Page 29 of A Touch of Darkness

She’s powerful. Magic flowing through her veins like a second skin. Her family are the first descendants of the original witches. She’s too young to control her powers, we’ve spoken about this before, she’s still learning to control it.

“You will never escape this, Lucian. You will never escape me,” she hisses. “And neither will your family. You’ve destroyed them too. You’ve damned us all.”

The force of her words hits me like a physical blow, a shock that rattles me to my core. I stagger back, barely able to stand as the world spins around me.

The power in her eyes is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. She’s no longer the woman I thought I knew. She is something ancient, something terrible.

“You will never forget this day,” she whispers, her voice low and deadly.

And then, just as quickly as the storm began, it stops. The air goes still. The temperature returns to normal, but the horror of her curse lingers in the air.

And just like that, she’s gone, an eerie feeling left in her wake as she disappears like she was never here at all.

I am left alone, broken and cursed, with nothing but the consequences of my betrayal.

The room is silent. The world outside is still.

But inside me, everything has shifted.

And I know, deep down, that this is just the beginning.

When I woke up this morning, finally, after a fitful sleep, rage consumed me.

I have no idea if this is me going through the whole five stages of grief or what. But if it is…this is the stage where I am pissed beyond belief.

I can’t describe it as anything other than rage.

Rage over my sister being dead.

Rage over my parents keeping this huge secret from us.

Rage over not knowing the entire truth about anything or who the hell to trust.

I came to the one place where I know I can get more answers.

Professor Lucian Draedon’s classroom.

I hastily pound on the door, my fist slamming against the wood with a desperation that feels like it's going to tear me apart limb from limb. My pulse is a frantic drumbeat in my ears, and my breath comes in shallow gasps.

I hit the door harder. "Professor!" My voice cracks, breaking apart as the anguish bursts from me. I’m unraveling. The edges of the world I’ve always known blurs and collapses around me, and the only thing I know is that I need someone to tell me this isn’t real. I need someone to tell me this isn’t real.

The seconds stretch into eternity. Just as my fist rises again, the door swings open, and the professor stands there. His expression is the same cold mask it always is, but his eyes flicker—searching, maybe questioning. The moment our eyes connect, I feel something shift. My anger dissipates, just a little, and all I want to do is curl up into a ball and cry. It’s an odd mixture and it brings me back to when Lara and I found out about our parents. I can’t believe this is happening all over again.

I shove past the professor, stumbling into his classroom as my boot catches on the metal threshold, grief pulling me forward. "Lara’s dead. She's dead!" The words come out as a broken scream. My voice shatters on the air, cracking and sharp, throat still raw from the hours before. The words don’t feel real.Idon’t feel real. I keep saying them, like if I repeat it enough, it will stop being true.

His eyes narrow, and his jaw tightens, but I see something on his face—a flicker of disbelief, a flicker of grief. He steps aside, closing the door behind me with a quiet click.

“She—she’s gone, and Isabel…Isabel came to me. She said—” My voice breaks again, and I have to swallow to keep from falling apart. “She said…” My words come out in fractured sobs. I can barely make sense of it all. My hands are shaking so badly I can’t seem to hold on to my thoughts. Why can’t I just say it? “She said the vampires killed her. She saidyourpeople killed her!” I scream, my voice raw and unfiltered, laced with the same rage I was feeling only moments ago.

He looks at me like he’s above it all. Like he hasn’t a clue why I’d ever accuse him of such a thing when that’s literally whathe’s known for—going by fiction, anyways. But the line between fiction and reality is so blurred I can’t even see straight. Do I think vampires killed her? No. Maybe? I don’t know. I know I feel an intense pull tonottrust Isabel. But I need to hear it from Professor Draedon. I need to hear that vampires didn’t kill my sister.

“Be honest with me!” I spit, my voice trembling with fury. “Did they hurt her?”

His eyes narrow, confusion flickering across his face. “Sylvie?—”

“Don’t you dare say my name like that,” I snap, stepping closer, my chest heaving with the effort to contain my mixture of emotions. “Isabel said vampires killed Lara.Yourkind. She said they slaughtered my sister, and they apparently left her to rot in the woods like she was nothing! I need you to tell me it isn’t true,” I cry, feeling like I’m about to internally combust from the pain and pressure and complete and total agony ripping at my insides.

His expression hardens, and he takes a step toward me, his voice low and measured. “And you think my people had something to do with it? All because some girl keeps coming to you and trying to persuade you to join a fucking cult?” he seethes, and I know I’ve pushed his buttons to a point of no return.

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