Page 146 of A Bond with the Dark

I’m the phoenix now, as I literally rose from the ashes.

And I have fangs?

What the hell is that about?

The psychic’s words are suddenly in my mind again: “One love will rise you from those ashes. And one will put you in them. Your heart will want the pain. The burn. The fire. That is the love that will consume you. The other is safe. It won’t take you to the ends of the Earth, but it will protect you and keep you safe. When the time comes, you must choose which love you want. The love that ends you. Or the love that revives you.”

It had been Dom’s blood that dropped onto my ashes and ignited the flame. So, Bash is the one who put me in the ashes, and Dom is the one who rose me from them.

Literal pain swells up in my mind when trying to figure out what this means.

What am I supposed to do now?

Am I the savior of the damned? Or the destroyer of them?

Tears again flow from my eyes.

“My mark is gone,” Dom says and when I turn my head, I see him examining his arm. I move silently over to him.

“Is mine?” Bash asks, pulling down his collar.

No one speaks.

“What?” he asks, his black brows like checkmarks, “Is it bad?”

“It’s darker,” Dom reports.

“What does that even mean?” questions Bash incredulously.

“What does any of this mean?” Dom queries.

“There must be another warlock.” That is Hattie.

“What do we do about Ollie?” Adaline laments, her voice cracking as tears threaten to fall from her eyes. Everett’s rubbing her back.

As I crouch down to see the mark that’s missing from Dom’s arm, a tear falls from my eye that drops right onto the wound the stake had left behind in Ollie’s chest.

The tear that fell creates a spark that lights the entire wound up, the charred and bloody flesh glowing red but then the light turns bright, bright white. The blazing light pools until it’s blinding. The wound seals up, and his skin returns to the typical pale peach color, the blood staining his face and eyes fading. His eyes were that ghastly white suddenly turn to green and when he takes a deep breath in, a shock wave like thunder without sound emits from him and ripples out into the world, awakening something ancient that has been slumbering until now.

He begins to cough up blood.

“Ollie!” stammers Adaline, quizzically looking from him to me.

This is too much for me.

I run from them all, out of the back door and into the night. The psychic Quinlyn’s voice reverberates in my mind, and I hear it as I run toward the water: “Even though your choice will hurt you, you have something in you that will save a lot of people. Your pain will end other’s suffering, and so this path that you’re on is one that you’re meant to be on. Others before you could not rise from the ashes as you have, and you will have to keep rising out of those ashes. For you are like a Phoenix. And your blood is powerful. There’s a reason that you’ve been dealt the things you have. Your pain and suffering will not go unrepented. You have a magick within you that’s unlike any other kind of magick the world has ever seen. Take caution when honing your power, but hone it all the same. Conquer it. And seek the advice of others who walk your path, for they will guide you to where you need to be.”

Reaching the water’s edge, I fall to the sandy shore and scream.

“Who is it that walks my path that could possibly help me with what all this means?”

“It seems as though there’s magick that you’re playing with now that’s stirring something ancient and powerful. Something is happening in your eyes that tells me you know exactly what I’m talking about. Just be careful with it. And that man you are seeing right now is part of that darkness that’s seeping into your soul . . . I would leave him behind if I were you. Something in his energy is attaching to you and seeping into you. Careful if that’s the darkness that will consume you…”

It’s Dom who’s at my side as I wallow in my sorrow and grief.

“Are you all right?” His concern is genuine for me. When I look at him, his green eyes are agonized, harboring a grief I know nothing about.

“Are you?” I ask, wiping my tears away.

---