by Brianna West
Magical bonds couldn’t be formed without mutual emotional consent. While mate bonds were somewhat simplistic, requiring the bare minimum of mutual lust, they didn’t require our feelings to have caught up with the bond connection. Magical connections required an emotional readiness on both sides before it could fully form. The initial emotional attachment was helped along when two were meant to be magically bonded, and it often resulted in the inevitable connection. But it could be severed before the bond had completely formed by a great deal of intervening factors.
A two-level bond was rare, and it often symbolized a very strong fate connection. Two-level bonds were quick to establish and difficult to break. Unlike a single-level bond, two-level or multiple-level bonds almost always reached completion. And essentially, there was very little that could sever them.
With the strength of such a bond, it was clear to me that Aidan and I were meant to be together. While it was slightly off-putting to have my emotions triggered so quickly and rather inorganically, it made perfect sense to me that they had.
But there was a part of me that wanted verbal confirmation of what Aidan felt. It was the same part that believed, at one time, because of my particular affections, I hadn’t deserved to pursue any sort of love interest. I’d never felt worthy, even though I’d pined and loved passionately. It was clear that Aidan cared for me, more than any other friend or companion had, but I wasn’t sure how far-reaching that care went, or if it compared to how I felt.
To be quite honest, I’d only acknowledged that I cared for him—liked him even—but as the hours went by, the days passed on, I couldn’t deny that the love I felt for Aidan exceeded any love I’d ever felt. Even where Lucas was concerned. I loved Aidan beyond what I originally thought love could be. I loved him so deeply that I found myself doing things I never imagined I’d do, like kissing someone of my own volition and without regards to time or place.
I loved Aidan with every breath I took. Vehemently so.
Simply, my logical brain was at odds with my emotional heart. Neither one of them could fully reconcile how the two of us had connected so easily when I’d spent a better part of my life believing I’d be alone and romantically unloved.
Bernie’s eyes were sparkling when I came out of my short reverie. I nearly smacked my forehead when I realized that all my thoughts, with how intense I’d thought them, had projected to my brother in the moments I spent consumed inside of them. His smile was practically blinding me from where he stood.
Don’t say a damn word.
Bernie chuckled happily, crossing his heart with his finger and zipping his lips. “Your secrets are safe with me, dear brother.”
“What secrets? Wait, what are you two going on about?” Aidan peered between us, smelling the air with flared nostrils before Bernie was motioning for us to follow him out of the airport.
I silently berated my loss of control and led the way as Aidan continued to ask after what Bernie was talking about. I didn’t answer, merely walked with my chin lifted and my heart throbbing. It would’ve only been a matter of time before Bernie knew the depth of love I carried for Aidan, but a part of me wished it wasn’t the exact moment I’d realized it myself.
*
Instead of heading to the estate the team was staying at by car, Bernie suggested we run. Aidan had actually smiled at the suggestion, and I couldn’t exactly say no when it was clear that the other Guardian was excited with the mere idea of going for a run in partial transformation. With our speed and much of the land forested, we’d be safe from exposure to humans. So really, there wasn’t any reason for me to fight it. To be honest, I was rather excited myself with the prospects of an early evening run. It had my heart racing for an entirely different reason from most of the day.
So, taking off after a short teleportal jump into the nearby forest, the three of us navigated the trees with Bernie leading the way. The fresh scent of a previous rain hit my nose as we dodged between trees and jumped over protruding roots and undergrowth. The crisp air assaulted my body and teased through my hair with a pleasant ferocity. The sounds of animals and the wind soothed my ears and cleared my head. Everything felt incredible as I moved across the ground with barely touching it. It was the freest I’d felt in a while. I took to running beside Aidan, noticing the wide smile on the were-bear mix’s face when I offered him a quick glance.
It was too damn adorable. The usually stone-faced Guardian looked like a small child up to no good, and I was sure my expression wasn’t far off.
Several minutes into the run, I was hit with the dense smell of darkness, and my flesh was instantly prickling with alarm. The three of us stopped, our weapons ready as the density grew around us and an explosion of sound disrupted our hearing. Holding our ears, the three of us crouched just as white power burst and washed the world around us in pure light. But with our joint effort, we quickly rallied a barrier of combined magic in time to rebuff the sudden attack.
A figure crouched on the floor while another stood just beside it, their features masked by the momentary white wash before it faded and the man who had been crouching stood with his inky wings spread out behind him. One of his eyes was scarred over, raw-looking as if just recently healed. His flowing pale hair lifted in coiling tendrils as the wind hit him. His body, probably about the size of Aidan’s, stood imposingly with the darkness disforming a great deal of it. With his glamor gone, it was evident that this angel had long been Dark. To obtain such a disfigured body and black-colored set of wings, he had to have lost his Light a long time ago.
The other man, who I immediately recognized to be Niko, grinned when he caught sight of me. His silver-tinted eyes were radiant as wispy, blue magic slipped up in thin vines around his legs and bare torso. The tattoos decorated his body like I remembered, and they were just as frightening to look at in the daylight, if not more so. His gloved hands fisted for a moment as he continued to stare at me.
