Dark Magic, page 21
part #3 of Hunted Shifters Legacy Series
But she would if she stayed there.
Quiet footsteps followed her from behind, urging her to turn back and attack. So she ran faster instead, defying the voice and her instincts for the first time. Every step she took brought excruciating pain, her muscles twisting and her bones feeling like they were being poked. She bit the scream back—tasted blood from her tongue as her energy raged.
As it tried attacking her now.
In her distraction, she wasn’t looking where she was going, and Leila ended up nearly hitting a large rock in between some thick trees. Hands yanked her to the side before she could make that mistake, right before she was being rolled back to the ground. When the rolling stopped, she found herself flat on her back, a huge, warm figure straddling her.
“Get away from me,” she hissed.
“I love you,” the man repeated. Oliver. His name was Oliver.
Ovie.
“You love me, too,” he continued, holding her in place. Leaning down, his expression was a neutral mask. But she saw glimpses behind the mask, gleaming in his clear gray eyes: dismay, vulnerability, a raw openness that had her staring. As if he couldn’t get enough of the distance, he leaned even closer, inches from her head. “Leila, don’t do this.”
The closeness made her heady, and her voice rejoiced at the weakness it felt, too.
Tear. Blood.
Her hands turned into claws, digging at the sides of his ribs.
He dug in a second later, hurting her sides, too. Hurting her. She looked up to plead for him to let go, to plead for him one last time to run.
Oliver—Ovie—closed the gap of their mouths, touching her lips with his. Drinking in the blood from her as his tongue swept in and he kissed her with a tenderness that was beyond her understanding.
A brilliant white-hot sensation came over her. That sensation was mixed in with pain as his claws pierced, sinking in so deep that she could only lie in place. She trembled at the combination, felt her lips move against his, helpless in its reaction. In her head, the voice was no longer cajoling, no longer an elegant taunting. It was angry, screaming at her like scratched glass and telling her to kill, kill, kill—
Her energy roiled inside her stomach then rushed everywhere and hit her insides. The burst of pain had her trying to buck Ovie off, but he held on—kept kissing her as if it was the only thing that mattered in the world. He didn’t say a word, didn’t move his body or hands anywhere other than where they were. But she felt everything that he was giving her, read them as clear as day: his trust, his conviction that she would fight this.
His love, so pure and so hungry, reaching out to her without restraints. The voice and her energy rejected it.
But her heart couldn’t. It couldn’t.
She screamed as the violent anger tore her body apart, clawing at her skin. Sinking.
And Leila kept screaming as everything was yanked out of her in one swift instant.
Chapter 28
There should have been no way for him to know if the mating had taken the magic from her, but Ovie knew. He knew the moment she accepted his kiss, knew the moment she stopped protesting at his declaration and just started giving in to it.
He knew the moment she gave her heart to him, and he knew the moment the energy slithered inside him like a sneaky little snake.
It didn’t hurt…at first. Then pain hit him everywhere at once: needle-like, pinpricks of it all over his skin as if poking at him in its attempt to enter. Then it no longer poked but invaded, reminiscent of the act of tearing his skin apart as it reached in and flowed through his bloodstream.
He didn’t mean to scream, but he did—loud and long, the sound ringing in his ears before dimming. His body snapped up, trembling violently…then, slammed down to the ground, locked in place.
Ovie thought he knew the magic, thought he already had a sense of it when he’d felt it in the mountains. But he’d been wrong, so wrong. It was so much more potent inside him, so much stronger than anything he’d ever felt. The pain receded enough to let him feel that, giving off a heady feeling that overwhelmed.
Something else was running inside him, too: a voice, small at first.
A voice, growing more confident in its low, soothing form.
Blood. Blood will fix you.
With a start, his body bucked, and his eyes snapped open. Realization slammed as he understood that this must be the voice that had been urging Leila on, and what he’d seen must’ve been the outcome: scattered dead animals and supernatural creatures all over the park, making it easier for them to track her down.
