Tasting Darkness

Read Taming Darkness By Jessica Hall Book 3 Chapter 20 – Darius

The surrounding air was all I could hear, the whooshing loud, like I stepped inside a hurricane. Yet her final words travelled to me regardless, almost as if carried on the wind she created. I witnessed the destructive determination on her face, as seconds slipped by me, before I truly understood the intention behind the look Aleera gave me, I raced toward her, tried to shield her power, absorb it..

Yet the moment my magic touched her, she siphoned me for every drop, red energy zapped toward the tower, stealing my breath as I knew I would be powerless within the barrier, when she hit me with so much strength I could no longer hold onto the miniscule piece of power I had left.

A panicked scream ripped out of me the moment her power blasted me into the damned portal. They rebounded off the crystal tower, and echoed inside the portal as I was vacuumed back to Astrid Castle, back home and far from her reach. My heart beat harder as I hit the ground, hand outstretched, as if my sheer will alone could stop the portal closing. I couldn’t hold it in.

Why had she done it? None of it made sense, and try as I might, I couldn’t fathom why Aleera just handed herself over to them like she was a gift on a silver platter.

Meeting death while fighting beside her would have been far better than being forced back home. I tried to keep the portal open, so I could return to her or even just fight to make it bend to my will, but all of my power was gone. Aleera had completely sucked it away, so she could overthrow us and throw us back home through the portal.

that, not without her. Not for me at least, and I was

trying to scrounge up enough power to conjure a portal back to her. But just like with my magic, his had

of any real chance we had to get back to her side. Despite knowing that, Kalen, frantically, continued to pull on any bit of magic he could muster. He

there before this whole mess. A look I hadn’t seen in ages, not since Aleera’s Phoenixes brought him back to

chance of working. By the time we got there, they would already be long gone. There was no way the wannabe Queen

tossed us aside as if we were unworthy of fighting by her side. She

ground. “She promised!” his scream echoed through the room bouncing off the walls, angry tears streamed down his cheeks. He slammed his other fist down again. “She lied!” Anger was getting the best of him, but I couldn’t blame him. We’d been prepared to lay our lives down to protect her, and she’d shoved us all to the

as he pulled until the strands were tense in his grip. He jerked

him. Aleera had sent us away on purpose, it hadn’t been a last minute decision, her actions were calculated. We would find out the