Darkness & Light: Book 1: Shatter Our Fates [COMPLETED]

42 - Hayley

Pain rips through me. I feel Aldrea, her pain, too. She screams and thrashes inside me, and I feel as though I am being ripped apart.

No. That's not what is happening, now ...

I am being torn from Aldrea, and she is being ripped out of me, as we are cleaved apart with pure agony. She screams. I am screaming.

Hykait, Drecca, Tiber, and the others are all gone, vanished in my mind. Aldrea is screaming. Her power is being torn from me, and my body is dying. I am dying.

Donovan laughs as he rips me apart. He laughs, his glee obvious and annoying. I sense Hykait.... she's running to my side, as is my brother and lover.

But Donovan uses his power to slow time. His grinning face is all I can see. Tears fall down my face, and my vision spins and the equilibrium in my head fades. I'm dizzy, unable to stop myself from throwing up.

Luckily, I threw up all over him.

Donovan snarls, and I feel my body ... eroding.

Every sinew, muscle, bone, nerve, vein .... everything is hurting. My lungs burn. My heart hammers. My brain is working in overload, trying desperately to keep up with the pain.

And through it all, Donovan is sneering down at me. "Oh, little girl! This is amazing. This is just what I wanted! Oh, thank you!"

I scream until my vocal cards rip. I cough blood into his face, and then, he drops me onto the floor. I am barely able to breathe. But I look up, seeing him holding something. Seeing... her.

Aldrea.

He's killing her. He's killing me.

"Al.... Aldrea!" I manage to cry, coughing more blood.

Donovan is holding Aldrea's essence in his hands. She is a swirling mass of silver light. He looks at her like one might look at something they've always wanted.

"Aldrea!" I cry weakly. Arms are around me. My wings feel heavy as I am lifted into Drecca's arms. He is softly whispering something to me.

But Hykait then appears, and slices a blade into Donovan's chest. He roars, and she rips the blade free. She is suddenly behind him, and she stabs him through the throat. Hykait appears in front of him, and I'm barely able to keep my eyes open.

My eyes flutter shut, but open once more.

Hykait takes Aldrea's spirit from Donovan's open hands. Donovan is falling, but Tiber doesn't hesitate to attack him, then. He blasts him over and over with plumes of green flame. Delta and Atlas are there, slashing blades into the demon lord's body. Lilith rushes to us, and Dax and Kieran morph. Indari is beside us, too.

Hykait turns and is suddenly in front of us, and I can see that Aldrea's spirit has changed from silver to a shadowy black and purple. Something about her has changed. Changed a lot, too.

"Aldrea," I whisper.  "No..."

Before long, I feel like I am floating. Just as I think I might drift away from Drecca's arms, Hykait is there, and she kisses me on the forehead.

"Sleep, my child. When you wake .... you will have a hard choice to make."