Fated To the Alpha by Jessica Hall
Chapter 258: Marabella POV
D***h was not at all what I imagined. I expected oblivion, nothingness, peace, and solitude, but this? This was something else, I knew I was dd, I felt my heart stop, yet why could I still feel? I felt like I couldn’t breathe still, felt like I was tingling all over, like when you get pins and needles from not moving a limb for so long. It was a horrid sensation to have. My subconscious felt like it was floating in space when I suddenly felt like I was being pulled. Pulled to something new.
Light flickered ahead when I felt like I was suddenly moving fast before coming to a halt. I squeezed my eyes shut at the motion before opening them to see a man. To see hundreds of people.
Although they weren’t people, they were almost translucent, but the man in front of me was flickering. I held my hand out and looked at it and I too appeared to be transparent. However, I was also flickering surrounded by the abyss of shadowy mist.
“Hello Marabella,” the man says. That voice I recognized immediately. I blinked, looking over at him. He was tall like Kyan, with dark black hair, he had a suit on and I could see he had matching shadow marks covering his chest and arms like Kyan does peeking out from near his collar. There was no mistaking who he was.
“Dominic,” I whispered and he nodded his head, stepping closer to me and I reach my hand out to him. Only it goes straight through him. My brows crease and I look around at all the shadowy figures. Why didn’t they flicker as Dominic and I do?
“Where am I?” I asked, peering into the mist.
“In the shadow realm, where all Octavians go,” he answered.
“Shadow Realm?”
“Yes, there are many realms, like the Moon Goddess realm, p****n realms like this one which is reserved for Octavian descendants and their mates, more realms than anyone could fathom,”
“But I am not an Octavian, Kyan rejected me,” I tell him. Dominic shakes his head. I followed him as he walked through the mist and through the people wandering this place.
The shadows did not have an end. After a while, I couldn’t stop my wandering eyes as I peered at all the women, women from the dreams that haunted me all my life. The women who did unspeakable things, things that would horrify anyone.
“I have seen them before,” I whisper, stopping as I gaze into the sea of people.
“I have heard their voices, their screams, seen what they have done,” I whisper, yet they moved through me unseeingly, each one passing through me colder than the last.
“They contain luna’s anger,” Dominic says, and I look at him.
“Who are they?” I ask him.
“Kaif’s mates, each one he k****d, they are forever stuck in the shadows,”
“I heard their whispers. They tried to make Kaif k**l me,” I tell him.
“Yes, because they know you can break the curse.”
“Don’t they want the curse broken?” I ask him.
“They want Kaif punished for his sins,” Dominic answers before he walks again through the shadows of nothing but emptiness. It had no end, nothing, just shadows of ghostly figures lost to the mist.
“My family has been trying to break the curse for centuries, each of us doomed for history to repeat, but each generation we keep track, we record and learn,”
“I don’t understand how any of this helps me now I am stuck here,”
“But you aren’t, just like me, we are floating among the abyss. We aren’t a piece of it yet,” Dominic says, stopping again.
“Ah, I’m d**d,” I tell him and he chuckles.
“No, my dear, not yet. Or not for long anyway, I have seen it ,”
“You have visions even here?”
“Yes, I have seen it all, and Kaif will break the curse, and you will help him. That is why they tried to k**l you.” He says, motioning to the sea of shadowy figures.
“Is that why I am flickering and they aren’t?” I ask him, looking at my hands.
“Your soul is still tethered to earth because you are a twin, a Gemini one. Your power when you d*ied lives on through your brother. Light can not exist without darkness, balance. You and Eziah are half of a whole. When you were born the shadows became worried. Because you were born when darkness arose, Kaif arose and they knew, because darkness attracts darkness, just like it seeks light,”
“So I am not dd?” I ask. Was it possible to get a headache when d**d because I swear I could feel one coming on? “No,” he says. I look at him. His too flickered as I did and I glanced around. Everyone else was ghostly shadows, but they didn’t flicker like us.
“Then why do you look like me?”
“I was wondering when you would realize,” he laughs.
“My soul may be trapped here. But witches are tied to their magic. It’s part of our souls, so I am neither here or there. In a limbo of sorts waiting for my magic to d*e out or returned to me,” my brows furrow.
“But you gave me your magic,” I tell him, and he nods.
“I did. I also gave you my shadows, anchored my magic to you. My body is d**d but my soul lives on. Our bod*ies are vessels, vessels for Lycans, a vessel for life,”
“You speak in a riddle, you know that?” I tell him, he chuckles darkly.
