Tempting Darkness

Darius growled, and the man just stared through the windshield at us for a second before walking off and watching us leave. I shook my head and turned to Darius, who was watching the man in the rear vision mirror. "I need to get you home," he muttered.

"Gosh, he came out of nowhere."

"They always do," Darius muttered, and I peered over at him, wondering what he meant. He never elaborated on his words but kept glancing in all the mirrors as he drove. Finishing my chocolate bar, I pouted, and Darius laughed.

"I got you more in the bag in the trunk," Darius chuckled. We were about ten minutes from home and had been driving on a backroad for about five minutes already.

"Maybe Lycus was right about that one," I said before suddenly everything exploded, and I was tossed forward in my seat. One minute we were driving; the next, we crashed into a wall.

The front of the car smashed into a shield. The windows exploded on impact, and I remembered the sound of groaning metal and felt the glass rain shards on my face before everything went black.

Dazedly I blinked to find the car upside down on the roof. I groaned, my head throbbing, and I stupidly unclipped my belt, falling headfirst onto the roof lining. Blood trickled down my face as I tried to see what had happened when I noticed Darius hanging limply from his seat. Blood gushed from a massive gaping wound across his forehead.

"Darius?" I called, shaking his arm, but he was unconscious. Crawling out of the wreck, glass stabbed into my hands. I stumbled over to his side and opened the door. I kept trying to wake him, but he was knocked out and bleeding profusely. I unclipped his seat belt, worried about a car slamming into us, and he fell from his seat with a groan. The smell of gas filled the air, and I shook him, trying to rouse him awake.

"Darius!" I hissed nervously, looking around for what we had run into, but I found nothing besides the clearing, the forest, and a clear road ahead.

Grabbing his arms, I pulled him out, dragging him to the side of the road to a small clearing among the trees before fumbling in his pockets for his phone. Then a thought came to me. I could run! Yet as I looked at Darius unconscious and thought of the others back home, I dismissed the idea before clutching my head that throbbed as if someone had smashed it with a sledgehammer.

My vision blurred as I tried to unlock his phone to call one of the others when I heard a series of whooshing noises. Blinking, I tried to clear my vision. The shimmer of portals glistened in the distance, blobs of black spilling out. A gasp escaped my lips when I heard the snarls, and my head twisted around to see twenty different portals suddenly open up in the clearing and on the road.

"Darius!" I screamed, shaking him when I recognized what they were. Hellhounds. They charged at us. I screamed, shaking Darius as they drew closer, trying to wake him. Darius groaned, and they got about twenty feet away. I panicked, crawling on top of him. My lips smashed against his.

Their feral snarls sent shivers up my spine, their black furless huge bodies bounding toward us, all sharp teeth and massive claws leaping our way. Darius's magic slammed into me like a tidal wave, stealing the air from my lungs. It was so cold, like ice, as I consumed it, taking it from him.

It writhed in my veins, and I choked, ripping myself away, unable to consume anymore. A scream tore out of me as four hellhounds pounced on us, about to rip us to pieces. My ears rang from the commotion as I tossed my hands out, slamming them on the ground on either side of us and shut my eyes, waiting for my death when I jolted. The movement rattled my pounding head as the hellhounds collided with the force field I'd created.

The huge beasts growled, trying to find a way past it, when I pushed the walls higher, creating a crystal-clear dome around us. Their massive bodies collided with it, trying to break through. Each hit weakened me as I tried to hold the barrier in place. Sweat beaded on my neck and dripped off my face; everything ached and cramped at the exertion it took. Digging my hands into the earth, vines started wrapping around the dome as it splintered from the repeated blows.

The vines grew with thorny branches encasing the dome, and the hellhounds snarled louder. The trickling sensation running down my face told me I wouldn't hold it much longer when my nose started bleeding, my blood dripping onto Darius's chest, where I hovered above him while praying for him to wake.

If he didn't soon, I would pass out from using so much magic at once, yet they kept tearing into the vines, ripping them down as quickly as I replaced them. The magic it took to hold them back started running low and faltering when I felt warm hands grip my waist and move under my shirt to my ribs. My eyes flew open to see Darius staring wide-eyed at me, his obsidian eyes watching my face.

"You're a harmony," he whispered before looking at the crystal and vine dome surrounding us. "And an elemental."

At that moment, I felt his hands heat as he gave his magic to me, replenishing it more and trying to keep me strong.

"I can't hold it!" I said through gritted teeth. My vision turned red as I blinked through bloody tears. I could taste my blood running into my mouth from my nose.

"Hold it a second longer," Darius said before moving one hand off my waist and placing it over his mark. I felt a shudder run through me, and the infinity mark on my wrist burned as he used his to call the others.

"Darius!" I cried, digging my fingers into the earth further as black dots danced before my vision, and I felt the dome start crumbling around us. Darius growled when I crashed against his chest. His arms wrapped around me, and he rolled, flipping me onto my back as the walls keeping us safe started to crumble.

"Good girl, but now I need you to remain still," Darius murmured, and I blinked up at him dizzily when he growled. His eyes glowed so brightly, they almost turned silver. His hands hit the ground next to my head, and the noise was horrendous.

The ground was lifting in a wave all around us, and his car alarm started blaring. My head fell limply to the side, and I saw the hellhounds suddenly become air-born and blast backward. The ground split around us as Darius's wave of power made the ground shake and move, sending them flying back. I blinked, trying to remain conscious as my vision blurred.

"Stay with me, Aleera," I heard Darius call out as the sound of portals opening up reached my ears. Heat engulfed me as firewalls suddenly encased us. The sound of pained whimpers pierced through the air and the dots taking over my vision grew larger before taking my sight completely and leaving me blind to my surroundings.

"Darius?"

"Right here with you, you're safe with me," he said above me though his voice sounded muffled, and I tried to nod but couldn't fight the exhaustion as it sucked me under. "I got you." Those were the last words I heard before plunging into nothingness.