Chosen Darkness (Chosen Series) (16 page)

Chapter Sixteen: Blood for blood

Alex was in a rage. He was trying to fight off Lark who was holding him down. He couldn’t hear what Lark was saying to him; his words were not sinking in. All he could hear was Falyn screaming in pain. He had been in front of her but that did not keep them from taking her. Before he could turn around to help her off the ground, thick black smoke had wrapped around him, blocking out everything, but he could hear Falyn as she cried out in agony.

“Alex, she’s gone. We have no choice now but to track her!” Lark was pleading with him.

“Let me up!” Alex roared in his face.

“Only if you promise to listen!” Luria said now.

“They just vanished into thin air… a whole army!” Alex shouted.

“Yes, they used magic, but we can still find them,” Lark told him firmly.

Alex nodded, and once Lark let him up he had his hands around the Binder’s neck.

“You did this!” Alex snarled with such hate it that all but burned in his words.

Luria flinched, grasping his hands and trying to fight him off. Lark pulled him away roughly and told him to stay where he was. His voice cut through him to the quick, forcing him to listen.

“She was under a spell, Alex, she had to do it!” Lark told him.

“She’s lying!” Alex spat.

“No, I’m not. You know I can’t lie. I was under a spell cast on me by the Dark Druids. They wanted me to bring them Falyn. I was forced to do it and lead you all to the Gate, but once we cleared the cliffs I was out of their mind control. I tried to steer her away! I would have if she had not drunk that potion!” Luria cried.

“What potion?” Alex demanded.

“The Wiccans they gave her something to bind her to the Darkness when she drank before her change!” Luria rushed out.

“I knew something was wrong!” Alex exploded.

“How can we fix this?” Lark asked Luria.

“We need to find them. If we lose them we cannot save her!” Luria said.

“You know where they went?” Lark questioned.

“Yes,” she said.

“Then lead the way,” Alex instructed coldly. “And Binder, if she dies, so do you.”

Luria nodded as she mounted her horse quickly and set out at a neck-breaking pace. Alex and Lark were right behind her. Alex’s heart was beating faster than it had since he became a vampire, it had laid still with lack of blood but right now, it was beating with fire! Tears of blood stained his face. Being made of blood, vampires shed it and bled it. He would rip the throats from every single Druid who had dared touch her! He had been warned, yet he had failed to keep her safe. Someone had sent them down a deadly path. Someone had wanted her to stay in this world and now her soul was being tainted by dark magic.

Alex had never felt so frustrated in his life. This world made him feel helpless. He could only hope that Luria really was leading them toward Falyn. However, Lark seemed to trust her and the elf had a keen sense of knowing such things. Still, the rage in him burned so hot he was fully ready to fight anyone over anything, and this could be why both Lark and Luria currently gave him his space.

The moon once more hovered in the dark sky and Luria was sure she knew what place the Dark Druids had taken Falyn: the same place the Binder met up with them whenever they wanted something from her.

“Have faith, we’ll find Falyn,” Lark said from the darkness that night as they made camp.

They did not light a fire, not knowing if they were close enough to be spotted, and Alex sure in hell did not trust anything the Binder said!

“I let them take her!” Alex’s voice harsh with emotion.

The pain this caused him was overwhelming.

“No, Falyn jumped from her horse thinking she could fight them,” Lark reminded him.

Even with the facts in front of him, Alex could not let it go. He should have keep her safe! He had vowed this so many times in his heart. He may not be able to have her, but he could protect her.

“We will get her back!” Alex declared roughly.

“Yes,” Lark agreed.

The only one who wisely did not say a word was Luria. She sat with her back to a tree and watched the pale moon rise above the trees. The night was not silent. There was the sound of a wolf pack every now and then, reminding Alex each time one of them howled he had brought Falyn to this moment.

Alex sensed something watching him. He was sure it was that same spirit from the Green Forest. He got up and walked into the trees.

“If you’ve come to warn me, you’re too late!” Alex hissed.

