“There is no happy,” she sobbed. “Everything is dark.”
“I’m light,” I whispered in her ear. “Look at me.”
She opened her eyes and then slowly, the black slid away from her irises, returning them to a milky white and then bright blue. “What just happened?”
“That…” I led her away from the crowd. “Is Darkness. It’s why it’s so tempting. Why let that couple live… when their certain future is doom?”
Cassius
“IT’S MY JOB TO keep the peace.” Stephanie shuddered in my arms then jerked away from me as black spread throughout her white eyes. “We should destroy them all.”
“And then what?” I asked. “To what end?”
“Peace.” Her voice took on a gravelly edge that I recognized.
Was it so long ago that I’d lost Eva? That I’d allowed Darkness to consume me? That I’d wanted nothing more than to jump into the black hole and allow it to embrace every part of my soul I still possessed? For a few minutes, it had felt right. But Ethan, Mason, and Alex had not allowed it.
Luckily, Ethan’s words had made sense at the time, enough sense that I used my strength to push away from Darkness and allow myself to mourn.
Mourn the life I felt like I should have had.
The life Darkness said I deserved.
But Darkness, didn’t just call for the death of humanity, it also called for the death of Angels and immortals alike.
Darkness was within everyone.
It lays dormant, until it sees the perfect opportunity to offer a better suggestion to your circumstances.
Darkness is in humans.
It’s in immortals.
It’s in the very air we breathe.
But the worst type of darkness is the kind we keep in our hearts… we treasure it, hold it dear, allow it to help us justify our actions, and when it’s too late, we blame it for everything while it points its finger back at us and laughs.
Sighing, I reached out and pressed my fingers against her lip allowing the frost of my fingertips to cool her hot body down.
With a gasp she sucked in one finger, then two, then jerked my body against hers our mouths fused in a battle of dominance as I spread my cold around her.
Darkness was always hot.
Comforting, to a Dark One, until it burned that Dark One alive.
“Come back,” I whispered, my lips pressed against hers as I called to her light…”Come back to me.”
Stephanie slumped against my body her breathing erratic as her fingers dug into the muscles in my back.
“I think I want to be done training for the day.” Her voice was scratchy, like she’d just spent the last few minutes screaming at the top of her lungs, and who knew? Maybe she had. Maybe she was yelling at Darkness, maybe that’s what it took to pull away.
“It will get easier,” I promised. “It just takes time.” Still trembling, I held her as tight as I could, swearing to myself I’d die before I let anything happen to her, and in a thought of true irony—to save her from the darkness, from herself, I’d allow her to kill me.
If that’s what it took.
I’d accept my fate.
Gladly.