Marabella still has moved to the back of the elevator as far away from me as possible. She still has her back to me as she reaches over and presses the button before turning to face me. When she does, I take a step back, my back hitting the closed doors.
Shadows taint her, slivering under her skin like leeches, writhing within her. She seems almost dazed as she stares at me vacantly, one eye black as coal, the other the color of burning embers.
“Ella?” I whisper, and she blinks, tilting her head toward me.
“He is my brother. You don’t have to like him. I know he can be a prick, but you will not touch him!” she says so coldly and calmly that I briefly wonder if it is my Ella at all. Her voice is strong, unwavering as she stares at me, making me realize I haven’t even answered.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur, reaching out to her, but she just stares at me until I grip her arms and run my hands up to her shoulders. Her skin is ice cold under my palms. She sighs as sparks run across my palms and up my arms, along with something else. Something I know isn’t my father’s magic, it also isn’t the shadows; it is protective, warm, lukewarm, but not at all like the coldness of the magic that usually runs through her.
This is different from when I have felt my father’s magic or the icy feeling of the shadows. This power is unique, seeking mine out before retreating when it touches the shadows inside me.
Yet, my touch seems to awaken her as she blinks, the color in her eyes flickering. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t want you to lose him twice. I wanted to be sure before I told you,” she murmurs.
I want to ask what she means when suddenly the feeling of her magic or whatever has a hold of her extinguishes like someone just switched it off, and with it, the power dies. The elevator drops, plummeting quickly to the ground.
The sudden drop has us hit the roof, and my stomach drops as I grab her. Alarms inside blare as the elevator descends, the emergency brakes squeal as it tries to kick in and slow us. My hands slam into the metal, yet my magic fizzles in my fingertips, still having not returned.
“Kyan!” she screams, yet I can’t stop the elevator. We are going to die.
Her fear is palpable through the bond when she screams again. However, it isn’t my name she calls, but my father’s.
“Dominic!” she shrieks, clutching her head and closing her eyes. At first, I think my father answers when the elevator jolts, and she crashes on top of me. Both of us hit the floor, yet when I look at her, it is the same dark, consuming magic that had a hold of her only moments ago. Our eyes burn brightly, a demonic shade of burning embers when her eyes open. Her entire body shakes, and the elevator rings. The doors open, and my staff stands outside the doors looking in at us, horrified.
“Alpha?” I hear, yet my eyes are stuck on my mate as I suck in a breath. Looking up to find we have stopped on the ground floor.
“Please tell me that was my father,” I whisper, catching my breath while she sits up, her legs straddling my waist. She looks at her hands but shakes her head.
“I… I don’t know,” she whispers, her entire body shaking violently, tremors running through her. Her face is pale as a ghost when red and black blood starts gushing out of her nose.
She touches her fingertips to her nose before glancing at them. “Kyan?” she murmurs.
My hands shake as I reach for her, yet before I can try to calm her, her eyes suddenly roll into her head, and she falls forward, collapsing on top of me.
The energy radiating off her dies out as exhaustion smashes against me through the bond. She has burned herself out. Something I have only seen a few times when my father has done it when I was a kid.
Witches burn out if they use too much power, but I know whatever is coursing through her isn’t my father’s magic. It is something else, and whatever she has done, she has awoken something, something I find terrifying.
Something far stronger than the Octavian bloodline, something with power more potent than the shadows.
I clutch her to me, trying to catch my breath and the doors close when one of the security staff forces it open with their foot near my head. Moments later, the fire escape doors are tossed open, and the alarms start blaring loudly.
I can feel Jonah getting closer and hear their footsteps running toward us. Within seconds, Eziah barges into the elevator with Jonah. Eziah stares down at her, glancing around the elevator nervously before leaning down and taking his sister. I growl at him, but he growls back, scooping his arms underneath her limp body. I wrap my arms around her and snarl at him. Hasn’t he done enough?!
Eziah, though, isn’t getting the hint and instead growls at me. “Gemini twin. She fucking needs me. Now let me take her,” he snaps.
When I don’t instead sit up, Jonah speaks up. “Kyan, he can heal her!” Jonah intervenes, and I reluctantly let her go, allowing Eziah to take her.
Her body is limp in his arms, and her head rolls back as Jonah offers me his hand. He pulls me to my feet. My entire body is shaking from the adrenaline coursing through me. Kaif stirs wildly within me, wanting to come forward. My magic is paralyzed, and so is his for now.
“Back up,” I command my staff, and they take off, knowing better than to test my patience and allow us out of the elevator. Eziah looks at me with a worried look on his face.
“What happened to her?” he asks.
“What do you mean? I don’t know. We were fine. Then she cut the power out to the elevator,” I say all I know.
“I can’t heal her,” he says, lifting her and pressing his ear to her chest. I can hear her heart beating in her chest, so I know she is alive, yet the same tentacles of darkness still writhe beneath her skin, climbing up her neck and arms like wiggling black veins, and moving across her face.
“She has burned herself out. She took on too much power. This is why you don’t fucking meddle with shit you don’t know about!” I yell at him, holding my arms out for her.