The Darkness in Me Read online

  “Holy shit! You are not even a witch are you.” I shout out to him.

  “Whatever made you think I was one to begin with?” He says to me with a sly grin across his face.

  Okay so that question stumped me. Why did I think he was one, he never said he was, he was only hosting a ball for our coven, but that was it? I just assumed he was, because why wouldn’t he be, why would something else be hosting a ball for witches? Again, the light bulb switches on.

  “Holy shit! Are you the darkness this prophecy is talking about?” I shout out again to him.

  I hear the other men in the room snicker at my sudden out bursts. Yes, it seems today of all days I’m slow on the up take of the situation.

  “What are you?” I ask Jacin carefully, just realizing I’m in a room full of unknown men. How do I keep doing this to myself? I should be scared shitless right now. A prophecy doesn’t just mention any darkness that’s not worth something.

  “That is a story for another day. What we need to concentrate on is learning more about the prophecy, learning where it is and getting it.”

  “Why are you so worried about it? You don’t know, it could be for the best?” I say back to Jacin.

  “They seldom are for the best Natalie, and considering I set the dam thing in motion without realizing it, I don’t think it is for the best.” Jacin says to me dryly.

  “How did you do that?” I ask him. Now he has my attention.

  “I ripped my father’s head from his shoulders.” Jacin says to me casually. Like that is the most normal thing in the world to do.

  The room goes dead quiet. Normally receiving that kind of information should bother people, should bother me. But I’ve seen what he can do, so it doesn’t really bother me so much after all the dreams I had of him.

  “Okay, so we get the prophecy, then what? You finish what you started and kill me?” I say to Jacin, which has also put the room into silence once again. I don’t know why I just reminded him what his plans to do with me, I clearly have lost it.

  “Why would you think I wanted to kill you?” Jacin asks me, while his eyes travel down my body once again, and by the looks of his eyes, he is remembering me in the shower.

  “Don’t be coy Jacin, I know that was your original plan, so if not, what has changed your mind?”

  “You are of some use to me, and your death is not necessary.” He says to me flippantly, like it’s not my life he is discussing.

  “Not necessary, wow I won the lottery now.” I reply to him dryly.

  I hear my message tone go off on my phone, but I choose to ignore it, things just got a lot more complicated than I thought they were going to be. From what I gathered, he is darkness, I am light, and I am his weakness. If only they really knew what I was. Only if I knew.

  “Tell me more of what you know of the prophecy.” The man I don’t know says to me, distracting me from my thoughts.

  “What I have told you, is what I know. If we want to know what the coven knows, then we will have to go to their records and check it.”

  “And where are these records?” The man with the white hair that kidnapped me asks.

  “In the library.” I say back to him. If they think this is just a walk in, check out a book situation, they are gravely mistaken. For one, we must be a part of the coven to gain entrance, and two we will have to go unnoticed if we are looking for this prophecy.

  “That’s going to be a problem.” The other man I don’t know says to me.

  My phone goes off a second time, and while the men are discussing what they plan to do about it, I check my phone.

  We need to meet, its important. Evelyn.

  Meet somewhere they won’t suspect anything. Evelyn.

  Today is clearly the day I get ice cold buckets of water dropped onto me. She warned me about Jacin, too stay away from him, and now that I’m in his house, she messages me about something being important. This can’t be good. I wonder if I will even be able to leave the house now. Am I really kidnapped, held here against my will?

  Supermarket on Sunninghill give me 30 minutes. I’ll try be there. Natalie.

  “Do you think you would be able to get into the library?” Jacin asks me, distracting me from my thoughts.

  “No ways, after I left the coven, they let my mom know how displeased they were with me and that I would not have any of the benefits of the coven. And even if I did, do you think it would be wise to alert people that we are looking for it?” I say back, while Mr. Wright pops up into my head. He never came to get his gem, and those men in the house were saying I was some sort of key.

  “We will have to go in discreetly then.” The man with the white hair says.

  “If I was looking for the people concerned with this prophecy, how would you even start looking for them?” I ask Jacin, who looks as if I have just lost my mind.

  “I told you already, we are the people concerned in the prophecy.”

  “Okay you know who the people are, but if I wasn’t concerned with the prophecy, how would someone just pin point the people in the prophecy.” I ask him. I need some answers.

  “I would guess, those people would have had to have been there when the prophecy first came to be.” Jacin replies, watching me once more.

  “Like when you and your father started it?” I ask him. I need him to be specific.

  “Yes, I would assume so.”

  “Huh” Is all I can say back. So that fucker sent me here to see if it was me, he must have been around when Jacin killed his father and was monitoring who he was looking for.

  “Why?” Jacin asks me curiously.

  “In my line of work, okay well previous, well what I did before you set the fog on everyone, a man came to me, he wanted me to acquire something from you, but I’m thinking he just wanted me to walk over that spell you cast, so he must have known it was there, and considering I never heard anything from him again, except for those men in the house that night I stepped over the spell, I’m thinking it was just a test to see who it was you were looking for.”

  “What did he want you to acquire?” Jacin asks me, while getting up to lean over me with a sly look on his face. That is not a look I want to be on the receiving end of. Those looks do not end well for people.

