Jewel of Darkness (25 page)

“Dalton.” Her small voice had him opening his eyes and tipping his head back down. He looked at her and already the struggle began. He wanted to pull her to him, shelter her, and love her.

“Yes, Little Dove.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I know. I shouldn’t have responded the way I did. I just―” He shook his head remembering what it felt like to see her, to see how battered she was, but be unable to get to her. “I just wanted to hold you. I was desperate for it. And then when I found out it had been your idea to leave me, that was… well, it hurt.”

She nodded. “I can understand how that would have hurt you.”

“I know, now, that you were just trying to protect me. I need you to trust my ability to take care of myself and you as well.”

“I will try.”

“That’s all I can ask.”

“So, what now?”

“Now, we need to talk about your time with Volcan.” Dalton hated to ask her to talk about it. But they needed to know exactly what he’d said and done. “I’m sorry, Jewel.”

“It’s alright. It needs to be done. The longer I go without telling you all, the more I will forget.”

“Do you want me to have Sally or Peri come in?”

Jewel looked up at him with big doe eyes. “I can tell you.”

He realized she thought he was saying he would leave. “I wasn’t saying I would leave. I was saying in addition to myself would you like me to have others present so you don’t have to say everything twice?”

Her mouth made an ‘o’ shape. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

A few minutes later, Sally and Peri had joined them. Dalton surprised himself when he realized the idea of having other males around Jewel more than irritated him. He figured that maybe it was the bond that made their kind so possessive, but it turns out he was that possessive even without the bond. For some reason, that made him want to smile.

Chapter 11

“People foolishly believe that only the truly depraved have the capacity for evil. The truth is everyone has it in them to be evil. Evil is determined by what a person chooses to nurture in themselves when they are alone and no one is watching. What they feed their minds, their souls, and their hearts — these are the things that will eventually flow out of them.” ~Volcan

V
olcan knew that it was only a matter of time before his little Jewel began fulfilling his will. Once his blood started to fully merge with her own, she would be unable to resist the need to answer its call. He only wished that he could be there to see Dalton Black’s face when the wolf realized that his mate no longer belonged to him. Dalton hadn’t know that the woman he’d killed all those years ago, Gwen, had been the one Volcan had chosen to be his own mate. All she had to do was prove her loyalty, which is what she’d been doing when the wolf had caught her. Now Volcan was going to return the favor. But instead of just taking the wolf’s mate from him — instead of simply killing her — he would do even worse. He would force Dalton to watch as Volcan turned Jewel into a witch of unfathomable power. Dalton would have to watch as his precious healer turned others to the darkness. And the grand finale would be seeing Dalton’s face when Volcan claimed Jewel as his own.

A slow smile formed on his lips as he imagined the torment that Dalton would suffer, and, suddenly, the wait for Jewel to begin her mission became bearable.

S
ally tried very hard to keep the horror off of her face as she listened to Jewel explain all that had happened during the week she’d been with Volcan. With every word out of her mouth, the urge to stab the dark fae with the dullest knife on earth increased. He didn’t deserve a quick death.

“He forced his blood into you?” Peri asked, practically shaking with rage.

“I tried not to swallow it and it tasted disgusting.” Jewel’s face twisted in a look of utter disgust.

A low growl rumbled out of Dalton. Jewel reached out her hand toward him but then quickly pulled it back. Sally frowned. Why wasn’t she comforting him? There was only one thing that could keep an angry wolf from losing his cool and that was the touch of his mate. So why wasn’t Jewel offering that comfort to Dalton? She glanced up at Peri who gave her a subtle shake of her head. Okay, so she wasn’t supposed to bring that little topic up. There was obviously something that Jewel was leaving out. If Peri knew what it was, then that would have to be enough.

“Do you want me to see if I can do something about the foreign blood inside of her?” Sally asked, already reaching her hand out to touch Jewel.

Peri gave a curt nod. She still looked ready to kill someone and words didn’t seem to be possible. Sally pressed her hand over Jewel’s heart and closed her eyes. She reached for her magic and it swelled within her, answering her call. Sally sent her essence into the other healer and immediately felt the presence of evil. She fought the urge to recoil from the darkness. It was so very wrong. Jewel was good. She, like everyone, had her issues that she battled, but overall goodness won out. But Sally could feel that Jewel was drawn to the power that Volcan had put inside of her, the power to no longer feel weak. She was attracted to the power that kept her from feeling vulnerable to other people, people who had made her feel inadequate all of her life. Sally had always had such an awesome support group in her two best friends, Jen and Jacque; she’d never known what it was like to feel the things that Jewel had dealt with, and it broke her heart for the genius.

“You have to know that no amount of knowledge will keep you from feeling pain,”
Sally told her as she followed the path of the evil into her mind.

“I wouldn’t care what people thought if I was more powerful than them. Who are they compared to me?”
The voice that responded was not the voice that Sally associated with Jewel. It was filled with bitterness and malice.

“That is Volcan’s blood talking.”

“No. It is truth. I just didn’t see it until he showed me.”

“What if your quest for power and knowledge hurts those you love?”
Sally asked.

This gave Jewel pause. There was the goodness that Sally still felt inside of her new friend.

“I can protect them from that part of me,”
Jewel reasoned.

“This is too big for you to contain, Jewel. If you give in to this you will help destroy lives.”

“What about my life! How many times did I have to listen to whispered ridicule? How many times was I laughed at? What about the hurt I endured for so many years?”
There was so much anguish in her words and with every word the darkness swelled.