“Don’t we all,” he offers.
“Well, I was never any good at riddles,” I mutter.
“So how do I free them?” I ask, looking at all the lost souls surrounding us, trapped in a time only they can see.
“You set Luna free, free of her anger,”
“And that will break the curse, give Kaif his redemption?”
“Redemption is a strange word, it means we have done something wrong that needs to be forgiven,”
“These women, though, were going to k**l their children. I don’t believe he did anything wrong,” I admit.
“Ah, see that is my point, to break the curse you must set Luna free. But redemption was not something Kaif needed to seek from someone else, it was something he needed to find within himself. He has to forgive himself. Only then will he have the freedom he desires.”
“Again with the riddles, can we speak like I don’t know, modern-day language? I think I would find it easier deciphering emojis,” I huff.
“What is this emoji you speak of?” Dominic asks.
“Come on, you aren’t that old, you haven’t been d**d that long,” I deadpan. “The little pictures in text messages,” I offer.
“You mean those funny little faces?” he pulls Kissy lips and sticks his tongue out.
“I never understood the meaning of those things, especially with the eggplant and cucumber one that Jonah likes to send you. I think riddles are a much cleverer thing, makes you think, makes you wonder.” my face flamed. Thank G*d he doesn’t speak emoji.
“He meant salad, eggplant, and cucumber salad,” I lie.
“I will have to remember that,” Dominic says.
“So is Luna here too?”
“No, she is trapped within the stone. Find that, set her free, and that will also set me free,” Dominic tells me.
“If you saw the future, why did you d*e for it then? Why not alter it?”
“Because fate is a funny thing, like a domino effect. Change too little, change too much. It all follows a sequence, sometimes better, sometimes worse. I saw two ways this went. Kyan K*lls me and I d*e for not saving you, or I save you and fate K*lls me and you live. I chose the option that let us both live, the one that sets him free.”
“But if I go back, I will become like them eventually,” I whisper.
“No, don’t you see Marabella, I figured it out. Us men were bestowed with the horrors of our mate’s pasts. We saw what they became, yet the women were bestowed with Luna’s rage because they thought Kaif betrayed them,”
“Again with the riddles. I think you just enjoy speaking nonsense,” I laugh.
“Your different Marabella. When I d*ied, I gave you the shadows. You would be tainted with Kaifs when you return but you are stronger,”
“How? It makes no sense,”
“Because you lived with them, see that is where we went wrong, they all saw the future of what could be, filled with Luna’s rage of her betrayal, her own son k*****d her, so that is what they saw. They saw Luna’s end and then end for each other, saw Kaif turn on them.
You though have seen why he k*****d them, I didn’t just give you my magic, I gave you my shadows so you could learn to live with them, understand the action behind what Kaif did. The shadows no this, they are filled with so much hate they don’t want Kaif free, that is why they tried to k**l you.
They know you can break the curse, they are stuck in the time in which they d*ied they see no error in their ways, you however have seen the darkness that becomes of them, the shadows can’t touch you, twist you, because you lived with them,”
My skin begins to flicker brightly, and Dominic smiles. “Your time is up,”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“We will meet again,” Dominic tells me.
“But wait, I need to know how to break the curse.”
“Find the talisman,” he says before he suddenly feels very real when he grabs me. His hands no longer passed through me and I looked down where his hands clutched my arms.
“Break the curse Marabella, don’t forget what you are. You don’t just harbor my magic, you aren’t just an Octavian woman, you are Gemini, you are the darkness of your brother’s light,” he says before he shoves me and I am suddenly falling.
My eyes open wide at the feeling rushing through me, like wind passing through everything, and I suddenly can’t breathe again as I fall through the abyss when I am suddenly in darkness once again.
I try to sk in a breath, try to find my sense of self when I see a glowing orb in the distance. I closed my eyes, knowing I was about to ch into it and brace for impact trying to s**k in air. When I gasped, I was choking.
Air filled my lungs, I lurched forward, gagging and choking on air. I coughed, trying to catch my breath, and clutched my neck. Eziah was in front of me, a dagger falling from his fingertips and Lucas.
I blinked, wondering what was going on. His face fell, blood spurting from between his fingers as he clutched his neck.
“No!” Kyan screamed beside me as Lucas crashed to the ground in a pool of his own blood and Kyan exploded in rage.