Page 32 of My Dark Obsession

‘Push and Pull-Trudo Et Trabo’

Amaya

Bri had in fact found Rí and informed him I’d been ‘taken’ by the Council. He had apparently flown over here in such a rage, a few of the Lights Cities buildings had caught fire in his rage.

Ziel had been delivering another present, this one containing a foot, and had sensed me here. I didn’t know how I felt about that honestly.

I was feeling a lot of things, things I had never felt before. I was confused by my worry of Cole. His tired eyes and sickly pallor were concerning. He hadn’t even been as stiff and snippy as usual. Something was really wrong with him, and I was going to find out what .

And Ziel, Death’s Warrior, well he was an enigma. He acted like I irritated him, barely spoke to me and yet he was there, showing up when I really didn’t expect him. He had only mentioned us being ‘Mates’ in passing and yet we hadn’t actually discussed it.

Then what happened if we did actually Mate? Was I supposed to be Mated to two men? Were we all supposed to live happily ever after together in the same house, the same bed.

Annoyingly, the thought of them both in my bed with me had my core heating, and embarrassingly, I knew Rí could smell it. The bright flare of his eyes and the way his tongue peaked out as if to taste the scent was a big enough sign.

Brushing away those very interesting thoughts, I thought of my boys. How many days had it been now? I hated myself for every second they were without me. I hated the thought of Lyal anywhere near them. My stomach churned.

So much unanswered, so much to figure out. My head was so noisy, so loud.

We walked in silence to the castle. Ziel’s smoke blew out and blended in with the fog that gathered on the Mountain. Everyone seemed oddly subdued, lost in their own minds.

We entered the castle and the words ‘To Keep Under Silence’ greeted us as normal.

The question was, what secrets? I had so much to learn, so much to understand.

I kept telling myself I was going to find out what I needed to know, but other than more questions about my mother, the confusing things I felt towards Ziel and Cole and the unknown ‘acceptance’, I hadn’t found out anything. I was still very much in the dark.

I created a list in my head, getting more annoyed with each one I added.

1: Why had I been placed with Lyal?

2: Why couldn’t I simply access my magic?

3: Why had the Council taken leadership?

4: Why did my magic bring me to Wisteria after being in the human realm?

And a new question that had started to rattle around in my rather full head…

5: Who was my father?

Isa’s journal hadn’t mentioned my father; it had mentioned her Circle Mates but not who they were, and also not that any of them were my father.

It was time I pulled up my big girl pants, took a deep breath and found shit out. So my first stop was Isa’s journal. I needed to re-read it to see if I missed anything. Jerry had mentioned there were more of them.

Ziel settled himself in the chair closest to the fire and leaned his head back with his eyes closed, whilst Rí stood close behind me, his hands on my shoulder, comforting and warm.

“Are ye’ okay Mo Chridhe?”

How did one answer a question they didn’t have the answer to? Was I okay? Had I ever been ‘okay’?

Before I could think of an answer, Jerry poofed in with an armful of black leather-bound journals and placed them on the table in front of the love seat.

“My Lady, Lords,” he said whilst bowing low and poofing out once more .

Lords. As in plural. I glared at Ziel and settled into the seat after hanging the red-haired man’s tongue on Raviolis perch, noting the thick fog coating the entire cliff below us.

It was as if the Mountain could sense my moods.

I made a note to ask Jerry. It was confusing having Ziel here, making himself at home by the fire.

I was still getting used to sharing myself with Rí; was I expected to just accept that Ziel was now a part of my life also?

“If ye’ are settling in Wee one, I will see to the bar.”

I looked up to Rí and his warm eyes and gave him a small smile. I still couldn’t quite believe it. This dragon was mine. All mine.

His low growl at my smile had it stretching wider before he leaned down and captured it with his lips.

He kissed me slowly, sensually. This wasn’t rushed or filled with passion.

It was different yet still toe curling. I pulled back slightly, and he murmured against my now swollen lips, “I have something for ye’. ”

He reached into his back pockets and pulled out a set of black diamond earrings. They glistened from the candlelight next to him and something pulled at my chest. They were stunning and kind of matched the jewel nestled between my breasts.

“She doesn’t have her ears pierced,” rasped quietly over by the fire.

