Page 29 of Marked

Blair stirred, groggily pulling herself from the depths of sleep.

Her muscles were stiff, either from the excitement of yesterday or from sleeping on her back.

For a moment, she just lay there, blinking up at the ceiling.

The weight of exhaustion tried to pull her back into sleep but then the images of last night flashed through her mind.

She sat up, eyes immediately darting around the room for Damien.

Her cheeks flared at the soreness between her legs, and she covered her face with her hands.

Memories of what he had done to her played through her mind and her cheeks warmed.

She pulled the covers off her as the hickory smell of bacon intruded her senses.

Her stomach growled in response to the caramelized notes, and she quickly moved off the bed toward the kitchen.

The morning light leaked through the blinds in soft gold slats, painting the kitchen in pale warmth. Damien stood at the stove, barefoot and quiet, whisking eggs in a bowl with practiced ease.

As she approached, his shadows awakened, moving across the floor to caress her legs and face.

She smiled at this and watched as they retreated but stayed around her feet.

She looked up as he poured the eggs into the pan.

They hissed faintly, curling at the edges as they came into contact with the heat.

A shadow drifted toward the counter, and Blair followed, taking a seat at the island, facing Damien.

For the next few minutes, the kitchen was quiet. Just the soft sounds of cooking, the occasional creak of the old floorboards, and the subtle, impossible stirrings of darkness that moved as if they belonged there.

Damien opened the oven, and a light billow of smoke erupted as he pulled the pan of bacon out.

Smiling at the product, he placed it down and began to plate the food.

His shadows lingered around him lightly, as if happy.

They melted back into his arms as he set Blair's plate down in front of her and walked around the island to the seat next to her.

They ate in a comfortable silence as the sun rose higher outside the cottage, warming the room.

Blair would occasionally look at Damien from the corner of her eye and shyly smile before returning her attention to her food.

On the last grin, he turned his head to fully look at her and she cleared her throat.

"Top three?" she said softly.

Damien's gaze softened and he slightly tilted his head.

"What?" he asked, his mouth full of eggs, his expression confused.

"You always look like you have a thousand thoughts in your mind at any given time. Right now, at this moment, what are the top three things you are thinking about?" Blair asked, shoveling a forkful of eggs into her mouth .

Damien lowered his fork and rolled his tongue over the bottom of his teeth.

"Okay, top three: One, I liked taking care of you last night.

Two: I want to taste you again. Three? There's something I want to tell you," Damien answered, his voice calm and low.

His eyes flickered toward Blair as if to measure the trust between them.

Blair didn't flinch. "Okay." She said with a blushed smile, pointing her fork at him. "Tell me."

Damiens eyes roamed over her body before they landed on his own arms. Nodding to the net of black moving underneath his skin he exhaled as he spoke, "They like you."

She blinked, a look of confusion setting between her eyes. "What?"

“The shadows." He lifted a hand slightly, and one of them reacted, rippling softly near his fingertips. "They usually don't... behave . Not this way."

Blair studied him, unsure if it was a joke. It wasn't . His tone was too quiet. Too careful.

"I've spent most of my life trying to control them," he continued. "They've always reacted to my emotions, especially anger, fear, and pain. If I'm not calm, they usually act out- It’s like they are always on defense and ready to attack."

She looked down at the flickering movement along his skin. One of the shadows curved toward her like a tendril reaching for warmth. The long tendril of matted darkness gently grazed her arm then gently pulled back to its owner.

"Whenever I’m around you..." he said, softer now, “...they're different. Calmer."

Blair didn't speak right away .

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the counter and joining his hands together. "It's not just that they like you. It's that... when you're near, I don't have to fight them. I don't have to focus so hard. Controlling them, it's like breathing instead of drowning."

Her eyes flicked up to him, his expression unreadable.

"They want to be around you, to protect you," he said simply. "Like I do."

A silence fell between them then, deep and thoughtful, edged with something fragile.

