Dark Nine [18+]

Chapter Sixty-Eight

3.5 weeks later

Something went wrong with this birth. I had the twins, and they shimmered and ran off – but I was dying. And it wasn't because Arcturus couldn't protect me from Alpha Centauri, nor was it that his venom wasn't strong enough. I had simply lost too much blood, and they didn't have any humans on hand to donate.

A simple oversight, but I never thought I'd meet my end like this.

I can hear Diasphora and Maelstrom yelling for me, outside the chamber I was hidden within, stuck with Arcturus, who was doing everything he could to save me.

But no matter how much venom, or how much he seemed to actually care... I was feeling weaker, and weaker.

"...hey..." my tongue can barely move in this dank, dark birthing chamber, I feel so cold, so cold.

Arcturus puts his ear closer to my mouth.

"What can I do?" Arcturus growls in a panic.

"Take me to Earth," I beg him with a faulty breath.

"Don't fall asleep, Empress," Arcturus puts his warm hand to my chest, and I feel the universe warping and bending with incredible darkness as space folds and reopens somewhere else.

I am blinded by hospital lights, as Arcturus lays me down, and everyone starts screaming.

I had seen what he looked like, what it all looked like, to make everyone react so harshly.

Just before I passed out – his face harboured purple void-like eyes, a halo of light above his head, sucking in the electricity, causing the hospital lights to flicker.

As Arcturus's teeth grew longer, and his veins grew darker – he even appeared to have horns on his head, purple and monstrous. Like a fallen angel from hell, his features weren't so human, but more – Elion.

"ELION," someone screamed it too.

The hospital energy flicked back on – Arcturus disappeared as quickly as he lay me on the floor – and I shut my eyes as I spiralled under, my heart weak, my body done.

****

48 hours later

Humans saved my life.

With their blood – which was my blood.

Even with my Fey altered DNA, I needed what my body was made of.

Red blood, iron – depleted so low, they had never seen such an advanced state of anaemia. All the iron, so rapidly taken from me, from all the venom in the past month. The Kor venom itself made me feel normal, while my body deteriorated and I had no idea.

From all the tasting, all the drinking, all the greed of my Kors.

Killing me slowly, killing me softly.

This time I didn't have to run. This time it was just fate that Arcturus followed my instruction, as I was his Empress, and he was my Guardian.

And the humans I had escaped as a Dark Nine, swept me under their protective eye, and placed me in a top-secret government spaceship. So secret, even Danger had never heard of it.

I knew this, because he was here, with me.

Danger had snitched to the government, what I had told him, granting him immunity for a life-time – and a position as captain of one of their ships.

Specifically, the Nightfall XII.

This ship I'm aboard right now.

Danger had admitted to me, he now knew he was Elion, as they did tests – but as long as he never fed, his brain waves had imprinted to be human, being raised by his mother on Earth.