Tasting Darkness

They killed him. They killed my mate, and I returned to my senses as I hit the ground. I had lost all control, driven by anger so hot I thought I would combust. “Aleera,” Lycus murmured as I tried to clear my vision, my anger dying down and replaced with sadness and a hollowness that would never be filled; I was dead inside.

And I felt my magic crashing as I did, seeping back into the earth, yet my magic was recharged, energized, yet ice cold in my veins when I heard Ryze screech. The fighting had stopped, and the bodies of our men and the power hunters lay on the ground. Few had survived, yet all I could think was Kalen was gone.

That cold, sinking feeling made my bones ache as it settled over me. The weight was heavy, and I was drowning in despair. Is this what they felt every time he killed himself? No wonder they hated me. I couldn’t live with this feeling, yet as my eyes searched for his body amongst the others, all I could see was carnage. “Kalen.” I whimpered when Ryze screeched again, and I looked for him. Only to see what was left of my phoenixes huddled where his body lay. My eyes widen, and I choke and sputter at what I see.

He was being eaten by them. They were eating him. I screamed at them, getting to my feet and running toward them.

“No, stop! Stop,” I sobbed, racing to stop them from mutilating him more. Lycus and Tobias were also running toward him too.

I lift my hand and blast them with my magic, only for it to hit some invisible barrier and be deflected back at us, knocking us all on our as*ses.

Fury courses through me that they would betray me like this, and I sit with a crying scream when I see one phoenix collapse. Then another.

The huddled birds, ruffling feathers and chirping screeches, fluttered over him, and all I could see were his legs as they covered him before dropping one by one and bursting into flames around him when the one on top squawked loudly and erupted into flames.

My heart became pulverized as he burned along with them. Or so I thought. My infinity mark burns, erupting with power, and warmth floods through me, and I gasp, looking down at my mark to see his name flashing like an SOS.

Blink before searing and burning brighter before it stops completely. Yet gone was the grey, and his name was etched in a bright blue like the others. I stared at the marking and clutched my wrist, only to see Tobias and Lycus doing the same when magic erupted in my chest and made my heart swell. Kalen’s magic.

Kalen’s bond. I gasped, looking toward where his body lay, only for him to jolt upright with a harsh wheeze as he sucked in air. Ash and X’s soot covering every inch of him cascades off him, his clothes gone “Kalen?” I murmured, and he breathed as if he had been holding his breath for a long time, trying to catch his breath.

He clutches his chest, then his throat.” Kalen!” Lycus shrieked a sob, and he turned his head to look at us. They weren’t eating him; they were resurrecting him. With a cry, we were all on our feet, racing toward him when he looked down at his naked legs covered in soot and ash.

I crash against him first and clutch him tight, immense relief washing through me when he hugs me back. I k!ss his face, every part of it, when he makes a strangled noise, making me realize my relief of him being alive was now strangling him when he jumps.

Poc X, I pulled back, and I look at him, seeing Darius and the other racing toward us. They were meters away from him when he reached between our bodies, and I moved off him, thinking I was hurting his legs.

Yet Kalen cupped something in his hands before looking up at me. And all I could do was blink. He throws his hand out, and our mates slow, stopping as he looks around himself. I looked down at the ground, wondering what was wrong, fearing he was leaving us again, when I saw something move in his hands.

The ashes rippled, and a featherless body shook off the soot and ash. Long tongue slivers out, and I look to the ground, the ash rippling as the phoenixes come back from the ashes in tiny featherless bodies. “Phoenix chicks,” I whisper, and he chokes a sob looking at me.

I hold my hands out as he drops the featherless little body in my hands as the phoenixes that saved him move the soot and pop their heads out, giving a chirp. Ryze flies over and perches heavily on my shoulder, his tongue sneaking out and licking the chick’s face.

I giggle as the force of his tongue makes the squirming chick fall on its side in my palms. “They saved me,” Kalen murmurs as the others fall on the ground beside us, careful not to crush the phoenixes hatching from the ashes.

Lycus clutches Kalen’s face and k!sses him, a whimper leaving him as he squeezes him. Kalen laughs, pushing away from him to scoop up another chick when Darius and Tobias grab him and crush Kalen in their embrace. “The chicks! the chicks!” Kalen shrieks.

He was more worried about the birds than the fact he had just died. Darius mutters something at him that sounds vaguely like a curse. “Yes, watch the chicks!” Lycus snarls, shoving Tobias back and scooping one up.

“You hate Phoenixes!” Tobias snarled at him. “Who said I hate them? I love phoenixes! Lycus snarls at Tobias, cuddling the tiny bird. “Such pretty little things,” Lycus coos, smooching its face when the bird screeches at his mauling l!ps and bites him, making Lycus hiss. “Stupid bird,” he growled.

“I thought you said you loved them?”. “I thought you said you loved them?” Darius laughs. “I do! Just not that one. It has your temperament,” Lycus says, thrusting the bird at him. Darius chuckles, taking the featherless thing while I look around at what became a battlefield.

Some of Darius ‘ recruits survived but only around twenty or so, and they were scooping up fallen baby phoenixes as they made their way over to us. So much death.

“Aleera?” Kalen says, drawing my attention back to him only to see his hand reaching toward my face, yet his hand doesn’t touch me but goes past my face behind me. “You have wings,” Kalen murmurs, and I gasp when I feel his fingertips brush what felt like a weird tickle on my back. As I turned my head, I realized he was right. I had wings!