Ovie’s head swiveled towards her, where he found her lying frozen beside him. Black eyes were staring in horror and helplessness at him, the first because she seemed to finally be clearing from her cloud and realizing what she’d done.
The second because their hands were glued together, unable to break apart, and she was unconsciously transferring more of her magic to him.
His body tried to reject it, but it pushed on, anyway, filling him up. His claws grew when the voice kept telling him to get blood—when it started pointing in Leila’s direction, telling him she was good, delicious blood. He growled.
He screamed when the pain intensified, hammering inside him as the magic grew, grew so much that it felt like his body was going to explode. Beside him, Leila screamed as well, that pain reverberating inside her.
Amid the never-ending pain and screaming, he felt himself being transported into another world: darkness, blankness blanketing his senses until everything else became dim. He saw his own body materialize out of thin air and float there, and he immediately knew why: a defense mechanism, to keep everything out. To cope. All around the blankness were invisible walls, and beyond those walls were whispers—shaking the walls softly, poking, as if wondering whether they could get in or not.
Eventually, they didn’t just wonder but decided. They started rattling the walls, pounding harder as they desperately tried to get in. The walls cracked…then, broke down, and wisps of dark violet smoke entered, intent on wrapping around his floating figure and tearing it apart.
Light emitted from the figure, flowing out. That light fought the smoke, keeping it at bay at first before actively pushing it back. It became a constant ebb and flow: the smoke attempting to get closer, the light driving it away. Back and forth, push and pull. It began to take a toll on him as something whispered at him to go to sleep and forget about all of this, but instinct defied this, telling him another thing: that if he slept now, he would lose.
He would die.
Beside him, he felt mirroring movements and understood Leila must’ve been fighting the same battle in her mind. He could no longer see her, but her strong presence melded with him and gave him a surge of strength, pushing the smoke completely back and building up the invisible walls again. Then, it happened all over again: the voices breaking the walls down, the smoke slithering in, his body’s light fighting it back. He was tired. Ovie was so tired, all he wanted to do was rest…
And get blood. Get blood. Get blood—
A scream interrupted the voice in his head…except it sounded similar. With a start, he realized it was the same voice screaming—not encouragements, but rather in pain, as if someone was hurting it. The light from his floating figure brightened, turning so brilliant that it easily pushed back the rest of the smoke. The voices disappeared, leaving only the screaming one.
Pain, pain, pain everywhere, punching him repeatedly one last time before they slowly disappeared, too.
He waited for something to return, either the malicious voice or the violet smoke. But none did, and his figure kept floating in the empty space. In limbo. Then it started flickering: on, off, on, off…disappearing, bit by bit, from toes to head.
When the floating figure was completely gone, the empty space started flickering, too. Off, on, off. One, two, three.
Light blinked in one spot, like the end of a tunnel. His mind followed that spot, hurrying towards it until the blank space was no longer blank but filled with blurry visions of…things.
Ovie tensed when he heard more voices, already braced to fight them all over again. But he soon realized those voices weren’t inside him but outside, surrounding him. They were soothing voices talking to each other, then talking to him. Calling his name.
Calling Leila’s.
Immediately, his blurry vision cleared, and he blinked a couple of times to make sure it remained clear. Then Ovie was shooting up to a sitting position, ignoring the voices protesting at the sudden action. He gritted his teeth when dizziness assaulted him, but kept his stance until it abated.
The first thing his cleared eyes latched on to was Leila, who was lying weakly in someone’s lap. Mal. Malcolm was holding her still and keeping her body from trembling as if she were terribly cold. There was already a jacket wrapped around her body, so big that it completely dwarfed her and left Malcolm’s upper torso naked. Her hair was a knotted mess, smelling of dried blood. Her black eyes were on him, as if hungry for the sight. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
“Stop attempting to speak,” Malcolm scolded instantly, glaring at her. Then, at Ovie. “You’re both too damn stubborn for your own good.”
