Chapter 51: Tasting Darkness By Jessicahall Chapter 51

However, Kalen still asked, and I noticed Darius fall onto the bed. Could feel his eyes boring into the back of my skull. “Tell me something, you remember the night of the fire?” I blinked at Kalen wondering how that helps anything.

Yet the look on his face told me he was trying to prove something to Darius. Or maybe me, I wasn’t sure. “I remember coming home sick from school; I think I got food poisoning,” I tell him, and he nods.

I thought back to that day, but it was kind of hazy. My brows creased as I tried to think. My mum was angry, her and my father were arguing, and I threw up on the floor. Why couldn’t I remember after that?

I remember my father cleaning the mess up. I also remember my mother giving me a drink, but that was it until the actual fire.

“What else do you remember?” Kalen asked, leaning forward, and I noticed Darius hop off the bed and walk over to us. He drops into the armchair across from us and loads more wood into the fireplace, though I knew he had only come over to listen.

“I remember the smoke woke me, and I remember calling out t o my father. He called back and told me to hold on, that he was trying to get to me,” I answer.

“What else?” Kalen nods.

“Just trying to move, trying to get to the door, but I felt so heavy, and my lungs burned, I think I crawled to the door,” I tell him.

“Anything else?” Kalen asks when the bathroom door opens. Tobias steps out, followed by a billow of steam.

“I remember burning, which must have been my side, then only waking up to see Darius standing in front of me, his hands out. My mother’s screams when the roof fell in, and the forest behind the house caught fire, but that is it,” I avert my eyes when Tobias drops his towel, catching a glimpse of his ass as he slid some gray tracksuit pants on.

Kalen chuckled as my face heated, and Darius raised an eyebrow at him but said nothing, nor did he add anything about that night. He simply sat back and watched Kalen and m Looking over at Tobias, I stared at the burns on his back, full thickness burns, and the skin patchy in places. “Your burns. Why didn’t you heal them, and why are they so bad?” I ask, and he looks at me over his shoulder before staring at Darius, who nods to him.

“Because it took all our power healing you,” Tobias says simply, and I look at Darius, who had an indecipherable expression on his face.

“Your back would have looked ten times worse than his and your legs. When we got to the house, the roof over your bedroom was partially collapsed. You were trapped on the floor with a beam on you. We dragged you out just before the entire room caved in after we broke the wards that trapped you in there,” Darius said, finally speaking.

“Wards?” I asked a little confused.

“Yes, your room was sealed. You could get in but not back out; Tobias is burned because he used his body as a shield while I broke them,” Darius answered.

“So why didn’t you heal him?” I asked.

“As Tobias said, we drained our power healing you. What we had left, we used to cloak you.” I pulled a face. He made no sense.

“That is also why we couldn’t find you after your powers manifested. We cloaked you so well that we cloaked you from ourselves.”

“Why cloak me at all?” I asked.

“To hide you from the person or persons that tried to kill you, what I want to know though is why they tried, because the only logical reason is that you were my mate,”

“And mine,” Tobias adds.

“Why does it matter if I was your mate?” I deadpan nobody knew I was; I didn’t even know I was.

“Exactly, Aleera, so ask yourself this: why would your parents try to kill you just to stop me from having you?” Darius asked.

“My parents didn’t try to kill me, Darius. I remember them trying to get to me.”

“You remember hearing their voices? Tobias and I got to you pretty easily by opening a portal into your room. Getting you out? We couldn’t open one, so again, Aleera, why would they try to kill you?”

“They wouldn’t. My parents loved me, Darius. I heard my father trying to smash through the floor to get to me, then you got there whenever you did and killed them, you probably started it,” I snap at him.

“I would try to kill my own keeper, hurt my mate?” he asks, nodding toward Tobias. I looked at him, and Tobias was watching me. “Maybe you were only after my parents, then? You said it yourself. Our fathers hated each other.”

“For good reason, your parents aren’t who you think they are, Aleera,” Darius snarls. Tears burn my eyes at his words. How could he say that? My parents loved me; I know they loved me.

“You’re wrong. My life was fine before you came in and turned it upside down. My parents would never hurt me,” I answered firmly.

“And if you’re wrong?” Tobias asks.

“I’m not,” I tell him, and he shrugs.

“If that is what you want to believe,” Darius said.

“And if I was under a cloaking spell, then how did the authorities find me when my grandmother died?” I asked.

“Because you lived on one of my family’s properties, that’s why. I rang the school after she passed,”

Tobias answered.

“Pardon?” what was he talking about now.

“The house you were taken to belonged to my family, the private school you went to, we paid for,”

Tobias answers.

“What are you talking about? The Fae Authorities picked me up?”

“They said they were Fae authorities, they weren’t, they were wardens of the school, that school you went to, Darius and I paid for, your grandmother was broke, your parents took her for everything just before the fire, cleaned her out not long after we left. So we took her in when she agreed to care for you, “Tobias said.

“Bullshit,” I tell them, and Darius growls before walking off into the closet and returning with a box.

Darius dumps it at my feet and nods toward it. I rolled my eyes before removing the lid and finding papers. I pull them out.

All of them had my school letterhead, my school photos were even there, and most of them were bills for the school fees, thousands and thousands of dollars they had spent on putting me through school.

All addressed to Darius and Tobias Wraith, my next of kin.

“Still think we are lying? We have no reason to lie to you, Aleera, so maybe stop lying to yourself,”

Darius said before walking off.

I dig through the box, pulling out my school files, everything from when I started, even some of my schoolwork. Rummaging through the bottom, I found my grandmother’s locket, the only item I could bring with me when I was taken from her house, beside a photo album I had lost when I called o n them. It was in the bag I dropped. They wouldn’t even let me take my clothes, said everything would be provided. I rub my fingers over the locket. It had a picture of her with my grandfather in it and a lock of his hair she cut off.

“You got this from my room,” I tell them.

“Yes, when we came looking for you,” Kalen says. I nod.

“I never knew,” I told Tobias, and he nodded when Darius spoke behind me.

“How could you, when you ran before we got there?”