Tasting Darkness
Tempting Darkness Chapter 7

”Just remember, I gave you power, Aleera. I can always take it away. I allow you to be with us! So take it or leave it. Our mates will listen if I tell them too. You may have the bond, but I had years of being their keeper. They are sired to me which is stronger than your incomplete bond. You are not the only keeper here. Just remember that!” Darius growled before letting me go. He then storms out of the basement. I glared at him as he stomped off up the steps. I should have known better. The media always portrayed him to be a monster.

And once again, he showed me they were right. Yet the stupid bond craved him. I push the intense feelings to apologize and beg at his feet for acceptance down. Instead, I let my anger over him fester. The longer I sat there, the more I hated them and myself. Well, no, not all of them.

Not Kalen. I don’t think it is possible to ever hate Kalen. He was as much a victim in all this as I was. We all were in a way, but they weren’t the only ones that sacrificed everything. I tossed my entire life away to run from the very man who seemed hell-bent on destroying me. When my grandmother died, and I was thrown into that school, I went on autopilot.

Hide what I was from the world for so long, even I forgot who I was and what I was capable of. Everything that has happened, losing my parents, then my grandmother, my entire life turned upside down. It slowly broke the pieces off that I used to love.

Only then did I suddenly believe I could live without magic, slip into the human world and be happy. And at first, I was happy to let those pieces go, glad to give my magic up because it was the safest thing to do. Mum said to hide what I was, that no one could know. And I did just that, yet her words were more than words.

They became my life. And now I didn’t want to restrain myself any longer. I have been shackled for years. I didn’t fit in here with them. I didn’t fit anywhere. How could I, when I was the only one of my kind? Never able to reveal what I am and who I used to think I would one day be before I lost everything? I used to love magic, and loved being a Harmony Fae. Until I was suddenly forced to hide it from everyone without realizing my parents were already hiding me from the world.

Dad used to say, at home, I could be whatever I wanted, and I loved that. But to the rest of the world, I had to be Dark Fae and Dark Fae only. It was the same with my grandmother.

The home was a place of safety, where I was free until she was gone and I no longer had a home at all. I no longer had a choice. My safe place was again gone, and I lost what that felt like. What having a home felt like. After I marked Kalen, I finally got a sense of that again. Only for Darius to rip it away this morning all over again.

I thought we were past everything, and I was finally free to be who I actually was. It should have been a turning point, but now I wonder if it was just a ruse and Darius’s shock at what I was that made him do it. I was just some tool he could use to become stronger because that is what it felt like this morning, with the way he used me for my magic, only to toss me away like I was garbage afterward. It angered me. I wasn’t sure I could go back to hiding what I was.

I was sick of hiding, sick of being repressed! They know what I am now. And if they think I will just wait around for them to decide if they want me, they were mistaken, I was sick of being shackled and chained by fear, by the judgment of what others would think. I realized that I had given up everything until there was nothing left of me. I spent all my energy running from them, giving them control, which is what I did.

By running from them, I ran from myself put myself in this situation. Thinking that running from them was me taking control of a problem I didn’t want to be in. I was wrong. and They held all the power, and Darius showed me that first chance he got this morning.

However, I did know that despite him hating me, he would protect me and keep me safe if I stayed because it benefited them to do so. As much as I wanted to run again, I also didn’t want to go back to that repressed version of myself. I no longer wanted to be a Dark Fae. I wanted to be able to be who I am without fear of it.

Yet even I knew how dangerous it was to be a Harmony Fae in this world. So if I left, I would be forced to suppress it all over again. Here, I was at least safe to find out what I was capable of. I don’t even fully understand what the true meaning of being a Harmony Fae was, and I suddenly wanted to find out.

And Darius wasn’t going to stop me from finding that power. The power I was born to harness. With a power that could even take the feared Demonic–Fae King down. With that thought in mind, I got up. Anger coursed through me as I opened up the portal to Tobias’s classroom.

I stepped into the room at the back, sitting behind everyone. I did miss school. I always loved learning about Fae history and loved the practical side that I always made excuses not to participate in. But now, now I had another motivator to get me to stay.

Here, I could learn freely with no repercussions because everyone here was aware of what I was. There was no need to hide it. And if that helps me get back at Darius, then so be it. He wanted to destroy me? Play with my bond? Toy with me? And turn my mates against me? Fine! Two can play at that game. So let’s see who breaks who first.