Page 9 of A Blackened Bond

We set off toward the training grounds, picking up pace as we move together. Ezra stays to my right, Mallyn to my left, and Creed tails us closely from behind.

Even with Annex on his shoulder, Mallyn moves quicker than the rest of us, as if the six-foot-plus body weighs nothing at all to him.Guess that must be the monstrous shifter strength at play.

We’re making our way around another group of trees when a beast like the one Annex and Ezra fought near the main academy entrance suddenly appears. Its eyes are an unsettling shadeof red, matching the crimson blood dripping from its toothy mouth.

I grip Annex’s blade in my hands, about to strike when a thick black smoke appears around the beast, coiling around its limbs and neck.

The beast thrashes and struggles, its red eyes widening as the smoke wraps tighter. A few seconds later, the beast falls limply to the ground, the black smoke receding from its corpse and flowing back toward Creed like small ripples before fading completely.

His eyes are completely black, the obsidian colour a familiar sight before he turns his gaze from the corpse toward me. He watches me, his brows furrowing deeper on his face the longer he stares until the obsidian shade fades softly back to his usual golden amber hue.

“Keep moving,” he barks, a light scowl tracing his features as he moves past me and toward the beast. “We don’t stop unless we have to.”

I head past him, making a run again toward the old training grounds as they all fall in line behind me.

After another couple of minutes of running, we’re making our way up the old, broken pathway to the dilapidated building.

“How did you ever find this place?” Ezra calls, staring at the building with a slightly awed expression.

We head inside, a nest of small birds flying away as a tiny squirrel skitters in the opposite direction.

“I needed a quiet place away from everyone,” I shrug. A brief look of sadness flickers across his features, soon followed by a dark look of determination.

Before Ezra can open his mouth to speak again, I notice Mallyn trying to place Annex on a small bench near the entrance. I go over and stop him and lead him over to a much sturdier set of seats.

The places to sit in here were far and few between, most of them either burnt or broken, and the couple that survived whatever had happened here were deceiving in appearance.

I found that out the hard way when I went to rest with Gadriel one day after sparring, and one of them collapsed as soon as I sat down.

“This one’s better for him.” I pat the large seat beside the staircase. “It won't buckle under him.”

Mallyn places him down gently. “He’ll be okay.” His grey-blue eyes meet mine, a gentle look overtaking his features as he watches me.

Was he trying to comfort me?

Creed calls Mallyn over as he and Ezra check the building and area around us.Probably for any other beasts.

Annex’s hand drops from the bench where he’s been laid down, falling to the cold, broken boards below him.Bending down, I hold his hand in mine before placing it back on his chest.

How long would it take for him to come back?Hours? Days?

I brush my fingers through his dark and bloodied strands, tracing the tattoos along his ears until I reach his dangling silver dagger earring, its small blood-drop gem shaking gently with my touch.Where are you?

A small smile tilts my lips. The psycho would probably relish in all this if he wasn’t unconscious right now.

He would probably take a front-row seat to the academy's chaos and the beast’s carnage before brandishing his blades and jumping back into the fight for fun. No matter how crazy or bloody he would get, he would probably just smile dementedly at it all and ask me what ‘gift’ I’d like.

Bloody…I look at my fingers and palms, now covered in Annex’s dried blood.

He had lost so much. How would that affect him if he came back?

And what about the wound on his chest? Would it be able to heal in time before he came back?

I look at the bloody hole in the centre of his chest, still as large as when I first saw it.

How was he supposed to heal that?

I knowIcan heal quickly, but for a wound like that…I lean in closer, my brows pinched together and eyes entirely focused as I watch a small area of the bloody hole slowly knit together.

---