“You have to fight those emotions. You have to forgive and move on,”
Sally urged. She began pouring her light into Jewel, but as quickly as her light illuminated, the darkness snuffed it out.
“Please fight, Jewel. I can’t do this on my own.”

“You are wasting your time, Sally. I know my destiny. I know what I am meant to do.”
Jewel gave a sudden push and forced Sally out.

Sally fell back with the force of the magic. Her eyes snapped open and she looked up at Jewel. For a brief moment the eyes that stared back at her were black as pitch. But then Jewel blinked and they were back to their normal light green.

“Are you okay?” Peri asked as she helped Sally up. The fae looked warily at Jewel.

Sally nodded. “I’m fine. I can’t get rid of it.”

“I’m sorry, Sally,” Jewel said and looked away from her. Her hands shook in her lap. She looked so lost and confused, so different from the voice Sally had encountered while inside of her. Sally didn’t respond to the apology. She stood and with one last look at the other healer, she turned and left the room.

Later that evening Sally sat on the edge of the bed in the room that Costin and she had claimed while staying at Peri’s home. Her heart felt heavy after her encounter with Jewel.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Costin asked gently as he sat beside her.

“I don’t know what there is to say. She refuses to fight, and yet when I looked at the outward appearance, I saw remorse. It’s like she’s split in half. But honestly, Costin, I don’t know which half is going to win.”

“Maybe on her own, the dark half would win, but with all of us fighting with her, the light in her will prevail.”

Her mate wanted so badly to believe what he said, but Sally could feel the doubt. “Sometimes intelligence is a curse.”

“There are many things inside of us that can be used either for good or evil. It is up to us to decide which will win.”

Sally gave him a small smile. “Well, haven’t you become quite the sage?”

Costin chuckled. “Having you as a mate has caused my dormant brain cells to start working.”

“Well, at least I can have a positive effect on someone,” she huffed.

Costin wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his lap. “You can’t fix everyone, Sally mine. They have to want your help, or you just have to be much more powerful than them. With Volcan’s blood and magic flowing inside of her, few will be more powerful than Jewel.”

Sally hated that he was right. It wasn’t in her nature to give up, but she certainly wasn’t more powerful than the darkness that was fighting for control inside of Jewel Stone.

“You’re right. But my fear is that whoever is more powerful, whoever could fight the evil inside of her, will destroy Jewel in the process.”

“Y
ou are not an easy man to find,” the pixie told Volcan as he watched the small being stand bravely in front of him.

“I don’t particularly want to be found. For curiosity’s sake, how did you find me?” the fae asked him.

“I came across two warlocks at the edge of the dark forest. Apparently. they’ve been working for someone very powerful. These two had diarrhea of the mouth. I just had to sit and listen.”

Volcan rolled his eyes.
Stupid warlocks,
he thought. Warlocks weren’t an evil race, but just like in any species, the two that he’d come across had chosen darkness over light. He’d placed them as lookouts near the dark forest to keep an eye on anyone entering it.

“Why is it you have sought me out, little one, and why are you wearing that fabric over your face?” Volcan asked.

“I have information that you might find interesting. But it won’t be free, of course.”

“What do you mean?” He eyed the pixie suspiciously.

“I need you to fix my face, which is the reason I wear the fabric covering. I need you to reverse it.”

“Why do you think I can fix it?”

“Because everyone knows how powerful you are,” the male said confidently.

“And why would you think this information you possess would interest me?”

A wicked grin spread across the pixie’s face. “Because it has to do with the gypsy healers you seek.”

Volcan sat up a little straighter at the male’s words. “What about them?”

The pixie shook his head and then pointed to his face.

The fae let out an exasperated sigh. “I could just torture the information out of you, pixie.”

“True,” he responded. “But believe me, this would be much easier.”

“Fine. Remove the fabric.”

The male hesitated for a moment before finally pulling the fabric down. Volcan’s eyes widened and then a roar of laughter boomed out of him. He was pretty sure he’d never seen something so ridiculous in his long life. After several minutes he composed himself, mostly. “I have to ask, how did this unfortunate thing happen to you?”

“Let’s just say pissing off the wrong female pixie isn’t good for the looks.”

Volcan chuckled as his fingers formed a steeple in front of his mouth. He considered the pixie briefly before muttering under his breath. He leaned down and reached his hand out towards the small being’s face and a flash of light flew from his fingers.

The pixie jumped and grabbed what was once again his nose. His eyes brightened and he let out a whoop. “You did it! Hopping pixie dust, you really did it.”

Volcan waved his praise off. “Now, the information.”

He continued to touch his nose as he spoke, “Right. Okay, well I heard that the woman who cursed me happens to be harboring a healer in her home.”

“The pixie woman?”

“Yes.”

“Are the other healers in your realm?” Volcan asked.

The pixie hesitated.

“Come now, you’ve already let the cat out of the bag this far. You might as well go ahead and finish it.”

He let out a breath. “Yes, they are.”

Volcan considered this and knew that Perizada was behind it. She was using the pixies to protect the gypsy healers. Clever really. But if she had placed them there, she would be using a myriad of spells to keep them safe ― not just pixie magic but her own as well.

“We’ve both kept up our ends of the bargain,” the male said, making it clear that he was ready to go.

Foolish little man,
Volcan thought. “I have a new bargain for you. Figure out a way to lure one or more of the healers from your realm. Once you’ve gotten them to leave, shut down the veil to your realm so that none can enter or exit. If you succeed, I will leave your nose as it is. If you do not, I will return it to the state it was in when you arrived.”