  I’m stunned into silence for a moment, did I just let out I was there to steal from him, man really now, how stupid am I? That idiot couldn’t come here because it would have been irrelevant, and I wonder if what he said about wanting the Gem of Dante was even real. Gem of Dante and now prophecy of Dante. Coincidence? No, I don’t think so.

  Lost in my own thoughts, I forgot Jacin was waiting for me to answer him, which gets me thinking, why would Jacin have a Gem of Dante? Very curious. When I look up, I see he is still waiting for his answer, which I can’t give him, to have the Gem of Dante is no small feat, he must have it for a reason. “What are you?” I ask him again. Completely changing the topic again.

  “Its best you don’t know, now what did you need to acquire?” Jacin asks me again.

  Lie, lie, lie. I tell myself, I can’t let him know I’ve got the gem without knowing what he is to begin with. If he is too send me to hell, at least I’ve got a one-way ticket out of there.

  “Nothing of importance now, since I couldn’t find it.” I lie back to him. Hoping he will by it and will let it go.

  “We need the plans for the library.” Jacin says while looking at me, but I don’t think the statement was directed at me. “It will be heavily warded with magic, we are going to need an in before we can disarm the magic that protects the place.”

  “I’m on it.” I hear the man with the white hair say.

  “Look, if we are done here for now, I need to be somewhere.” I say to Jacin.

  “And where is that somewhere?” He asks me while returning to his seat.

  “Well I’ve actually just got to go and get some stuff from the shop.” I lie again, but I need an out, and fast.

  “Everything you need is in this house, N
atalie.” He dismisses me, while looking down at his phone.

  I really hate to play this card, but it’s the only one he definitely won’t have a leg to stand on. Cringe.

  “Yes well, thank you for that, but I highly doubt you have this, so I need to go.”

  That got his attention.

  “Well what is it you need? Send Tray. It’s not safe. And I’m unable to go with you right now.”

  Mortified. Honestly that would be the most embarrassing thing to happen to me if he did come with me. Even though I don’t need them, spoils of magic contraceptives. But he doesn’t know that, and I’m sure I can pull it off. After all I am a woman. Cringe again at the thought of telling him.

  My gaze flicks over to Tray, who is now waiting on me for an answer. This is just going to get more awkward the more I dance around it, but I don’t see an out at the moment. If he won’t even let me go to the store, I highly doubt I can use Faith as an excuse.

  “Look, I just need to go to the supermarket, I won’t be long, like thirty minutes.” I say out too quickly for my liking, I’m nervous. Why am I nervous?

  “Send Tray.” He bites back at me.

  “Oh, for the love of god Jacin, I need to go get tampons.” I bite back at him.

  That was certainly the last thing he expected to come out of my mouth, with the stunned look he is giving me. I’ve clearly made this situation awkward, shouting out I need tampons, in front of his brother and friends.

  “Take Tray with you.” Is all the response I get from him. Thank fuck.

  I high tail it out of there and make fast work of going to my bedroom to find my handbag, I’m going to have to buy some just to put on a show. After grabbing my handbag, I turn back around to find Tray standing by the broken door again.

  “Did you pull the short stick, to get suck following me about?’’ I ask him

  He just grins at me. Shit must work on all the girls he meets. But something seems different about him, and I can’t quite put my finger on it. He wasn’t watching me like the other men in the bathroom. He seemed indifferent. Shit, I wonder if he is gay? Ariana would be upset about that, even if Ariana is still around, but eventually I’m going to have to find out if the fog affected them too.

  “Alright then, let’s just get this over and done with.”

  As I follow Tray out of my bedroom, I realize that I don’t have a car to get to the supermarket. Crap. Why did he have to make my life difficult and go and kidnap me. Now I’m going to have to ask him for a car. Oh, wont that just make his damn day.

  I walk back to where we were all sitting, and thankfully he is still there. All the men are staring down at plans for the building of the library. They really don’t waste time, do they?

  “Um, Jacin.” I whisper to him, so not to disturb the other men who look like this is some complicated shit they are reading. “I need to use your car.”

  “Little one, you can use whatever car you want, but for now, Tray will drive you in the SUV.” Jacin says to me, sending shivers down my body by simply using the nickname he has given me. I notice my reaction doesn’t go unnoticed by him.

  Jacin stands and moves to stand before me, he is so close, I feel the heat from his body wanting to mix with my own. All I would have to do is move an inch and my breasts will rub up against his chest. Before I can move any closer, he lends down cupping the back of my head in his hand, tilting my neck to the side, so he can run his nose down the length of it.

  “You like my little nickname for you?” He whispers into my ear. Another set of shivers run through my body, stupid traitorous body.

  “Yes.” I whisper back, not bothering to deny he has this effect on me.

  “Good, finger fucking you last night wasn’t enough, will never be enough.” Is all he says and moves away from me and returns to his seat.

  Stupid traitorous body, stupid traitorous mind.

