They tried to kill her. We should never have left that day. We simply wanted to tell her parents she was our mate and that we would wait for her to come of age. We never thought they would try to kill her. But as the flames got nearer, I could see her panicked state as she gasped, and I knew that was where her mind took her. I could almost feel her panicked state even without marking her. I heard her heart racing, so I extinguished the flames just as she collapsed to the ground.
Mikhail was warned, so I felt nothing toward him when I drove my hand through his chest and melted his heart. A few men gasped around me as his lifeless body fell to the ground at my feet.
“When I say enough, you fucking stop,” I told them, letting fire engulf my hand and burn off the blood residue. Shaking the flames away, I looked down at my mate on the grass. I couldn’t help the snarl that slipped through my lips as I scooped her up.
I didn’t want to touch her, but I wouldn’t leave her unconscious with these men. They could truly be monsters, but none got away with defying me. Yet as I picked up her limp body… Damn, she smelled good, felt good in my arms. I shook the thought away and opened a portal to her room before stepping through it.Get a grip, idiot, I reminded myself.
Placing her on her bed, she stirred, blinking up at me dazedly, stuck wherever her mind had taken her. I needed to get out of this room, away from her, when she rolled on the bed, and I saw something in her back pocket, just an outline of something made of steel poking out the top. Walking back to the bed, I fished it out to find it was a pair of scissors. My brows furrowed, wondering why she had them. Was she going to try and kill us in our sleep?
Let her try.It wouldn’t end well for her. I placed them on the bedside table when she mumbled.
“You’re an elemental.”
Looking over at her, she was still passed out. Shaking my head, I walked out. She was bound to find out anyway. What did it matter if she found out earlier? I might be the last of my kind in more ways than one, but it was not like I kept that small fact secret from the world. It was partially why everyone feared me. It was one thing being an elemental, but a dark and demonic fae elemental was unheard of.
I wondered what Aleera’s perks or gifts would be. I knew she was dark fae from her schooling paperwork. Although it never stated any gifts, she wouldn’t be the first not to have any. But I still wondered briefly before shaking that thought away.Who cares? We would never know anyhow. But each of us had certain gifts that were our own.
Walking through the shared bathroom, I opened the door only to bump into Kalen. He clearly wasn’t expecting to find me in her room. He glanced past me before tilting his face toward mine. His hands connected with my chest, and his magic fizzled out as he tried to use it. If he had done that to Lycus, he probably would have shoved him through the wall. Yet his dark magic was no match for mine, dying out as it touched me, and I felt my magic get a jolt as it absorbed it.
“What did you do to her?” he demanded, trying to shove past me.
I gripped his arm, shoving him through to our room before locking the door. I glanced at him. His aura was all over the place, his anger being the strongest to come through, but I could see the madness lurking through it. Lycus warned me this morning that he was too upbeat and energetic.What comes with the high is a massive low.
“Where is your medication?”
“What did you do to Aleera?” he snapped, trying to get past me to the door.
“Where are your meds, Kalen? You promised Tobias you would take them.”
I could feel our mates getting nearer as his emotions became more turbulent. They could sense his aggravation. I tried to reach for him, and I cursed, giving his magic back as I watched a portal open up. I grabbed and pinned him when I saw it led to Aleera’s room just as Lycus all but smashed the door in to help subdue him. Only it was too late. As I tackled him, another portal opened up and swallowed him just as he punched me. His fist connected with the side of my face knocking me off him. I hit the ground where Kalen should have been.
“Where did he go? Where did it lead?” Lycus panicked. Jumping to my feet, I raced to Aleera’s room and burst through the door. Aleera was sitting up on the bed. She looked over at me.
Kalen, however, was not in the room. “Is he in there?” Lycus said, smacking into my back.
Aleera looked at us, confused. “What’s—”
“Stay in your room.” I snapped at her before slamming the door.
Chapter 22
Aleera
Iwoke up dazed andconfused and back in my room, and I couldn’t remember how I got there. The last thing I remembered was being out in the training fields, and I remembered Darius using his magic. I rubbed my temples, looking around the small space, when the door burst open. Darius’s eyes fell on me, and at first, I thought he would scold me, but the panicked look on his face told me he wasn’t in my room to deliver some punishment.
“Is he in there?” Lycus said, bumping into the back of Darius.
“What’s—” I wanted to ask what happened, but Darius cut me off with a glare.
“Stay in your room,” he snapped at me before slamming the door so hard I was surprised it didn’t break.
Something niggled at my insides, dread filling me, and I wasn’t sure if it was my own feeling or the intuition of the bond growing stronger daily. I ran my fingers over my infinity marking with their names without realizing it.
Kalen flooded to the forefront of my mind before my room suddenly disappeared. It just evaporated around me. My stomach tried to rise into my throat when I felt pulled into new surroundings. I had no idea what I had done, but I was suddenly inside Kalen’s head.
I couldn’t hear his thoughts but could see out his eyes, see what he saw. I appeared to be in some attic. Dust-covered boxes were scattered everywhere. His hands started banging on his head as he yanked his hair, nails scraping down his face. I could feel his flesh tearing, and I wondered what was wrong with him, why he was acting this way. I wanted to understand, and I cursed that I couldn’t hear what he was thinking. What good was it to be in someone’s head if all you got was seeing what they saw and feeling what they felt?
His emotions were all over the place as I tried to understand them when I was pushed out. I gasped, feeling breathless. How did I do that? I had no magic. Maybe it was a trick of the mate bond or possibly my harmony side of my magic. All I knew was I somehow thought of him, and I was suddenly in him.