“The girl is where she needs to be right now. She needs to face this.” The faint figure of the Wicca faded in and out.

“I am not leaving her there!” Alex informed him.

“Then she will die,” the Witch stated simply.

“Why should I believe you?” Alex wanted to know.

“I have been sent to help her. She is one of our people, even if it is an old tie,” the Wiccan said.

“How is a fucking ghost going to help her?” Alex demanded to know.

“Death will not come, even when she refuses to help them in their plot. It is not her death they want –they need her power,” he assured Alex.

“I won’t let them hurt her!” Alex whispered.

“Then heed my words, Vampire, and let her face what is coming.” His voice faded with the light.

Alex stood there awhile, staring at the spot the shimmering figure had been. Could he trust anything in this world? Hadn’t this same being warned him to be wary of the people in this world? Yet, he had told him the truth last time. He couldn’t simply leave Falyn to her fate.

“Are you going to listen to our ghost?” Lark asked him.

“Yes, but we go on alone. The Binder can go her own way.” Alex’s tone was soft but firm.

“You are going to let the Binder leave… alone?”

“I don’t care about her. She has power enough to keep herself alive,” Alex pointed out.

“He’s right,” Luria said from the shadow of a tree. “I can watch myself.”

“I’d advise you not to cross our path again.” Alex didn’t even look at her when he spoke.

When Luria was gone, Alex turned to Lark.

“I find it hard to buy the girl is now free of whatever is controlling her,” Alex muttered.

“Then we carry on following her,” Lark stated.

Alex was not going to trust a damn soul in this godforsaken world! The little redhead was clearly infected with the Dark sickness. It took over and left nothing but a perfect robot to carry out the demands of the Dark Druid. It was a weapon that was highly easy to employ: once a Dark Druid got into your head, he simply passed along the poison that worked on the mind.

Alex hoped Falyn’s Light side would keep her from being infected with the Dark sickness long enough for her mind to fight back.

Chapter seventeen: Only Me

Falyn awoke in pain, her face resting on something hard and cold. She forced her eyes to open. It took a lot of effort but she finally managed. She saw only darkness, and the hard cement she was laying on told her she was in a cell of some kind.

Her body ached but with a few tries she was able to get to her feet. Listening to the sounds around her, Falyn knew no one else was nearby. Inside her mind the battle went on – one part trying to convince her that she had nothing to fear, that she was powerful, but a smaller voice kept fighting to be heard and it knew something was wrong!

Then she heard footsteps approaching. A man in dark clothes came into sight, pulling a man’s body with him. He opened the door and threw the body at her. Making her fall back with a hard thud. The body landed on top of her. Falyn shoved the man away, then knelt over him trying to see his face. She was indeed shocked to see who it was: her own grandfather! The last time she’d seen him was on the beach, and he was dead.

“Grandpa,” she whispered.

She’d never called him that before, but for some reason it seemed right to do it now. He let out a groan. His eyes opened and he looked at her before he shut them again. She saw the pain in them.

“I was hoping they did not have you,” he sighed.

“But how come they have you?” Falyn asked, knowing she had talked to his ghost in the other world.

“A long story. Too long for in here.”

“It’s okay. I’m strong enough to free us!” Falyn soothed him.

“Are you now?” He sat up.

“Yes, I can use my power now,” Falyn informed him.

“I think not, Granddaughter,” he chuckled.

“I know I can. I feel the power!” she insisted.

“No. The power you feel now is a lie – a drug working through your blood.”

“That’s not true!” she cried.

“Let me look at you,” he demanded.

She came closer to him so he could see her better. He took her face in his hands and looked into her eyes for a long time. It made her uneasy.

“What are you doing?” she finally asked him.

“Seeing if you’re sick, and you are. Your eyes are yellow and not from your wolf sight, meaning you have poison in your blood. That is why you think as you do.”

“It’s my power,” she corrected him.

“No, it isn’t,” he said firmly.

Deep inside she knew he was right, but the power – or poison, whichever it was – had worked fast to convince her the strange feeling was because of becoming The One. Yet her soul knew this was not the truth.

