Bound By Darkness (Guardians of Eternity #8)(84)
Author: Alexandra Ivy

She landed next to Ariyal, who was making a heroic effort to rise to his feet, a sharp pain drilling through her heart as the Dark Lord pointed a finger directly at her.

Oh … gods.

Lifting a hand, Jaelyn pressed it to her chest. It felt like someone had reached inside her and was attempting to rip her unbeating heart in half.

She couldn’t bear it.

Lost in the searing pain, Jaelyn dismissed the faint sound of her name being called. It seemed reasonable that she would be going mad.

No one could survive such torture with their sanity intact.

Then it came again. This time with all the arrogant command of the King of Vampires.

“Jaelyn.” There was the sound of muted curses. “Dammit, hurry up, mage. Jaelyn, can you hear me?”

At her side, Ariyal went rigid in shock. “What the hell?”

“Styx,” she choked out, barely able to speak past the sensation of her heart being slowly shredded. “Hold on.”

Wrapping her arms around her, Ariyal angled his body to shield her from the Dark Lord just as the mists behind them thinned.

There was the strange sensation of the world melting around her before there was a female shriek of fury and the feel of a hand reaching to grasp her arm.

“No. You’ll never escape me.”

Ariyal cursed, reaching for his sword and swinging it to slice deep into the slender arm. Jaelyn wasn’t sure if the Dark Lord could feel the wound, but the fingers digging into her arm abruptly released and they were tumbling backward.

For a disorienting moment it felt as though they were falling through the air, the pain in her heart thankfully easing, although there remained enough pressure to warn they weren’t completely free of the psycho bitch.

Then a prickle of electricity raced over her skin and she was landing on a hard surface with jarring force.

She had a vague impression of Styx leaning over her as well as a silver-eyed vampire. More distant was the scent of Were and Sylvermyst and … mage.

Sergei.

She turned her head to discover him lying on the ground next to her and Ariyal, as if they’d knocked him down during their abrupt return to the caves. But oddly he appeared almost oblivious to her presence, his horrified gaze focused on the air directly above her.

She didn’t want to look.

It was going to be bad. And she was tired of bad.

But of course she did.

Not knowing what was coming was the only thing worse than knowing what was coming.

Slowly she shifted to follow the mage’s gaze, her entire body clenching with fear as she watched the outline of a slender young female becoming visible in the shimmering mist.

Oh … no. Not again.

Ariyal cursed, pulling her tightly against his chest, but there seemed nothing that could be done to halt the Dark Lord from passing through the barrier.

Then, astonishingly, the shimmering air began to thicken.

Something that might have been shock widened the china-blue eyes and the pretty young female lifted a hand to bang it against a seemingly impenetrable barrier.

The mage whimpered beside her, and Jaelyn might have done a bit of whimpering of her own as the air became so heavy it threatened to crush them all. Suddenly she wondered if she’d escaped the endless white fog only to die on the stone floor of the caverns.

But even as she rolled onto her side to say a final farewell to her mate, the pressure was abruptly gone. Along with the shimmering mist.

She held herself perfectly still, terrified if she moved that the air would split open and the Dark Lord would reappear.

Not that far-fetched a fear considering the past few days.

Only after she had counted to a hundred did she cautiously sit up, her body aching from head to toe. She groaned, but didn’t protest when Ariyal wrapped an arm around her waist and assisted her to her feet.

The mage remained on the floor, passed out cold and still bleeding from a wound to his arm. Beyond him stood the King of Weres and a handful of vampires. Farther back the Sylvermysts hurried to get closer to their prince. But her attention was commanded by the six-foot-five vampire who stood with his hands on his hips.

“What the hell was that?” he demanded, his dark eyes revealing a rare disquiet.

Very few things scared the Anasso.

“The Dark Lord,” she said, leaning heavily against Ariyal.

Salvatore made a sound of choked disbelief. “That … girl?”

“He was resurrected in the child.” She grimaced at the memory. “One minute he was a babe and the next he stepped out of the mist looking like a young girl. It was creepy as hell.”

“Yeah, understatement of the century,” the Were muttered.

Ariyal tugged her even closer, his cheek resting on the top of her head.

“Can we do this later?” he growled. “Jaelyn’s been through enough.”

“In a minute.” Styx pointed a finger toward the spot where the Dark Lord had appeared. “If he was resurrected then why didn’t he … or she … come through the barrier?”

Jaelyn parted her lips to admit she didn’t have a clue when Ariyal beat her to the punch.

“Because Jaelyn took her blood.”

“Blood?” Styx regarded her as with a hint of wonder. “From the Dark Lord?”

Jaelyn shuddered, only now realizing that she could still feel the echoes of power from the blood.

“Trust me, it was an act of desperation.”

“An act of incredible courage,” the Anasso corrected with a faint dip of his head.

“So why would taking her blood keep the Dark Lord from passing into this world?” Salvatore asked the question on everyone’s lips.

Including Jaelyn’s.

“The child was created to hold the soul of the Dark Lord, but to have a unique enough essence so that the Phoenix wouldn’t recognize it when it moved through the barrier.” He shrugged. “After all, that’s what keeps the Dark Lord on the other side. So long as the Chalice holds the goddess of light, the darkness remains banished.”

Styx furrowed his brow. “So when Jaelyn drained her of blood?” he prompted.

“She stole the life of the symbiont.”

“No.” Salvatore shook his head. “From what I could see it was very much alive and very pissed off.”

“The Dark Lord survives,” Ariyal agreed, “but now he has no more than an empty shell that is incapable of travel from world to world.”

Styx studied Ariyal with a searching gaze. “So that’s the end?”

Ariyal shrugged. “For now.”

Jaelyn studied him in amazement.