“What did you expect?” I asked, simply to take my mind off where we were going and distract him while I concocted a plan.

“A rigid, uptight bitch,” he laughed. I began to wonder if we had an actual destination as North America disappeared beneath us and I found myself somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. “Don’t get me wrong, you definitely have that goody-goody Heaven’s minion side to you, but Stella there is something undeniably saucy about you.” He moved against me, his hands yanking me closer to him, and I had to swallow back the bile rising quickly in my throat.

Instead of responding, I let my inner light heat quickly, hoping to blind him into letting me go. The warmth of my light fought against the icy, debilitating chill of his Darkness, warring inside me for life. Instead he just chuckled in my ear and held me closer, the sound was low and melodic.

“Relax Stella, I just want to give them a little scare, show them what I’m capable of. I’m not going to get Seth’s allegiance if I kill you off today, am I? But it was very important to let you all see what I’m capable of. This is a useless struggle on your part, but I do appreciate the hundred and ten percent effort.” Aliah reassured me soothingly, although there was hardly anything to be reassured about.

“He will never join you,” I shouted, loud and piercing, right in his ear. My voice was lost in the expanse of the sky. My limbs felt slow and sluggish as his Darkness worked itself through every vein and blood vessel, my breathing had become labored as my heart tried to pump against the frozen death taking hold of my body.

“We will see,” he laughed like the sinister villain that he was, the fear inside of me growing to dangerous levels. I knew this was death, no matter what he said, I knew this would end me. He pulled away from me, meeting my terrified gaze and looked at me, really looked at me. His brilliant green eyes seemingly reading my very soul, his hands brushed at the wild hair that whipped around my face and then he let me go.

I fell out of his arms completely disoriented and for a moment I was silent as the air rushed against my ears and the world gave way around me. There was nothing touching me except the angry wind that pushed against every limb of my body, the frozen temperature almost identical with the temperature inside my dying body. The ocean that had turned into a deadly platform rose to meet me and the night sky full of my compatriots faded away as instinct took over.

An angry, determined scream ripped through my lungs and in that desperate moment they shattered the ice that encapsulated them like glass broken into a million pieces. The blood in my veins stuttered for a beat and then pumped furiously against the evil death, my light burst forward and I lit up over the deep, dark Atlantic like a supernova.

Finally I was back to myself. I could breathe again. I could fly again.

My shoes brushed against the isolated waves as I pushed upward and back into the sky where I belonged. I hovered for a moment, relishing being alive, enjoying every easy breath and thankful that I could feel my light again. The loneliness and suffocating Darkness that exists without my essence is nothing I ever want to feel again.

Ever.

Aliah was obviously going to have to die.

I took one more moment to be alone before I flew up into the cloud cover and burst forward toward home.

Not home.

Toward Seth.

I could feel him in the distance and everything revived inside of me demanded that I get to him.

I flew fast and furious through the night sky, the wind whipped against my face, the atmosphere determined to slow me down. I pressed forward, glowing with an intensity that would set every human scientist and most alien enthusiasts into fits about what I could possibly be. Protocol demanded I stay discrete, even in instances like this, but I couldn’t slow myself down or will myself to be careful.

This was not supposed to be my life. This was not how Darkness and Light fought. For thousands of years the Fallen have hid from us, they’ve cowered in the dark places of planets and concocted their schemes and chaos in secret until there is nothing left of planets except to fight in the open.

Earth is not nearly on the verge of collapse.

And yet, why I am the one fighting on the defensive?

They should be cowering in fear of us.

I felt the anger and frustration at being violated, at being taken prisoner, furl and contract inside of me. A fierce, consuming hatred spread through me, like the Darkness only minutes before, eating up my veins, taking over my movements. Aliah had obvious, ill intent for Seth and no matter what my Counterpart was going through, I refused to let the Darkness win. Not this planet. Not Seth.

And then I saw him.

Seth.

We met in the air, colliding into an embrace. His light warmed every inch of my skin, basking my face with the warmth of him. I sank into him, relieved and exhausted. He clutched me against his chest, burying his face in my neck.

“I thought I lost you,” he breathed, his breath floating over my skin like a balm on an open wound. “I thought he took you from me.”

“Never,” I croaked, choking on the confident ferociousness of my words.

“We should find your parents,” he offered responsibly but neither of us made any effort to leave each other’s arms.

We hovered in the middle of a black sky, surrounded by clouds for a long time. Seth held me against his body so tightly it was almost crushing, but I hardly noticed. There was a fear surging between us about what could have been and a deep, breathtaking relief that we still had each other. Our emotions were too intense to realize fully, too acute to move on from, and so we stayed, holding each other, knowing deep inside our beings that neither one of us would ever allow that to happen again.

Just when I decided my parents also deserved to know I was fine, they joined us. Nate, Serena, and Jupiter were there too, everyone glowing but Jupiter, who stayed back from the group, watching us calculatingly.