I hated the way Rí’s smile dropped, the realisation in his eyes actually hurt to look at. I plucked the earrings from his big hands and held them to my chest.

“That doesn’t matter. Thank you,” I murmured to him, ignoring Ziel and his annoying input.

“Ye’ won’t be able to wear them— ”

Before he finished talking, I reached up and shoved one of the earrings in my lobe, piercing into the skin with ease. The sting was nothing compared to the look on my dragon’s face when he thought he had made a mistake in giving them to me.

I brushed Rí’s concerned hand away, ignoring his look of frustration at me causing myself pain.

But pain didn’t bother me.

I had lived through pain.

This was nothing.

I pierced the other ear and stood to look in the mirror on the dresser. They were beautiful. They hung heavy on my freshly pierced lobes and the bright red blood that dripped from them was almost enchanting.

My purple eyes stared back at me, and I froze. I kept forgetting that my eyes were purple. Not just that, but my hair was thick shiny and healthy, my skin clean and without bruising.

Would my boys even recognise me?

“Ye’ look utterly stunning,” Rí said in his low timber, making me shiver as he wiped the blood away before kissing each already healing lobe.

He left with a raised brow as Ziel, still in the armchair, and I sighed into the silence.

Sitting back down into the love seat, I pulled a journal into my lap; it seemed Jerry really did know everything.

I noted Isa’s messy handwriting across the first page.

The pen had been pressed down hard, as if she wrote in anger.

I brushed my hands down the page and closed my eyes and tried to picture her.

I came up with nothing. Because I almost felt nothing towards this woman.

This woman who had indeed wanted me, who had obviously been betrayed in some way.

I felt nothing because I had this feeling that she had purposely placed me with Lyal.

Because if she did, then it was her fault that I was poisoned by a monster and in doing so, it made me into one.

To keep under Silence.

Or are we being silenced?

I can’t scrape the filth from my skin.

I’m so dirty.

So unclean.

They are monsters.

Evil.

My poor sisters, I can never apologize enough.

She wrote of monsters as if they were all evil, as if they were all vile. She would have hated me.

The trees are weeping; I weep along with them.

I must be strong; I must carry on.

This isn’t about power anymore.

I met them today, today of all damn days.

They believe I betrayed them also.

I would never!

“Her Circle Mates were shifters, a Wolf pack I believe.” Ziel rasped behind me, making me jump and drop the journal with a thump to the floor.

I gave Ziel my death stare and bent down to pick the book up. The drag of his finger across my lower back caused me to gasp, my Circle Mark tingling and moving as if reaching for more contact.

“Interesting,” he muttered.

I straightened up and pulled my top down to cover my back, glaring at him as I asked, “How do you know that?”

“The dead told me.”

Why was this man so infuriating! “Want to expand on that?”

He took his time reaching into his jacket and producing yet another smoke.

He went to place it between his lips before I reached up and snatched it from him, squashing it in my fist as I kneeled on the love seat, clenching my hands over the back rest and said, “Enough. Stop dicking around and give me the fucking answers.”

His face hardened as he leaned down eye level with me, his green eyes glaring into my purple ones.

“Beg me for it, princess.”

Hell to the fucking no. I didn’t beg for anything.

Ever. Who the hell did he think he was? I didn’t ask him to come back to the castle-he just came.

I didn’t ask him to turn up at the Council-he did it out of his own choice.

Yet now he was hinting at things I didn’t know and told me to beg for the answer?

I growled as I leaned further in and said through clenched teeth, “why are you here?”

“Why are you here?” He asked back, his breath warm and strangely minty against my face.

“ What? ”

He laughed and straightened up, pulled another smoke from his never-ending pocket and lit up and stared at me with slightly glassy eyes.

“Why are you here Dark Witch?”

“This is my mountain…apparently. Oh and I died. Now why the hell are you here?” I said flatly, annoyed and yet…slightly vigorated at the back and forth.

“I go where you go, Mate.” He ended the word with a pronounced ‘T’ as if mocking the word.

Neither of us spoke; we both stared at each other in the mocking silence, his cloud of smoke drifting around the room and filling the space with a sourness that was beginning to make my noisy head fuzzy and muffled.

