Chapter Fourteen

"Kelpie!"

This time it had been Ayden who named the monster that attacked us. This time, it had been a creature that I could recognize even without the dark voice in my mind telling me its name.

The monster grabbed hold of me with a darker version of elemental magic. A kind of magic that both smelled and tasted of an age long forgotten by those outside of the Forgotten Realm.

I tried my best to break free of that magic's hold. The creature turned towards the river as Ayden went flying back. I cried out for him to help me, watching in horror as he got back up and ran after me, his left arm dangling at his side, clearly injured.

‘No, no, no,'I thought in my head. My wolf growled for me to fight back, but how do you fight a creature made of the very element it controlled? A creature well known in legions to drown his victims and feast on their bodies like crocodiles in the south.

‘Sasha, you can't give up,'my wolf said. ‘You must fight just as fiercely as our mate now.'

I shook my head; the water rising to my chest as the kelpie moved towards the very center.

‘I can't. I can't move!'I felt tears burning my eyes just before the water covered my face and the kelpie pulled me beneath its glistening surface.

I thought about how beautiful that surface had looked just hours before. How relaxing the sound of the water had been, lulling us into a sense of security at its edge.

That must be how the kelpie finds its victims. The call of the river was like a beacon of light to a moth. It's song giving whoever dared to come near the river's edge the feeling of peace and safety before the Kelpie surfaced and dragged them to their deaths.

As I held my breath, sobs began to rise up in my chest, causing a burning sensation. I had been so stupid to have let my guard down. My excuse to Ayden now proved accurate.

The bond had been a distraction that would now cost me my life.

‘And his if you don't fight!'my wolf growled in my head.

My brows creased at her words until a pull at my mind had me turning to look back towards the surface just in time to see Ayden attempting to dive towards me.

‘He wants you to fight!'my wolf said, his words sounding too distant for me to hear. ‘As do I, Sasha. We must fight.'

I wiggled my arm free; the kelpie letting its grip loose as we dove deeper still. Far deeper than I would have ever imagined the river to be. I reached out towards Ayden, urging him to get to me. To save me.

‘You aren't a damsel! Fight!'

Those words echoed loudest in my mind; my wolf's voice was even silenced by the deep command of our mate. His pep-talk from before echoing with those words in my mind.

A fresh fire ignited in my soul; my gaze turned back to the kelpie as its horse-face shifted to a creature of nightmares. I shot out a pulse of my magic at the creature, his hold loosening only a bit as my magic knocked its head away from me.

I tried again; the impact was less effective than before. That sense of defeat seeped its way back in as I shot every bit of magic I could think of at the creature. The smokey darkness of my mind returned from the depths of my head with the strange dark voice echoing over my wolf.

‘You have other magic, Sasha,'the voice soothed my fear. ‘Why don't you use it?'

I shook my head. ‘I've used everything.'

I didn't understand why I was willingly talking back to the voice in my head. The very voice that had left me feeling frightened and confused just days before.

The marks on the back of my neck began to tingle, a thought I had long ago pushed away coming back at the beckoning of the strange voice in my mind.

‘Why not try the very magic that marked you before you ever drew your first breath,'the voice suggested.

I shook my head as I fought the thought, the voice in my mind chuckling at the attempt.

‘It's the only way, Sasha. You want to live, don't you?'

Again, my gaze moved to Ayden, his arms hooking through the water as he tried to fight the magic that pushed him back. Every wave and current of the water exhausting him as he refused to give up.

The voice in my head gave a growl. ‘Yes, he will die if you don't try. You both will die if you do not save yourself.'

It was the thought of Ayden dying with me that broke my resolve. The resistance to the temptation I had fought all my life breaking just as my resistance to the mate bond had just hours before.

I felt the darkness rise to my fingertips, my eyes closing as the euphoric feel of power echoed in my veins.

I could breathe, my lungs no longer burning with the need for air. I could move, my entire body slipping out of the kelpie's grasp as its monstrous gaze widened in fear.

It was as if the creature itself recognized the darkness that I held inside me. The darkness that not even I had fully known existed.

I raised my hand and sent a new wave of magic, the dark smoke of the magic swirling like ink through the water, surrounding the creature that had threatened my life and drove my mate to risk his own life to save me. With a close of my fist, the creature's neck was broken, its lifeless body drifting away from me into the very depths where it had intended to drag me to my end.

I could still feel the power that pushed back against Ayden in the water, my eyes opening to see the tendrils of darkness within the currents and waves that did not belong to me. My hand reached out to it, its wisps of ink linking with my own magic, all of it coming under my control.

