Tempting Darkness

"Aleera, stay awake for me," Kalen murmured. His voice became more and more distant, and I felt my clothes tugged off. My limbs were floppy, and Lycus moved me around like a puppet, yet the feeling induced by the blood loss had me not caring about anything as I focused on breathing. It seemed like a mammoth task-one I wasn't sure I wanted to keep forcing because it was too much effort.

A sharp prick in my arm told me someone had jammed a needle in me, yet I couldn't open my heavy eyelids.

"I don't get it. Why does she need blood? Lycus healed her," came a voice.

"She has no magic, Kalen. She might as well be human. She will be fine," Lycus murmured, and their voices grew louder.

"She looks so pale," Kalen said. Their voices became more explicit as my surroundings came back into view. I had no idea how long I'd been out for, but I was aware that I was no longer in the shower. Tingles spread up my arms from the fingertips that brushed up them lazily. "Left some nasty scars, but she is getting some color back," Kalen murmured, and I groaned.

"She is waking up," Kalen said. The excitement in his words made my eyes flutter, and I opened them to look at the ceiling. The same ceiling I saw when I fell through the portal. Kalen hovered above me, looking down at me as he leaned over, pulling my eyelids up and making me blink rapidly.

He sighed before dropping his head onto my collarbone. My hand went to his hair, wanting to reassure him I was fine, when I felt the tug in the crook of my elbow. When he lifted his head, I looked at my arm and the line in it, giving me blood. I followed the line to find Darius staring at me. He moved, twisting something and cutting it off as he leaned forward. He placed a cotton bud over the canular stuck in my arm before pulling it out.

He said nothing when I looked for the blood bag, only to find the other end of the line attached to him.

"You gave me blood?" I asked groggily. He didn't answer but yanked the needle from his arm.

"We don't have an infirmary here. Not much need for blood here either besides Tobias, so we had to make do. Probably not the safest way if you were human." Kalen chuckled, cupping my face in his hands.

"Don't worry. His blood is clean and since we all share the same blood type, no harm done." Kalen shrugged.

"Huh?" I asked groggily before clutching my head.

"We're mates. Don't they teach this stuff in that boarding school you went to? I thought mates and fates were common topics in schools. They even taught us about them in the orphanage," Kalen continued to ramble. Darius had wandered off, so I turned my attention to Kalen, trying to listen to what he was telling me. However, I knew it took me a second to register what he was rambling about.

"I thought you would know about how the fates chose our mates. Though a little iffy, if you ask me."

"I do know. Sorry, you just caught me while out of it," I mumbled.

"Then you tell me, can be a memory check of sorts," he chuckled.

I rolled my eyes before noticing he was staring at me expectantly. Oh, he was serious. He wanted to know if I indeed understood how the mate bonds worked.

"Um..." I shook my head. "Ah, they are determined by the time of birth, the position of the moon, and the date," I groaned. Why did my head still hurt?

"Yes, that is why all of us share the same birthday. You are the exception, though, since we are all twenty-nine, and you are only twenty-four. So, we were all born at 01:11 AM on the nineteenth of May. You, being our keeper, didn't appear until five years later. Although you share the same time of birth and have the same birthday, all mates share the same birthday. However, when I looked into it, no girls were born on the nineteenth of May, the year we were born, which is quite odd if you ask me." "What, no girls were born on that day?" I asked, having not known that.

"Not one. Only boys and the three of us were born at the same time, setting our fates. The next turnaround for that time was five years later, and that was you."

I honestly never looked into our bloodlines or fate information, to be honest. I was too busy running from the fate that was bestowed upon me.

"But boys can be keepers," I told him.

"Yes, and most are male. But we got you since you were the only person born on that day when the moons aligned. None of us were born with keeper gifts," Kalen chuckled.

"I couldn't have been the only person born on the nineteenth of May that year. That seems impossible."

"You forget that is when the plague hit. It is also when many fae lost a mate and eventually their magic, seeing as the majority of fates were paired with harmony or white fae. We just got lucky a lot were forced into a human lifestyle," Kalen told me.

I nodded, knowing full well of the effects the plague had had. However, his words made me wonder about my mother. She survived the plague, but then Darius told me that there was a second wave, making me wonder if that was what had killed her. "When did the second wave hit?" I asked. For some reason, my mind seemed to lock onto that thought.

"Seven years later. You would have just turned seven by then. It wasn't as bad, since some did survive, though only a few like Darius's sister."

I tried to figure out roughly how old I was. I knew it was a couple of days after my seventh birthday, yet I couldn't remember her falling ill before she died. Her death was sudden. I just remembered coming into the living room, and my father jammed a needle filled with his blood into her heart.

I remembered wondering why he had a random needle with his blood. I thought it strange, but she was sick for a few days afterward. Dad wouldn't allow me in the room with her, although I begged, not believing she was fine. A few days later, she just walked out while I was in the living room like nothing had happened. She was different after that. Dying had done something to her; it was an odd memory.

With a shake of my head, the memory faded.

"Your aura is so dark," Kalen murmured, whisking his fingers around my face.