Niko grinned boldly, pointing to me. “That’s him. He’s the one I want. Do what you will with the other two.”
The Dark angel standing beside him was obviously the one we’d faced from before. With a curt, uninterested nod, the Dark angel responded with a surprisingly deep voice. “I hope he’s worth all this fucking trouble, Niko.”
Niko’s eyes flashed violently as Aidan growled and attempted to step in front of me.
“He is.”
I didn’t have time to register the conversation, because two white streams of pure light hit both Bernie and Aidan simultaneously before Niko was standing in front of me, his wide grin putting dread into my stomach. I’d barely summoned my power when Niko’s pale eyes connected with mine and one word extinguished all of the fight inside of me.
“Sleep,” he whispered before I felt my eyelids fall heavily onto my cheeks and then, without any ability to stop it, I fell unconscious.
Chapter Twenty-Three
When I finally came to, my head was collapsing in on itself. The steady, unforgiving throb terrorized me from the moment I attempted to figure out where I was. My senses had gone haywire; rendered completely useless when I realized just where I’d have to be in order for my heightened scent and hearing to be disrupted to such a degree.
With my vision clearing, I panned the room I was imprisoned inside. The beautifully crafted buttons that had adorned my dress shirt had been torn off. So, with nothing to hold the to sides together, my bare chest was left exposed to the ice-cold draft wafting in through the cracks webbing all over the walls. Yet, I still felt measurably hot and uncomfortable.
Perspiration gleaned all over my naked chest with the light bleeding through the cracks. The eerie glow of whatever lie outside casted slivers of pale light against my sun-kissed flesh. Magic swirled around my wrists and ankles, tethering me to the bed I was being held captive to. It was to be expected, but a slight improvement to the magical cuffs that could’ve been used in its place.
Unlike magical cuffs, a binding spell like the one placed on my wrists
and ankles could be weakened with time, and the strength of the bind relied solely on how close the caster was to it. If, for any reason, the caster was away, the bindings would have weak spots and could be broken by an equally talented caster. Which I was.
Testing them, it came as no surprise that there weren’t any weak points that I could immediately identify. It meant that whoever had placed it, likely Niko, was still nearby. Despite that unfortunate discovery, it was another piece of information that I could gather in the initial minutes of waking.
The dense, rank air stirred inside my nostrils as the smell of death penetrated my usual calm. The potent scents were just as telling as the magic binding me to the bed—darkness lurked nearby, in great enough numbers that their smell penetrated the very walls. Their scent had smothered any other scent I could’ve hoped to detect, and that discovery was quite literally damning.
My heart raced unevenly, the uncomfortable staccato thrumming loudly inside my ears. My skin prickled with alarm, and my stomach coiled violently as the realization dawned. I knew without any further inspection just where Niko had taken me. The heavy weight of the air and creeping unease seeping into my bones was all I needed to confirm it. But the scents and disruption to my inherently keen senses were the nail in the coffin.
I was in the Underworld.
The very place where demons reigned and where angels could never wander. It was one of the only ways an angel could be killed, and it was the worst place I could possibly have been abducted to. By all definitions, it was the worst realm I could be imprisoned inside. A mission to this realm was incredibly risky, at best. To come for one Guardian was suicide.
It would be left to me to find a way back, because seeking permission to venture into the Underworld with a team would require not only the Promiscus Guardian Council, but the archangel Council’s permission as well. Especially if the reason for the venture was in order to rescue someone. We never left our own behind, but there were limits to what we could risk for one Guardian’s sake. I wasn’t naïve enough to think I’d be an exception to that rule.
So, knowing that there would likely be no one coming to liberate me, I’d need to find a way to portal between the worlds. Which wasn’t something I was confident I could do in my current state. There were doors and portals I could use here, but the likelihood that they wouldn’t be heavily guarded was slight. Recovering depleted magic or healing from an injury was nearly impossible in the Underworld. It disrupted our natural abilities to use Light magic without considerable effort.
As strong as I was, I might not be able to use my magic as easily as someone who was inherently Dark. The best I could hope for was that there was a tonic nearby that Niko had left unguarded to help either aid in recovery or momentarily strengthen my natural abilities. Niko was clever enough that those sorts of tonics would be nowhere I could easily access, and finding them with my senses already dulled would be a pointless endeavor. I’d have an easier time finding a needle in the haystack. Worse still, in the case of the haystack, magic wouldn’t be concealing the needle.
Prospects of escape were growing grimmer by the second, but I didn’t have any other choice but to escape.
Unless…
If I were to somehow convince Niko, I might be able to persuade him to let me leave. But after the discovery of his alliance with both Harlan and the Dark angel he’d attacked us with, I wasn’t sure anything I said could convince him now. While the darkness hadn’t tainted his eyes, which was one of the first signs that a person had gone Dark, it had tainted his magic and scent. Enough to suggest that Niko may not be far from total corruption. And although he’d stated that he sought an amulet—whether or not to destroy it, I wasn’t sure—I wasn’t completely certain what his true agenda was. Whatever his agenda was, I couldn’t trust that it wasn’t ultimately tainted by the darkness that had overcome him in all these years.