"Can I know more about them? About you?" Blair asked, putting down her fork and picking up her cup. He eyed her movements, nodding.

"There’s not much to know. I was a child when they first formed," he said finally.

"I didn't know what I was, not at first, but I knew I was born different.

My father used to tell me stories about people born with these shadows- how rare it was, how powerful they could be.

No one ever told me what happens when the wrong people take notice. "

Blair focused entirely on him, staying attuned to his body language.

"When I turned six, they took me from my home.

They wanted me to learn how to fight," Damien continued, the weight of the past pressing down on his shoulders.

"I didn't understand it back then. I was just a kid.

But they took me, put me through hell, trained me to be a weapon.

They didn't care about who I was, only what I could do. The shadows... they were a tool to them. And I was their soldier. That’s how it was for anyone in those camps. "

Blair clenched her fists around the cup, her jaw setting in frustration.

She had never considered the shadows manifesting in a child.

And thinking about dark, twisted operations where children were molded into weapons?

Trained to kill without conscience? She didn't need to hear the rest to understand the horror of what Damien had gone through.

"Not all Shadowborn are the same," Damien added, his voice quieter now.

"Each one is different. I've seen some that can slip through walls, some that can even manipulate the dark into nightmares.

I knew one that could make people vanish completely into dark voids.

Each ability we wield is different. I can shape my shadows into whatever I need them to be.

We touched based on my emotions about them.

When I'm angry or scared, they get stronger.

I can control them to a point. But if I lose control, they take over. "

Blair looked at Damien with a mixture of sadness and understanding but he held her gaze steadily.

"Back then, I didn't think I could escape."

There was a long silence between them, neither of them moving or breathing.

"How did you get out?" Blair asked.

Damien's eyes focused on something distant in the kitchen. "I ran the first chance I had. They hunted me for years, but I managed to stay one step ahead of them. I found SilverDawn and decided to hide there."

Blair's heart clenched, a strange mix of gratitude and guilt washing over her. Moving her hands to him, she tugged at his wrist until her fingers intertwined with his. "And now what? "

Damien's gaze flickered to their hands. "My whole life as a Shadowborn has been in the shadows. I'm starting to wonder what other choices I have. If I stop hiding, they will find me. If they find me, they'll find you ."

Blair leaned forward and kissed his arm, formulating multiple plans in her head. "You said you got out, that you ran. What happened to the others?"

Damien's eyes hardened, the shadows swirling around him in response. "The others at camp?"

"Yeah.." Blair said, her voice cautious but intrigued. "Was it only Shadowborn there?"

Damien sat back, his eyes narrowing at the ceiling as he processed her words.

After a few moments his voice filled the empty space around them.

"The camp that I was in was mostly children but there were very few Shadowborn.

The others there held nothing special, besides having a certain potential to wield shadows.

If a child was strong and could wield, they could be extremely useful to the King and his desire for a Shadowborn army.

" Damien answered, voice tinged with a deep sadness.

“So, they trained all of you?” she asked, leaning her body into him.

Damien nodded, kissing the top of her head. “Yeah, those that had shadows were pushed harder because the goal was to make us the perfect weapon. We were meant to become leaders. The others would be used to fill the armies, depending on their rank.”

Blair nodded, her eyes following every shift in his demeanor .

“The army he wanted was slowly created and he was able to have control over various skillsets. There were some areas that didn’t quite work out in his favor though- some shadowborn, were not meant to live on others’ terms. Oh, and the process of trying to recreate shadows, isn't quite as easy as he thought it was.”

Blair’s shoulders went rigid. How did I not know this existed? How are people living in fear like this?

Speaking slowly, Blair's eyes brightened with determination. "Well, what do we have to do to stop running ?"

"Well, the Hunters are now being used to find any Shadowborn left. We’d have to take care of them first."

Blair nodded, "If we do that, does that save the other children who might be in camps?"