In a moment of clarity, before her mind could be clouded again, she asked how they could fix it – if it was fixable.

“I will bleed you to rid it from your body.”

Her grandfather’s words were not very comforting but she was willing to give it a try.

“I don’t know what is wrong with me, but I can feel this sickness in my head once in a while,” Falyn whispered, clutching her grandfather’s hand.

“We have all been fooled, but you most of all. Relax and I will help you become yourself again.”

Falyn nodded and laid on her cot. She knew her grandfather was going to cut her, but she couldn’t watch. Instead she closed her eyes. She was using all her willpower to force the other voice from her mind.

She let out a cry as the knife sliced through the blood vessel in her wrist. Then she bit her lip to keep quiet. She felt him cut her other wrist too. She held her breath but he told her to breathe normally and she did what she was told.

“Now keep still and fight the other voice in your head until the poison leaves your body,” he commanded her.

That voice in her head told her he was trying to kill her, and a few times she came close to trying to fight back. But each time her common sense reminded her she needed to do this. And the more blood she lost, the less the troublesome voice was heard.

She could feel she was going to pass out but she struggled to stay awake. Her grandfather rested his hand on her head.

“Let the sleep come, child, it will heal you.”

Falyn woke to the sounds of coughing. She sat up quickly – maybe a little too quickly. The room spun! With a moan she slumped back down on the bed.

“Easy, you lost a lot of blood.” A hoarse voice she didn’t recognize came from the other side of the cell.

“Grandfather?” she asked.

“I am sorry, child, but I let you see me as your grandfather so you would listen to me. I am the leader of the Wiccans, maybe the last of my clan left,” a man said.

Looking at him now, he looked much like the old man she had seen that night in the forest – the leader of the Wiccan. Falyn felt shocked. At that moment it all came rushing back to her: the Witches in the woods, the unreal power of the moon and the crazy sense she was now omnipotent.

“What was all that?” Falyn wondered out loud.

“That, my child, was a powerful mind trip,” the Wiccan said.

“Was everything out there a lie?” Falyn asked, wondering if Lark, and Luria, and even Alex were all just an illusion.

“Not all of it, but the part of you being able to use your Druid magic was,” the Witch informed her.

“How can you be the last Wiccan? I swear I saw a whole coven of them!” Falyn told him.

“Sadly those were Dark Druids. They use their Dark sickness to overtake others!” he said. “Those you saw in the woods were empty shells, nothing more than spirits of what my people were.”

“Then why am I here at all? Why did the ghost of my grandfather tell me I would be able to fix my spell here and free my two bloodlines?” Falyn hoped the cure was here.

“Your grandfather is still alive and still among your father’s pack. Everything that happened to you was brought on by the Dark Druids’ magic. They seep into the minds of other races and take over until there is nothing left but darkness.”

“Why do they want me?” Falyn asked.

“They want the power that runs in your veins.” His voice was getting rougher.

“Who leads the Dark Druids?” Falyn whispered.

“Your father.”

Falyn would not put it past him, but how could it be?

“How is that possible, when he’s not even in this world?” Falyn demanded to know.

“Even with the Gate keeping the Immortal world separate from the Mortal world, there are ways for people in each to communicate.”

Falyn did not answer. Instead she lay on the cool stone floor and tried to process this mess that was her life.

“Your fate led you here for a reason, but it’s not your only path.” His voice was growing weaker.

“I am bound by my bloodlines: I am not allowed to love whom I wish because I am a werewolf and they have rules… Then I am the last Druid of Light and have a whole other set of obligations… I don’t know how to go forward from here,” Falyn told him honestly.

“You can only control what is yours,” he told her.

“And what is mine?” Falyn wanted to know.

If fate was leading her on some sort of trip of enlightenment, it was doing a piss poor job!

“The wolf.” His voice breaking sounding like shattered glass to her ears.

“The Lycan bloodline may be mine but there are many divided wolf clans now,” Falyn said.