“There you are,” my mother breathed as she yanked me from Seth’s arms and into her own. I felt her shivers of relief as she held me close. My father joined us, his strong, titanium arms wrapped around us both.

“I thought….” my father trailed off, not able to even finish his thought.

“I’m here, I’m fine,” I assured them, giving them one more confident squeeze before pulling away. It was more of a show of assurance than an actual desire to be out of their embrace.

My eyes immediately went back to Seth, and his were there to meet mine. He held me anchored in the sky as his golden eyes refused to break our gaze. His arms were crossed against his chest and if anyone else would have noticed his pose it would have looked confident and intimidating, but I could see beyond that, see how he was still trying to hold himself together.

I wondered if the Elders had known what Seth would have to go through in order to protect this planet. I wondered if it was his past that made him eligible, and despite his seemingly fragile state right now, if it was that past that fueled a revenge so deep, a purpose so thick that his only option in this life was to succeed. Because as I took in his desperate eyes and clenched jaw, I knew without a shadow of a doubt there was nothing that would have kept Seth from finding me.

Nothing.

“We should go,” Jupiter announced authoritatively, his voice cutting through a silent sky.

“He’s right,” Nate laughed nervously. “All this light might have some adverse reaction on the marine life down there.”

I looked down then, and realized we were still over the ocean. From up high I watched the white crests of the waves crash together in a volatile but vast, never ending struggle. The water was angry and troubled, anticipating a storm. And everything was black, except for the very tips of the high waves, the foam that bubbled and simmered and then was forced under as another big upsurge of water washed over its top.

Seth took my hand in his and we moved as one unit, with our lights dimmed, back toward home. But I couldn’t take my eyes off the water. As we flew over the last of the Atlantic, my eyes never left the small bits of white that were drowned over and over by the black waves. As the brewing storm electrified the atmosphere, I had to wonder if we were fighting the same battle…. If our light was as little as the bits of foam on the top of each wave, only visible for a moment before being drowned into the deep abyss of the dark sea.

Were we also on the verge of a storm?

Chapter Seventeen

“Don’t let them pull you into an all-night discussion,” Seth whispered once we were back on the solid gravel ground of my driveway. “You deserve to go to bed.” He put his hand on the small of my back, ushering me inside. He tried to get me up the stairs but I think Jupiter caught on to what he was trying to do.

“We need to talk about what happened,” Jupiter called in his rough, domineering voice. “Stella, we need to hear what was said and what exactly happened.”

I turned around, fully willing to oblige. I knew they needed to hear what was said and what Aliah wanted. Seth needed our protection, not me. I shuddered involuntarily, not even allowing myself to think of what could and would happen to Seth if Aliah managed to succeed.

“Not tonight,” Seth answered before I could open my mouth to agree with Jupiter. “We’ve all been through a lot tonight, Stella more than the rest of us. Let her rest. We can talk about this tomorrow.”

Jupiter demanded respect and obedience. I was positive even humans would recognize there was something about him that forced everyone to listen closer and pay better attention when he asked for it. And Seth was usually so laid back that sometimes I didn’t even know if he was serious or not. But I would never second guess him again. His voice had hardened, demanding unquestioned acceptance. He was in command now, he was calling the shots. His hand pressed firmly against my back, the heat from his skin blazing an imprint through my shirt. His body was taut next to me, completely called to attention.

Everyone’s eyes had turned their attention to us, me with one foot on the servant’s staircase ready to go up to my room or back to the kitchen table, depending on whose authority won out; and Seth, his body half in front of me, his arm tightly wound around my waist. A flood of warmth rushed through me, completely unrelated to my inner light, as I recognized again the depth of his defense and protectiveness when it came to me. Part of it was an ability he was born with, and the other part, the part that wrapped itself around my heart in a tight, stronghold of adoration, was purely him, purely his desire to guard me against every kind of evil out there, even late night discussions when all I really wanted to do was crawl under my warm covers and not surface again until the bright light of day when I could feel safe again.

Jupiter eyed him carefully, his red eyes narrowed in a scrutinizing stare. He looked like he wanted to argue with Seth, but instead he deferred the final decision to my father with an abrupt lift of his chin.

“Stella, is there anything we have to know tonight?” my dad asked casually. Everyone in the room seemed acutely aware of just how tightly strung Seth was at this point.

“Nothing that can’t wait until dawn,” I whispered, my throat raw with the effort. So many emotions and fears were twisting inside of me; I wasn’t even sure what I would tell them in the morning. I knew I had more questions than answers though. Did they know Aliah from before? Did they know how evil he was now? What he was capable of now? Did they even know this depth of depravity existed? Did they know he had stripped me of every confident thought and action I had ever accomplished and left me exposed, bare and vulnerable? Did they know I wasn’t enough now, and maybe never would be enough?