Suddenly, images of white light and my brother’s face distorted by it quickly flashed through my head. Then, the image changed direction to the powerful body poised in front of mine. The familiar musk and scent I drew comfort from filled my head, as if I were truly there. Chest burning, I remembered his kind eyes as they glinted with true fear when a jet of white had assaulted him—when Niko stood before me, the intention to capture gleaming in silver irises in which sealed my fate.
Aidan.
I searched for the subtle connection I shared with Bernie and Aidan, terrified to know their fate. But it was essential that I did. My heart was squeezed in a vice-grip as I thought of the one man who had changed my view on a love paid and a love returned. I hadn’t been given a chance to tell him. I hadn’t been able to say the words that had haunted me from the moment I realized I needed him. From the moment I knew that there couldn’t be any other, only Aidan.
What if I lost him before I managed to say the few words that had bloomed inside of my heart from the moment we’d met? What if I never knew what it felt like to tell someone that I loved them? The regret would eat me alive for the rest of my days if I somehow lived. I’d never forgive myself.
I’d been given ample opportunity to tell him, and I’d squandered it. For what, my pride? My inability to come to terms without knowing that Aidan felt the same way? Everything felt so trivial when I realized that I might never get to see him again.
Or my brother. That idiot was a damned cockroach, so if he hadn’t survived this time, I’d kill him myself.
Fire burned into my throat as I searched myself with every bit of strength I could muster. Fear gripped my heart as the seconds passed and I wasn’t able to locate my bond to either one. My eyes burned as anxiety ate away at the remainder of my calm. But still, I searched without stalling in order to find the connections that I prayed desperately were still there, hidden but strong.
Then, when I felt the tension and present connection of my bonds to both Aidan and Bernie, I breathed a deep, relieved sigh. Somehow, they had gotten away. It was the first pleasant feeling I’d felt since waking, and I hoped it wasn’t the last.
I tested the magic inside of me, relieved to know that it hadn’t all been drained. Why it hadn’t, I couldn’t understand. But I was grateful nonetheless. If I could focus my power on the bindings, I might be able to break them down enough to free myself.
My moment of hope was short-lived as the door to the room opened and Niko strolled inside, a chipper hitch to his step when he noticed I was awake. It was pointless to fight the binds holding me to the bed and draining my power with the other man in the room, so I watched him closely for anything that might aid my escape in the meantime.
“I’ve finally managed to get you here,” Niko said, his voice carrying through the air with an almost musical note to it. “Now you can help me obtain the amulet.”
It was best not to argue, so I played along as best as I could while searching his body with my heightened eyesight for anything that might assist me. “The amulet you have been searching for,” I asked, baiting him into conversation, “what does it do?”
Niko’s smile was radiant, the silver color in his eyes igniting brightly. “So much. It can draw someone’s dormant Dark abilities through their blood and magnify them. It can make someone who would otherwise be normal as strong as a high-demon.”
“And you want it?” I asked slowly. “For yourself?”
Niko’s expression wavered. “Imagine what I could do if I had it.”
“It would make you Dark, Niko,” I said pointedly, eyes still seeking out any information I could gather from what he wore. “I thought you said it was for the Guardians that you were attempting to steal it.”
Niko brushed the pale hair from his eyes, skillfully fixing the styling. His jaw tautened along with the muscles in his abdomen for a short second before he smiled. “It doesn’t make you Dark, Carl. That’s what’s so clever about it.”
Feigning interest, I asked, “What do you mean? It draws out your dormant Dark abilities.”
“Yes, through your blood, witho
ut actively changing it. Sort of acts as an intermediary in a way.”
“If it’s a Dark item, it will ultimately change you. Dark magic costs a price, Niko. You know that better than I do. If you use it, there is something it’s taking in return.”
Niko’s expression darkened as he shook his head, attempting to refute the statement as nonsense with the movement. We both knew it wasn’t.
In our time as Guardians, whenever someone used their Dark abilities, there was always a price they’d pay. The level of price depended on the strength and amount of Dark used. As mixed creatures, we traveled a fine line between both worlds. It was very easy to give into our inherent nature.
Using our Dark abilities required a self-control most didn’t have, and we were especially trained to know when and when not to use them. Our training years were tailored to our specific weaknesses, and we learned how to best control them to be an asset rather than a weakness. But even with all of our training and careful supervision, there were some of us that still fell into our natures and gave into the darkness. Much like Conall had with his bloodlust.
It was part of what made our organization unsightly for many pure Light creatures like angels. It was hard to believe we wouldn’t ultimately give into our Dark nature. For as long as there had been the Promiscus Guardians, there had been groups of Light who opposed us. Their fears were justified, but that was why it was imperative that each Guardian worked hand-and-hand with their superiors and supervising angels to make sure that when we were failing to control ourselves, there was someone to bring us back to center.
It was the very reason that, even though Conall had done something that would otherwise be unforgivable, I couldn’t fault or shame him for it. Fighting our natural inclinations, especially when one was mixed with an inherently Dark creature, like a vampire, was exceedingly difficult for even the best Guardians.
