Tasting Darkness

Kalen tucked her closer as goosebumps pricked her skin, and she finally succumbed to the exhaustion. “We should get her inside. I think a storm is coming. The air is still charged,” Lycus says, and I could feel his guilt.

He believed this was his fault. I watch as he sniffs the air, looking at the dark clouds rolling across the sky, the heavy clouds and how fast it began to darken told me it would be a big one, that and the silence of the forest earlier while setting the wards up. “What are we going to do with all these chicks?” Tobias states, grabbing one basket as I retrieved the other before my eyes fall on Aleera.

“Are you right with her?” I ask Kalen, watching him stand with her limp body in his arms. “Of course,” He nodded, but for once, I noticed the darkness that usually surrounded him with death didn’t this time, making me stare down at the basket in my hands of the tiny birds responsible for bringing him back to us.

There was no cold feeling through the bond, no numbness, just Kalen. “More importantly, how are we going to feed them? I am not worm hunting or feeding them with syringes,” Lycus growls. I look at what’s left of my men.

They all begin to shake their heads, their eyes darting to each other nervously. They may be fine with the tiny powerless chicks, but I could see they didn’t want them as pets. “We’ll figure it out, but we can’t get rid of them,” I tell him. They saved Kalen and sacrificed their lives for my mates, and I would make sure each one survived.

We lost a few that were drained when killed, no magic left to bring them back, and the flock was down to half of what it was. So these ones needed to survive.

“We’ll go look for worms and small critters,” one of my men called out. They may not like the Phoenixes.

However, they all knew the phoenixes and Aleera were the only reason any of them were still breathing.

Yet some part of me also knew the attack wouldn’t have happened if they weren’t here. “Be sure to be inside before the storm hits.

I don’t want anyone out after dark, not tonight,” I called to the few men headed toward the treeline. They wave me off, and we head inside and back to our room. All three baskets of chicks were set in front of the fireplace where it was warmest.

Ryze flies in the window moments later, perching on the windowsill as he watches his paired Fae as Kalen sets Aleera on the bed. I had no doubt he had paired to her now. I suspected they were linked already bit today proved it, and by the way, the Phoenixes outside kept flying by the window.

I had a strange feeling all of them were now paired with her. Tobias glanced at the window, watching the birds zip past, peering in the windows as they do so. “Aleera Queen of the flock,” Tobias chuckled and shook his head. “Queen of Darkness, more like it.

I don’t know what she did out there, but I have never seen power like that,” Lycus says, moving toward the bed. Lycus sits beside her where Kalen had set her down, tugging the blanket back to reveal her back. Her clothes were barely hanging on her, her hair wild and unruly.

She had cut it off a while back, which was my fault, but now, after her power surge, it was to her h**s. Her hair was so dark it was almost obsidian, and the ends had blue and red hues under the light from the fireplace.

Lycus sweeps her hair aside and rips the rest of her shirt open, his fingers lightly tracing over her skin and the markings of her wings etched into her soft skin.

“How is it possible?” he murmured in awe. I never thought I would ever see wings on a Fae again, yet hers were something out of this world, not out of the darkness that enveloped her.

Lycus traces his fingertips over her tattoo-like wings etched into her delicate skin, marvelous patterns of red, black, and gold feathers tattooed into her flesh from between her shoulder blades to her lower back.

He strips her fully, and I see the same patterned feathers down the outsides of her thighs.

Lycus traces them when he reaches the end of her wings. Her skin ripples and she shivers as a rippling wave effect had the feathered design move in waves as they flexed beneath her skin, making him jump. “That is cool, but damn is it creepy too.”

Lycus mutters before sucking on his finger, where the feathers sliced him as they rippled from his touch. ” “But f*ck, they are sharp!” he curses, examining his finger. “We’ll figure it out.

She’ll learn to control it,” I tell them, wandering over to her and examining her wings examining her wings. “Whatever it was, it was darker than anything I have ever felt before. Even now, with her magic running through my veins, it feels cold,” Tobias states, flexing his fingers in front of him. His magic glows and mist runs between his fingers likes snakes coiling and getting ready to spring.

“It’s her dark side. It was triggered, so she brought it forth to protect us,” I tell him.

“That was more than darkness, Darius. Did you not see those things? The shadows she brought forth?” Tobias asks worriedly, shaking his head and dropping his magic. “Hells shadows,” I murmured. I had heard of the legends of Demonic-Fae being able to raise the dead in a sense.

It was similar to casting, only these casts became real, tangible, and she did something that I had only read about in history books. And only something Demonic-Fae could do. Aleera wasn’t a Demonic-Fae but a Harmony-Fae, so it made little sense to me. But few things about her did.

Harmony Fae were extinct, so it was hard to tell what they are capable of. Feeling her out there when she awoke that part of her, it felt like the dead feeling I get when my demons take over. But she had done similar before she had picked up on auras and empathic senses that were part of Kalen.

It made me wonder if it was us she drew on, our power morphing hers. Time would tell when she had marked all of us, and she would be a force to be reckoned with.

XO Running my hand down her back, her wings move beneath her skin, and she m***s softly at my touch, which made Kalen laugh. He swatted my hand away from her. “Don’t wake her. She needs some rest before her shredding wakes her,” he scolded.

Ryze screeches loudly and I glanced over at him.

He had flown over to the baskets of chicks, all them jumping up hungrily and I sighed. Now to play mother hen. My eyes go to Tobias. He was the best with them. He held no fear of them because of Aleera.

Neither did I, but that was a lot of chicks to feed and I wasn’t a man of great patience. “Fine, but you’re helping with the night feeds,” he snaps, walking out of the room to find them something to eat. “Aw look at you both co-parenting your killer flock of demon birds,” Lycus laughed. your “You’re in charge of the third basket,” I tell him and his cheeky smile slips right off his face.