I tried to build a shield, to counter them, to protect myself, but my energy reserves were depleted from the darkness I’d allowed myself to release.
However, it still lingered.
Hovering on my shoulder, waiting for me to embrace it once more.
But I couldn’t. It made me feel too cold. Too wrong. Too powerful.
I curled into a ball instead, denying that flicker of energy and absorbing the brunt of Zeph and Zakkai’s hits instead.
Aflora?Kols whispered into my mind. Are you all right?
No,I replied, trembling beneath the pain and agony of having my own mates attack me when I’d told them to stop. They were trying to make a point. I understood it. But that didn’t make me accept it. They won’t stop.
I sounded so weak. So pitiful. And I could almost hear Zakkai and Zeph taunting me for it, calling me out for giving up.
They wanted me to be strong.
To stand up to them.
To give them a display of power meant to destroy them all.
I hate them, I told Kols. I hate them.
I could hear the sadness in my voice, a perpetual moping that I loathed.
I’m stronger than this, I thought in my next inhale. So much stronger.
But it required me to block an important part of me. My earth. My tie to the element I loved and adored. Choosing strength meant I had to welcome the darkness.
I shivered, loathing the choice.
However, the electricity roaming over me and Zeph’s shouts to fight left me no choice.
I tapped into that black hole, pulling it into me once more, and released it on a wave of energy that had tears falling from my eyes.
Everything stopped.
Inky flames engulfed the room.
Then Zakkai cut through it with a blast of cerulean magic that tamed the darkness back into a little ball of spinning power that seemed to seep back into me, inch by inch.
I didn’t move, my arms locked around my legs as I remained in the center of the room.
The spells were all gone.
But the aggression remained.
“Aflora?” Zeph asked, his deep voice holding a touch of concern.
I ignored him.
“She’s fine,” Zakkai said. “Or she would be if she accepted the Dark Source the way she needs to.”
“Does she look fucking fine to you?” Zeph demanded. “Because she looks broken to me.”
Zakkai snorted. “You’re allowing emotion to cloud your judgement. That’s why she’s not as prepared as she should be—because you’ve wasted all her time by coddling her. So now we have to resort to this to ensure she’s ready because you failed to train her.”
“I failed to train her?” Zeph’s deep voice reverberated through the room, making my skin crawl with goose bumps. “You’re the one who mated her first, Zakkai. Then you left her in the Elemental Fae Realm to be raised by a bunch of Earth Fae. And you’re blaming me for her lack of preparedness?”