Page 36 of Visions of Darkness

He’d pleaded it before. He knew from his own experiences the dangers of being too close to someone who was not a Laven. He’d left his own family at fifteen—not that they’d been much of one. They’d despised him from the beginning.

Humans could sense they were different. Besides their eyes, they could just tell something was off. Could feel the undercurrent of the ethereal that ran through them.

It usually elicited fear, and people tended to hate what they feared.

But Aria had believed her family was different.

He felt bad when she flinched at his words. But God, she was setting herself up to be hurt.

Her expression twisted in uncertainty. “It’s not that. I mean, I don’t want to be there. Ican’tbe there. But there is something else ... something that happened there.”

Dread tightened his chest. “What?”

“I ...” She trailed off, her brow furrowing.

“Aria, I need you to tell me what’s going on.”

Her delicate throat wobbled when she swallowed, and she looked away for a beat before she turned back to him with the full force of her penetrating gaze. “I bound a Kruen while I was awake.”

Confusion tossed his thoughts into mayhem. “What do you mean, you bound a Kruen?”

“Iboundit, Pax. Crushed it.”

His chest tightened.

It was impossible.

A shudder rocked through her body before she rushed to explain. “I kept feeling something different. All afternoon. Like I could hear the evils that echoed through the halls of that place. I thought it was just the stress. That I was tired and vulnerable. But there was this girl ... my roommate.”

Aria’s tongue stroked out to wet her dried lips, and her voice was hushed. “She started telling me why she had been admitted. And I could feelit, Pax.” She fisted both hands in the stomach of her shirt. “I could feel her turmoil. Her grief.”

Her hesitation was palpable, though a newfound ferocity lined her bones. “I had an overwhelming urge to touch her. And when I did, I saw it through her mind, the Kruen who was feeding her lies. I bound it.”

Words began to frantically tumble from her mouth. “I bound it. I saw it, and I bound it, and I destroyed it. It drained me. Drained me so badly that I could barely move, but I did it.”

She lurched forward and grabbed him by the forearms. “What does it mean? Tell me what it means.”

Pale eyes widened with the plea.

Alarm pounded through his bloodstream, and he warred with the urge to jump to his feet and rage. “I don’t know what it means,” he finally managed to say.

They were created to walk through the darkness of Faydor. Chosen before birth to fight for the good. To protect from the monsters that were bred to destroy.

A Laven’s spirit was amplified when they slept. Permitted to cross into the plane that ran over the surface of the Earth like a wicked, infected shroud. A world where demons peered into human minds and preyed on their weaknesses.

In the day, Laven were just as vulnerable as anyone else.

Human through and through.

But if Aria possessed this power? It would set her apart. Put her in greater danger.

A tremor ripped down his spine, and he ground his teeth. “I don’t know what it means, Aria, but I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

He would protect her till his last breath.

Aria looked into the distance, to the lush foliage that surrounded them. A haven that couldn’t be touched.

But Pax knew it was all a false sense of security. In one second, she could be gone, torn from this place and taken to one where he couldn’t protect her.

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