With a start, Ovie realized he was attempting to speak, too, but his throat was too dry for it. He cleared it a couple of times, to no avail. Through all this, he didn’t take his eyes off Leila, drinking her in like a ice cold glass of water in the middle of a desert. There was blood on her, some dirt, and perhaps remnants of the same pain that spasmed all over him.
But she was alive, and she didn’t look like she was going to pass out anytime soon.
That mattered. That mattered more than anything.
“There are no immediate threats in the vicinity, boss. We’re clear for now.”
Hunter’s voice filtered in Ovie’s senses, and he reluctantly turned to look. The man had just stopped a few steps away and was facing the figure on Ovie’s other side, who was sitting on the ground with his hair unkempt and his clothes smoked and torn in places. His lower lip was bloodied, too.
Oddly enough, Edmund still managed to make the whole thing look elegant.
“Good. Keep things cleared. Mal, help Hunter out. Cleanup next, and contact another clan member if you can to help. Leave one person with Celine and the kids. We have to make this fast.”
Malcolm nodded. Without a word, he lifted Leila and apologized when she groaned, then gingerly sat her on Ovie’s lap. The weight on him was hefty, if not totally heavy, and he bit back the grunt when that weight made his thighs hurt. Still, she was warm and soft, and he held on to her as best as he could. In his current state, that meant placing an arm on her back and not much else, because he couldn’t seem to move a damn muscle.
Leila couldn’t move much, either, but she leaned against him as carefully as she could, as if aware of his aches, too. Her fingers attempted intertwining with his, and she whimpered at the effort. In the end, she settled for touching her palm to his, as if she needed the contact.
They looked at each other. He felt the connection between them, pain and relief, along with swirls.
Belatedly, Ovie realized it wasn’t just a feeling. They were connected, and the magic was still running inside them—but not a lot of it anymore. There was another source of magic, stronger than theirs, pulsing into existence.
Slowly, they both turned to Edmund, who was carefully, fixedly gazing at his surroundings and the subtle, quiet movements there. He was still sitting down, still refusing to slump his posture. Also, he seemed to be biding his time.
Or maybe his energy.
A startling understanding came to Ovie like a force field, and he opened his mouth again. This time, he didn’t stop until words came out of his throat: craggy, cracked, and barely there. It was like a tired, drawn-out whisper.
“You bonded with…us. Took our magic. That’s why…you can…talk.”
“Apt observation,” Edmund mused, nodding his head. “Malcolm was right. You are one stubborn git. Also, to clarify, I didn’t take your magic. I simply took both your hands, and it somehow wanted me more than it wanted either of you. It’s weak right now, but it’s starting to grow strong. It will be back to its hungry state soon.”
He didn’t say more, as if still waiting. After a few restless minutes, Ovie figured out what Edmund was waiting for when new voices came: St. Charles and Jessa, who were given instructions to help in the cleanup. St. Charles, who usually asked questions no matter how annoying and time-consuming they were, simply looked at their states before shaking his head and stepping back with Jessa.
Finally, Edmund turned back to Ovie and Leila. He focused on Ovie first, gaze calculating, before he met Leila’s gaze. Dark eyes softened, then turned firm.
His voice was quiet and low when he spoke.
“I can still break the magic while it’s in this weak state. It’ll be gone from me, from both of you, and it will be gone permanently. If I don’t, it will continue to grow. It will consume me first. The decision is shared because the magic is shared. I can’t kill it off unless both of you agree with me.”
Silence.
Ovie felt hands pushing against his thighs, and he sweated through the intense prickling. Leila sat up with effort, sweating, too. She turned her head to Ovie, searching his eyes for something. She must’ve found it because she turned to Edmund next.
Some silent communication passed between them, brief but important. For a moment, he felt connected to it via the magic, felt the intimacy of siblings who loved each other without explanation. Then Leila was sitting straighter, as if she was sure now.
