“So witch souls are here?” she asks, and I can smell her fear as I park out the front. Well, goodbye the initial excitement, I guess.
I hear her heart skip a beat as I start talking. “Kind of, their energy remains and can be used, but do you know where the Octavian name comes from?” She shakes her head, and I have no idea why I am even telling her this… Why I want to share this with her, but the words spill from my lips, and I find I don’t regret speaking them.
“Moon Goddess Celeste, her married name was Octavian. My bloodline stems from the original Moon Goddess,” I tell her.
She furrows her eyebrows. “But your magic is dark?”
“My magic is something else entirely, similar to yours, which makes me wonder why you contain it. It belongs to the Octavian Coven and is passed down through the generations. I am the last living relative left, the last of its power, yet Kaif recognized it and so did I when I watched what happened.”
“What does that mean?” she whispers, glancing at the house.
I shrug. “I don’t know, but you need to be careful with it. Try not to use it until I figure something out.” I keep my voice calm not to spook her away from here.
“So if you are a descendant of the Moon Goddess, why aren’t you the Moon God then instead of my mother?” I don’t answer, and she sighs.
I can’t tell her why, though a part of me wants to, but she fears me enough. She doesn’t need to fear where my dark magic comes from. She doesn’t need to fear the magic she somehow contains.
“There are some things I can’t tell you; it’s why I can’t be with you, Ella,” I whisper, and she looks at her blood-soaked hands.
Kaif growls at my words, but he knows I speak the truth. He knows being with us will kill her, but a part of him doesn’t care; he wants her anyway.
“So tomorrow, everything goes back to the way it was?” I look out the window, hating the sadness in her voice.
“It has to, I won’t put you at risk,” I mutter.
“Risk of what?” She presses the issue. God, please don’t do this to me. Don’t do this to yourself.
However, as I glance at her and find her eyes full of tears, I break. “Of me, history repeats; it has every time, and you will be no different. Kaif’s fate will be no different.”
“What about Jonah then?” She jumps straight to the last subject I want to discuss.
“What about him?” I raise an eyebrow.
“He has no mate. My mother left his bond open to choose. If you don’t want me, at least let him have me,” she explains. I get it, her words contain reason, but shit, if only she could know how much that pisses me off.
“You think I don’t want my mate? That I don’t want you? I am not doing this because I hate you, Ella; I am doing this because I fucking love you!” I yell at her.
Marabella
Kyan places Rose in the spare bedroom on the main floor. The house is huge, and I finally understand the haunted vibes. Stepping into the dark, gloomy house makes me shudder. The house itself feels like it is rippling with dark cold energy, or maybe I have spooked myself; I can’t be sure. Yet, I somehow know Kyan spoke the truth. There is definitely something off about this place. It is tainted. Tainted in the same darkness that looms over me. This type of darkness is a depressing, awfully lonely feeling.
“I’m not lonely,” Kyan mutters coldly, and I glance at him. He’s frowning, and he looks as pissed as ever.
“I never said you were,” I tell him, rubbing my arms. The icy temperature is cold and chills me to the bone. The unease rolls over me, biting into my bones, and seeping through me like something foreign. I shudder and shake my head, trying to push that feeling away.
“I know you didn’t, but I can feel your thoughts through the bond,” he retorts, casting me a scathing glare. I tilt my head, frowning slightly. That doesn’t make any sense. His words confuse me, we aren’t bonded yet, nor would we ever be. Kyan has made that much perfectly clear.
“We haven’t got a bond; you never marked me,” I remind him.
“We have a bond. Always have had it. I just don’t let you feel it. It formed the day I brought you back. It bonded us together,” he says and stops in his step. He curses under his breath, and I observe him, wondering what he means.
He falls quiet when suddenly, I am smashed with an overwhelming feeling. It feels so foreign, it almost scares me. A mixture of relief and fear, and then, there is anger.
The anger feels like it’s directed inward, not directed at someone, just like when you wake in a bad mood yet can’t explain what you’re mad about. My heart thumps, and I take a step back, taking a shaky breath. What the hell is that?
“See? Bonded, I couldn’t let you die,” he states emotionlessly, and the feeling suddenly vanishes as quickly as it appears. It makes me realize with sudden clarity that those emotions aren’t mine but his. Feelings that I felt through a bond I never even knew existed… I stare at him as I wait for him to explain, but he doesn’t.
Instead, he hovers over Rose with a look of deep concentration on his face. Kyan runs the tips of his fingers down her face to her chin and then, moves them back up to her temple. He murmurs something when I see what looks like a mini-tornado, with glimpses or flashes of pictures swirling through its mist. He pulls his fingers back, the small tunnel-like thread zaps into his hand and disappears.