I leaned in closer and inhaled deeply; my head was filling with its calmness, and it was oh so fucking peaceful.

Who knew having a quiet mind was actually relaxing.

Leaning back down he slowly blew the smoke straight into my waiting mouth. I took it into my lungs, loving that my body was now loose and soft, just like cotton candy.

My eyes grew heavy as I stared at the Death Warrior over the back of the chair. And suddenly I blurted out a question that had nothing to do with my birth mother.

“What do you do as a Death Warrior?”

His brow raised and before my brain even registered what he was doing, his body blurred. His body thinned out and became nothing but bones. Before me, stood in Ziels place, standing in his clothes and leather jacket, was a full-blown skeleton.

The fuck.

Was I hallucinating ?

Thick black vines slithered from between his bones and tangled in my long hair. One sharp thorn protruding from a vine sliced into my cheek. The trail of blood tickled as it ran down my pale skin.

I must really be fucked up because I actually found a skeleton sexy.

I cleared my throat and croaked, “Interesting.”

He snapped his bony jaw together and shifted back, licked the trail of blood from my cheek, gave me a knowing smirk and swagged back off to the armchair. Throwing himself down and resting his feet on a pile of books, he said, “You didn’t die. You were reborn.”

“How did the dead tell you?” I managed to ask; my heart had slowed down so much I was unsure if I was actually alive. That drug was so damned strong, I didn’t know how he was alive.

“I’m Death’s Warrior. Everything in the Vale of Death is a possibility to me. You have a cemetery full of dead witches as your garden feature.”

He could speak to the dead. My dead ancestors had spoken to him.

I was jealous.

I couldn’t even deny it.

He sighed and flicked blue flames into the dying fireplace.

“Your mother, Isa, found her Mates the day she found out she was pregnant with you. They were wolf shifters, from the human realm. Apparently, they had a hand in finding your foster father, whom, might I add, will be tortured by my hands when we find you a way back to these boys of yours. ”

“Okay, hang on there,” I said as I climbed over the seat and sat opposite him, leaning forward with interest.

“Her Mates were wolves, and they helped put me with Lyal? So they knew him? And what do you know of my foster prick?”

Had Lyal known I was a Dark Witch?

“They never mentioned that, just that the pack knew he would take you. Something about deals were made and your safety with the correct ending was involved. And I know everything I need to know about you Dark Witch.”

“The fuck does that mean!” Correct ending? Like my life had been panned out for me! This was insane. I chose to ignore his comment about knowing everything about me. No one would ever truly know everything about me. The darkness inside my noisy head would always be hidden.

He shrugged.

This was the most I had been able to find out, so I pushed for more. “But did they mention who my birth father was? Who betrayed them? Why did they shut the portals? What deal? With who—” He held his hand up, cutting off my many questions.

“Ask them yourself.”

“I can’t. I’m a fucking dud. I have no power,” I growled shocking myself at my frustration.

I knew being unable to access this so-called power of mine had been annoying, but I hadn’t realised how much it had been irritating me.

Truthfully, it was damn right pissing me off.

How was I supposed to be this strong powerful Dark Witch when I didn’t even know how to access it in the first place ?

He shocked me by snapping forward and gripping my face, pinching it harshly between his thumb and finger.

“You’re a fucking Dark Witch. Stop being so fucking weak.”

Weak…he thought I was weak. I was anything but weak!

I pushed to my feet and shoved at his shoulder, that angry vibration pushing through my veins for the second time that day.

How dare he speak to me like that! I had done everything and anything possible to ensure I wasn’t weak.

Being weak had stopped being an option for me when Elyas and Elfyn entered my pathetic life.

“I am anything but fucking weak!” I growled.

He grinned, raising his brow as he looked around the room before pointedly saying, “I know.”

Every book that had been piled in my room now floated in the air, hanging there in suspense. I gawked at them and looked at Ziel.

“I had to get you angry.”

I jumped as every book smashed back down to the floor, gravity now pulling them down.

“You have the power; you just need to feel it.” Standing up, he rolled his shoulders and said, “Don’t tame those demons, Mate. You never know when you’ll need to unleash them.”

Then he lit up another smoke and left me alone in my room full of scattered book.