Tasting Darkness

Read Taming Darkness By Jessica Hall Book 3 Chapter 29 – Kalen

When I was younger, growing up in the orphanage, I always longed for home. There was some sense telling me I didn’t belong there, that I was destined to be somewhere else. I didn’t understand that feeling until after I manifested and figured out where home was. It wasn’t a place by itself. It made me understand the difference between a house and a home.

I could stay in any house, but any place without my mates would never be home. I used to dream about having a family, and that’s exactly what I found with my mates. They were more amazing than I ever could have dreamed they would be, but there had still been something missing that stopped me from truly feeling at home within myself.

It wasn’t until Aleera came to us did I ever get that true sense of what I craved. Family, and completion. She tamed the shadows that haunted me. We were no longer chasing her ghost across half the country. Instead, we summoned her spirit and let her become our everything. She summoned the good in us.

Good? It was hard to believe that I understood what that word was.

Before her, I’d had an idea of it, but I had no true knowledge of just what it could personally do for me until she shone a light and showed us.

With her by my side, the shadows were not so dark anymore, no longer a sinister thing that sought to pull me under. I wanted to fight them. I wanted to fight them for her. She didn’t just tempt our darkest parts out of hiding. She tasted the darkness and still forgave us. Until, eventually, she tamed us one by one. The darkness didn’t stand a chance against her.

With her gone, I was falling all the way back to the start, past when I was searching for my home and family, and all the way back into the darkest recesses of my memory. My heart battled back, trying to convince me that all of this was not some cruel dream. I’d had a way out of the blackness that I didn’t have before.

could turn into the living hell that threatened us. A cycle of evil, manipulative b*tches, and past wrongdoings that would never stop haunting us,

Each of them perfectly complemented each other, and all together we made the perfect

mentally too. There had been too much dumped on her shoulders. The things she’d learned about not just her past, but ours as well, and she hadn’t had any time to process it or let any of

say she was carrying the weight of the entire world on her shoulders,

there was nothing I could do to help her, at least nothing

twisting the pressure dials,

to save her from the load that was crushing her? I wanted to prove to her that my mates and I were here to stay and would be at her side

I hadn’t even noticed myself chewing on my nails again. I took a deep breath, trying to clear my thoughts. A slight tug in my

I so light-headed all of a sudden? I wanted to fall over, but

eat, or was all of this because of the extreme stress I was

took a wobbly step forward, and my knees gave out under me, gravity returning as my body crashed to the ground. I wasn’t sure what was going

the ground. I sat up, inhaling the surprisingly fresh air. “What the hell?” I whispered beneath my breath. Rubbing my eyes, I squinted, trying to see through the mysterious mist. What was

the mist, couldn’t even feel it beneath my fingertips, despite it floating all around me. Did that mean, wherever I was,