, but I understand if you hate me.”
Her expression softened. He wasn’t expecting it. She poured him a beer and made them both a shot.
“Fine. Do over,” she said, lifting the shot glass to him.
Their glasses clinked together and the burning hot whiskey made its way down Aaron’s esophagus like drain cleaner.
Aaron’s was the only occupied seat at the bar, so Izzy came around and joined him. They spent some time catching up, but mostly they were just drinking. Both felt excited and nervous. Both wanted something from this that they weren’t sure they deserved.
By the time the restaurant closed, Aaron was drunk and Izzy was more than a little tipsy. The owner didn’t care that she drank on the clock as long as she didn’t screw anything up. She’d been at that job long enough that she could close in her sleep.
“Let me walk you home,” Aaron pleaded.
“I know what that’s code for,” she teased, “you just want to get into my pants.”
Aaron grinned mischievously, “I just want to make sure you get home safely. What is your dirty mind thinking?”
Her fingers danced their way up his jean-clad thigh and stroked the front of his pants with a promising grin.
“Okay, maybe I just want to get into your pants,” she admitted, her mouth so close to his he could nearly taste the lingering whiskey on her lips.
“I think I could oblige you,” he said, hoping that the copious amount of alcohol in his system wouldn’t inhibit his ability to perform. Who was he kidding? This was Izzy. He could be dead and still get hard for her.
Her mouth quirked upwards and he couldn’t resist any more. His lips found hers as if they were magnets attracted to one another. His lips tingled, their tongues tangled and before too long, Izzy was panting, sliding her hands under his shirt, exploring hard muscles and raised scars.
“About that walk home,” she said, breathless, flushed, her eyes glazed over with lust.
He nodded silently and took her by the hand.
More than once during the normally ten minute walk, Aaron had to pull her aside and kiss her senseless again. By the time they reached her house, Izzy was wet, eager, and ready to have what she waited so long for.
They burst through the door; her hands roved his body as he exposed hers, peeling back the layers in a hurry like she was a gift from Santa Claus.
Her nimble fingers slipped under the waistband of his jeans, stroking him through the thin cotton boxers he wore. He groaned and slid his hands under her ass, pinning her against the wall just inside the door.
Izzy’s nails gripped his tensed biceps; Aaron’s urgency increased ten-fold as he pulled one of her dark nipples into his mouth. Her back arched. She moaned his name. He had to have her.
He carried her to the bedroom. Isabel never had a man make her feel so dainty and feminine. His raw masculine power was overwhelming, decadent, something she could indulge in forever, she thought.
Forever?
His lips skirted over her belly button and Izzy froze. She wasn’t quite prepared for sex – she hadn’t done any maintenance in a while and she didn’t want Aaron judging her too harshly. She didn’t want anything to mess this up. Not this time.
“One minute,” she whispered, giving him an intense kiss that left his mind spinning before she scampered into the attached bathroom.
Aaron groaned, shifting uncomfortably in his pants.
He laid on her bed, not believing his luck. She was the woman of his dreams. He could actually have her? It didn’t seem possible. It seemed too good to be true. Isabel deserved the best – she deserved better than him.
Aaron paused; she definitely deserved better than their first time being a drunken hook-up. He was a mess. Sloppy, drunk, barely able to walk a straight line. Would she regret sleeping with him in the morning? She wasn’t sober either. Was he taking advantage of her?
He couldn’t do it. She deserved better and he couldn’t risk having her regret their joining. He was going to clean himself up, sober up, buy her a ring and do this the right way, dammit.
Carson wouldn’t forg
ive him if he didn’t. His best friend probably already had plenty of objections about their union; everything had to be perfect. This wasn’t it.
Without a word, he crept out of Izzy’s house, hoping that she would understand his rationale. Maybe if he had been sober he would have thought things through and left her a note, but in his inebriated state, Aaron just wanted to get out before he did something they would both regret.
Alina didn’t want to give up the girl’s name, but Preston whittled it out of her. Normally, he would send employees to do reconnaissance, but something told him he would enjoy doing this one personally.
As he sped down the streets, Preston admired his handy work. The shadows were spreading. Soon the frenzy would come. The Darkness had a way of making people crazy, violent, and impulsive. It fed on the chaos and Preston reveled in it. His work was so close to being finished. They were nearly wiped out.
He pulled to a stop a few houses away and turned off the lights. She wasn’t home yet. He’d planned it that way. He knew her work schedule, knew she wouldn’t be home until late at night. In a matter of minutes, he’d managed to efficiently set up an array of motion sensors and cameras around her house. He just had to wait for the right moment. Make sure she was alone, unaware, unprotected.
His heart fluttered with anticipation of the abduction. It wouldn’t happen tonight, but soon. Very soon.
He monitored the cameras on a tablet, watching her life with interest. The more he knew about her, the easier it would be to break her. He didn’t have to break her – the Darkness could feed off of her regardless – but that was the fun part.
She exited her bathroom nearly naked, in mismatched lingerie, clearly ready for a good time, but she found her bedroom empty.
He watched her search through the house, check her phone, and try to call someone before she gave up. Her defeated sobs made Preston even more anxious to get his hands on her. He inhaled deeply, imagining the sweet scent of her despair.
“I’m coming for you Isabel. We’ll be together very soon,” he whispered to the glowing screen. Satisfied that his surveillance system was operational, Preston returned to his warehouse headquarters to plan just how he would capture his newest target.