She nodded her head.
Ignoring the continuous prickling of his nerves, Ovie took her hand and squeezed it. After some gritting and straining, she squeezed his in return.
Somehow, all felt right in the world.
“Break,” Ovie bit out.
It was the only assent Edmund needed as he nodded and closed his eyes. No other words were exchanged, and no big movements happened, but Ovie felt it: a great snap inside him, loud and clear and drumming in his ears. Then it spread, snapping over and over, wracking his body until he was shaking uncontrollably. He held on to Leila’s shaking form, trying to soothe her in the best way he could—helpless in this assault and the way it made them both feel.
It lasted long, and it endured hard, battering them up inside out…then, it was gone as soon as it started, leaving Ovie feeling empty. Hollow. The magic, the energy, the voices, they were all gone as if they hadn’t existed at all. The darkness, too, constantly calling at him to take blood. He ached in that hollowness, felt Leila slump against him as she experienced it as well. It was a deep ache, burrowing not just in his body but in his soul, as if he’d lost something that was essential to him.
They clung to each other, refusing to let go, and his thumb started rubbing against her fingers, this time to take the comfort he needed.
She gave in, leaning against him. The pain ebbed and flowed, faint now, steadily leaving them. She sighed in relief. He inhaled the fresh air, then took in her confusing, bloodied scent.
Edmund sighed, too, then leaned against Ovie’s shoulder: a second—probably last—sign of weakness. Their eyes met over Leila’s head.
“Are you both okay?”
Leila nodded. After a while, so did Ovie.
“Yes.”
Edmund’s eyes gleamed, weary and decided.
“Good. After this is all over, you’re suspended.”
It was such an Edmund thing to say that it made Ovie want to laugh out loud. Instead, he shrugged, not caring about anything right now.
He just cradled Leila and was glad this part of the ordeal was over.
Chapter 29
Standing in front of Edmund was the most difficult thing Leila had to do today—and that was saying something given the day included coming to terms with the emptiness in her soul, where she grabbed it and crushed it into non-existence. It ached like hell, and she wanted to scream and cry at the loss.
Instead, she decided to train in the backfield, decided to run around in her panther form to ease some of the restless energy off. Then she took a shower, dressed up, and finally gathered the courage to come to him, a necessity that she’d been putting off for a while now.
To her brother’s credit, he hadn’t demanded for a time and gave it to her to decide for herself. To his credit as well, he just watched her the moment she’d entered his office, not going into a rant like he did most of the time. Instead, he waited it out, folding his arms on his desk.
After a moment’s debate, Leila decided the best thing to do to level with him was to sit down on the couch—just the perfect distance.
Silence filled the air, starting to make her nerves rise. She stomped them down and lifted her chin, a hundred words slamming over each other in her mind.
She spoke the most important ones first.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for…?”
Because he expected her to launch into an explanation, she did readily. “For creating potions behind your back, for practicing magic behind your back. For steadily doing so and lying to you about my whereabouts, and for endangering the clan with the repercussions of what I’ve done.”
“Not just the clan.”
“Not just the clan,” she agreed. “I’ve also endangered others and risked our exposure with all the deaths I’ve left behind.” It left a burning sting inside her, tightening her chest at the thought of what she’d committed. But even worse than the sting was the knowledge that she wouldn’t have stopped had they not come for her.
“You also almost killed Oliver.”
The burning stopped, replaced by something different. Now she just felt cold, terribly cold. Leila fought the urge to hug herself, and she fought the urge to look away.
Instead, she looked Edmund in the eye.
“I’m sorry for almost killing Ovie, and you. I’m sorry for betraying your trust and breaking the balance our clan has.” A pause, as the next words were harder. “I’m sorry for our past, Edmund. I’m sorry I was too young to help, and I’m sorry you had to bear most of the burden because I couldn’t understand and remember most of it.”
