Page 1 of A Blackened Bond

CHAPTER ONE

ANNEX’S POV

Fuck.Dying never gets any easier.

Pain I can deal with, blood and broken bones, bring it all on.

But this…I look around the dark and empty space. An abyss that seems to travel endlessly in every direction with nothing but pitch darkness in sight. It rolls on, and nothing but a cold, black void surrounds me.

This dismal shit never gets easier; my body is already feeling drained and leached of any joy as I look around me.

A couple of years ago, I would die, throwing myself into bloody fights for shits and giggles, and end up here. Not caring much about the aftermath or having to deal with this bleak shithole. But now…I had people and a home to return to.

Two bright blue eyes and a pair of plump, rosy lips flash across my mind, probably accompanied by three sets of narrowed, worried gazes. Those assholes are going to give me a lecture when I return, Creed leading it like the grumpy mama bear he was.

I brush a hand down my torso and tattoos. The gaping bloody hole from my chest now gone. Our forms here always go back to their original and unwounded shells.A tiny benefit, I guess.

A slight glint catches my eye as the path opens, and I head toward it.

The ‘path’ was only visible to those of the Porter bloodline. It was a fuckin’ curse if you ask me. And one that flows through my very veins.

Deaths kiss.

It was a type of immortality.

Our clan was born from the unholy union of Death's Ferryman and a lower divine being.One that never should have been.

Their love cursed the children they bore and their children's children, creating our clan. A fucked up black-hearted group of soulless bastards that shouldn’t exist.

We’re beings not unlike immortals. We can revive after dying. Even death deeming our souls unworthy to be claimed.

Our cursed black souls can see the path back to the Passing Grounds—and with a little help—we can make our way back to our bodies in the human realm. Once our soul re-enters our broken or damaged body, we begin to heal much quicker than any shifter or other supernatural ever could.

That is, of course, as long as our bodies aren’t burnt to a crisp or decapitated. And even then, there are ways to return—just a lot more painful and time-consuming.

And not something I would want to experience.Again.

I head toward the misty grey cobblestone path that shows me the way outta this dark hellhole, following them as the only light out of this place.They thread a path through this empty void until—after what feels like forever—the dark breaks, and I stop for a brief moment to take in the familiar dreary atmosphere around me.

The huge open cavern-like space is filled with a glimmering obsidian rock throughout and covering the space from top to bottom.

A grey mist seeps out around it and lightly covers the walls and ground in every direction. And in the centre of the vast space sits a dark lake and waterfall.

A real bleak-looking shithole, if you ask me.

The water itself is dark, the liquid seeming clear, reflecting its own glimmer across the lake's surface and beckoning people to it.

I say ‘water’ even though that shit’s not drinkable,or swimmable.

Sure you could try, but the hordes of lost souls lurking there would pull you down quicker than any anchor.

The only thing waiting for you would be a cold and slow death, one filled with misery and pain evenI’mnot tempted to test out.

The lost souls here would slowly feed on your dying remains, filling and inflicting their every painful memory and emotion that they experienced during life…until you joined them lurking as a soul in the dark lake.

No longer alive, but not fully dead.Just lost.

A small shiver works its way down my neck as a murky fog slithers its way over the water nearest me. Leaving an eerie feeling of being watched as I move.

---