With another twist of my fists, the magic dispersed, and my body fell limp in the water. My strength leaving with the magic that had fought to keep my mate from me.

Darkness filled my gaze, my sense of direction clouded as my body floated in place. I could feel a hand wrapping around my wrist, then an arm around my waist as it pulled me towards what I could only hope was the surface.

Though the world around me was dark, I couldn't tell if my eyes were actually closed, or if the darkness I had wielded simply took over my sight.

In the textbooks I studied as a child, it always showed the dark magic users with blacked eyes and veins. The magic was like a plague over their body, completely consuming everything that made them who they were as it ran through every vein and vessel of their body.

I wondered if that was what was happening to me now that I had given into the secret temptation which not even my own mother knew I struggled with.

From the time I had turned thirteen, I had felt drawn to the dark magic that everyone warned against. Every class on the subject warning of its addictiveness, and how it would destroy everything you cared about.

I had convinced myself that I was only curious due to my mother's brush with the dark magic and the mark we both shared. I had thought myself over the curiosity of it, but now I knew it had always been inside me. Just waiting for me to give in to its siren call.

But could it really be so bad? If I had not used the magic, Ayden and I would both be dead right now. Neither of us would have made it out of that river. Neither of us would be able to breathe that fresh air that I had always taken for granted.

‘We aren't breathing, Sasha,'my wolf's voice whimpered.

I frowned to myself. That didn't seem right. I know that I felt air in our lungs when I used that magic. I could still feel air filling me now, and I could taste something sweet, though I couldn't place where I knew that taste from.

‘Sasha, we aren't breathing. We need to take a breath. You have to let go of the magic.'My wolf urged me.

Let go of the magic? The magic that saved us? Was I even still holding onto it? I didn't think so.

"Sasha! Wake up! Wake up!" A voice cried out. It sounded so far away. I couldn't place who the voice belonged to at such a distance.

"Come on, Sasha. You can't die. Not like this. Breathe."

I shook my head in confusion. I was breathing. This unfamiliar voice made no sense.

‘You aren't breathing! Sasha! Let go of the darkness! It's holding you back!'my wolf cried out again.

I looked down at my head, suddenly more aware of my surroundings, as I saw the dark ribbon in my hand. The entire world around me was white. A world of light as I held onto the strand of darkness, its smoke drifting around my hand like an obedient pet greeting its master.

"What?" I asked, my voice echoing around me. "Where am I?"

"The in-between," my wolf whimpered. "We're dying Sasha."

I turned to see the beautiful hazelnut wolf sitting behind me. Her head drooped as she whimpered. Her blue eyes looked back at me, tears glistening before falling down to her paws.

"No," I said with a shake of my head. "No, I killed the Kelpie. I fought back. We can't be dying."

"But we are," my wolf snapped. "We are because you won't let go of that darkness. It's holding us back! It won't let us go back to our mate."

I looked back at the ribbon in my hand, the wisps of smoke caressing my wrist and hand. I looked around in the direction where the ribbon stretched beyond my body; it reached so far from where I stood. I could feel something at the other end of it calling me to join it.

"Sasha, don't," my wolf growled. "Let it go! Don't let it consume you! You have to resist it."

I looked back at the wolf again, her eyes filled with fear and sadness. My grip of the ribbon loosened.

‘Don't let go,'the dark voice echoed in the direction the ribbon led. ‘You're so close.'

"Don't listen! The darkness doesn't hold your best interest." My wolf's nose nudged my side encouragingly. "Think of what is most important, Sasha. Rory, your family, and our mate. Let go of the darkness. Do it for all of them. Don't kill us."

‘It won't kill you,'the dark voice chuckled. ‘You can live forever. The magic will keep you young and alive for all of time.'

"We are dying as we speak!" My wolf growled at the voice.

‘Sometimes death is just a new beginning.'

"Enough!" I cried out, my hand releasing the darkness.

I watched as it shot from my head, rushing to where it came from as I fell back towards my wolf.

"I refuse to be controlled," I whispered to the void as the world of nothing began to fade away.

I could still feel a link to the darkness even as I released it, its presence somewhere deep inside my mind, just as it had been before I called upon it.

My hand reached for my chest as I felt pressure there, my lungs beginning to burn once again.

"Come on, Sasha, don't leave me," Ayden cried out, his voice sounding far closer than it had before. "You're a fucking warrior princess. You don't just die like this. You fight!"

I smiled as I felt myself falling back into myself, his words reminding me of just who I am, like they always did. My eyes flew open, burning from the river water as I rolled to my side and coughed and gagged up every bit of water my lungs held. The marks on the back of my neck were now burning hot.