  Another rack of shivers run through my body. My brain is flooded with images of last night yet again, torturing me, reminding me how he made me feel. But it was him that turned cold, it was him that walked away, after I had just agreed to be fucked up against the wall. So, before I can make a fool of myself again, and turn to follow Tray out the door to the SUV I’m being driven to the shop in. How am I going to get rid of Tray now, when I can’t even get rid of the man that haunts my dreams?

  Chapter Thirteen

  “You are playing my game from now on.” - Natalie

  ~Natalie~

  It takes fifteen minutes in lunch time traffic to get to the supermarket. Tray argued with me why I couldn’t just go to the market nearest to us, but I needed to get to a place that was as far as possible from Jacin, and it’s not like that I thought I would have a personal guard with me while doing this.

  As we pull into the parking lot, which is just outside the entrance, I watch as Tray scans the area. How much danger does he think I’m in that he has to scan the area around him? Honestly, it’s the middle of the day, what could possibly happen? I think the shorter list would have been, what couldn’t happen to me.

  Once he switches off the ignition, I turn to face him before he gets any ideas of coming with me. I need to see Evelyn in private, without him reporting back to Jacin.

  “I’ll be ten minutes, tops.” I say to Tray and turn to get out of the car.

  “I was instructed to not let you out of my sight, Natalie.” He says to me and I turn back to look at him.

  “Yes, well, I really don’t need you to come with me to get this, Okay?”

  “No not okay, he won’t like it that I left your side.”

  “Well just don’t tell him then.” I say to him back, but he just looks at me like I’m crazy.

  Before he can argue the point some more, I turn back to get out, hoping this time he won’t stop me. He does get out of the car with me, and before I know what is happening, the other four men that came to “collect” me earlier appear in front of me.

  “What the ever-loving hell is this?” I say and turn to glare at Tray.

  “We are not letting you out of our sights.” Tray says to me with a dismissive glance in my direction too look at the supermarket.

  “Well I really don’t need you guys hanging about when I go inside, so you can watch from the door.” I say to them, giving them my best menacing glare, I could come up with.

  “Fine, you have ten minutes and then we are coming inside to fetch you.” Tray warns me.

  I make my way quickly into the supermarket, before they change their minds. Not only have I got Tray to worry about, but now I have another four men with me. What does he think is going to happen to me? How many people could possibly know that I’m involved in this prophecy, and that’s if I am. Jacin seems convinced, but I’m still very much doubting it.

  I check my phone again, there are no new messages. I wasn’t very clear on where to meet, but I’m sure she will find me in here somewhere. I just hope it’s before the men outside get restless and come in to find me.

  I make a bee-line for the toiletries section after looking back to find the five men watching my every move. I notice the people wanting to enter and exit the supermarket are thinking twice on their decision. I should laugh, but if I was in their shoes, I would also second guess coming inside.

  I find the section I’m looking for. I look to my left and then to my right. They never followed me. Now I must look like it’s a hard decision buying these damn things. I pick up the first box I see and read the back of the box. Shit by the end of this I’ll know exactly what these things are made of.

  A basket full of groceries bumps my arm, making me look up at the owner of the basket. Evelyn. Her appearance hasn’t changed since last I saw her. I always thought of her the way she would appear to me in the woods. Old, wisps of grey hair following in the breeze that was carried by the wind in the woods. Shit if I only knew what she really did look like. Regal. Queen-like. Beautiful.

  “Keep looking at that box like you are confused. They will be by shortly to
see what you are doing.” Evelyn whispers to me. I barely make out what she is saying. But I get the point.

  I nod my head, indicating I have heard her. I don’t want to speak unless it’s necessary. Whatever Jacin is, she must know. She is afraid, or she wouldn’t be making this like mission impossible.

  “You are staying with him now. Did I not warn you?” She whispers to me again.

  “It wasn’t my choice, he never gave me much of an option.” I whisper back. How does she know this?

  “I know a lot about a lot of things.” She answers my thoughts. Shit. “We are running out of time, you need to get to that prophecy before he does.” She whispers to me again.

  “Why? What is it with this prophecy that everyone is going bat shit crazy?” I whisper back again.

  “Self-preservation Natalie. You need to know what you can expect with him. I don’t know what his motives are.”

  “Why do you care so much?” I whisper again

  “You don’t deserve the life I lived. That’s why. You need to know, you need to prepare for what can happen.”

  I nod again, I don’t know what to say back to that. Does she know Jacin on a personal level and if she does, what did she mean by the life she lived? Is he that bad? I’ve literally lived with him for two seconds and he has already breached my personal bubble.

  “What do I need to do?” I ask her. I’ll take her word for it, I need to be prepared for the worst outcome.

  “Get in, the prophecy is kept in the covens library. I know, I put it there. But I cannot retrieve it. I cannot interfere like that. I can guide you though.” Evelyn whispers out to me.

  “Sounds easy.” I say to her sarcastically. The covens library is dam difficult to get into. And considering I left them, wanting nothing to do with their bullshit I’m kind of left in a tight spot. And it’s not like I can ask my parents or Faith. No, they can’t be involved any more than they already are.

  “I’m sure with your set of skills you have developed, it should be easy enough.” Evelyn murmurs out to me, I can hear her smiling as if she is proud of me, I only did what she said I should do. I learned to fight, I learned to survive.