Phobia (Interracial Paranormal Romance) (Wisteria) (47 page)

“
You see we are in many ways the same person.” In seconds, he lifted the talisman from her neck. “You cannot control me.”

“
Give it back to me.” Wisteria reached for it.

“
Never.” Grinning coldly, he pushed her back. “Thank you.”

“
No.” Wisteria grabbed at the pendant, but Bach moved away quickly.

“
By bonding with you, he has in a way become First Pillar,” Coia sneered. “Why do you think it was so important for me that you two get together? Give it to me.”

“
Actually, I will hold onto this.” He pocketed the talisman. “Until we are done.”

“
Fine,” his mother muttered. “Command the Dy’obeths to destroy the Family and open the threshold to Gunori to release the draug. To open the threshold, focus on what needs to appear. You can do this—courtesy of Wisteria.”

“
Bach, do not listen to her,” Wisteria yelled, but doubted she’d reached him.

Bach
walked away from her. Nodding, he started to create a threshold on the glass window through which Wisteria had entered. “Do not worry. It will soon be over and then I can deal with you.”

“
She murdered Oleander,” Wisteria called out. “Your mother killed our daughter.”

Bach paused.

“Lies. Those are lies Bach,” Coia smoothly defended. “Finish the Family. It is the only way for you to be with her.”

“
No, no, you know me,” Wisteria cried. “Bach. You were right that I wanted you so badly before, even though I knew you were—not yourself. So, you must sense I wouldn’t lie about this, not about Oleander. Coia murdered Oleander for no reason.”

Bach
grabbed the sides of Wisteria’s face. His yellow eyes bore into hers and there was no trace of kindness left in them. “You are telling the truth. Mother, you are right. I do need to finish what we have started. Humans, Family and Dy’obeth are all the same and we will never have peace in their realms, not until everyone is dead.” He pulled away.

“
Good, Beloved.” His mother approached him.

“
Then the draug will finish off what is left of Earth.” Bach backed away from Wisteria.

“
Yes, let us—” His mother placed her hands on his cheeks.

“
Do not touch me. Never touch me again.” He yanked her hands away. “You deceived me! You are no longer part of my life.”

“
You listen to her lies?” his mother asked in despair.

Placi
ng his hand around her neck, he choked her.

“
Bach, don’t.” Wisteria rushed over to him. “She’s your mother. Let me send her to the Deep, don’t kill her.”

“
No, she will die by my hands. Everything we went through has been because of her.” The pupils and the whites of his eyes became black. “Oleander, Felip and Yordi. Coia did this.”

“
No, you’re not going to do anything. Send her to the Deep.” Wisteria tried to insert herself between the pair.

“
No.” He tossed her aside.

“
Bach—” Coia rasped out his name.

“
This ends now. Without her manipulation, Dy’obeths, the Family, or the humans—no one will ever come between us. Finally, it will be over.” He tightened his stranglehold on Coia.

“
You can’t kill everyone.” Wisteria got to her feet.

“
Watch me.” He smirked.

Stopping, she took a deep breath. Over
head she saw the threshold to the Deep the one which sucked Felip in. If she moved the threshold over him, she could easily send them off to the Deep now when Bach seemed distracted.

“
Love is the greatest death of all.” Wisteria bit at her bottom lip as tears welled in her eyes. “There is no greater passion for a Dy’obeth than to kill their loved one.” The threshold to the Deep flew past Bach and Coia toward Wisteria. “Goodbye.”

*****

Bach stopped. Something felt deathly wrong. Where was he? He felt like he’d woken from a very weird and horrific nightmare.  A shadow tore out of him. Dropping down, he felt like he had a massive headache.

His mother
lay a few feet away from him. “Mother, I thought you were dead. No, we rescued you and—we—returned to the Home Realm.” Confused, he struggled to piece together what had been real and what was a dream. “
D’cara
what did I do. Wisteria, I—?” Checking around for her, he didn’t find her.

Instead
, he saw the threshold to the Deep closing up right where she’d stood.

“
She went into the Deep.” His mother croaked while grasping her neck. “I suppose it was her way of a love-death. She was a confused girl.”

Bach rose and approached the portal.

“Do not dare. You go into the Deep and you will be lost forever. Bach, there is no one from the First Pillar left to bring you out,” his mother rasped. “Do not let her sacrifice be in vain. We must finish what we have started.” She reached for the talisman.

Digging into his pocket, he took out Galahad
’s Talisman. Staring at it, he now knew exactly what Wisteria wanted to do. Even though he could feel his Dy’obeth strength draining from him, he still had enough in him to fend his mother off.

She
staggered back and her hands started turning yellow. “I have come too far to let even you stop me.”

“
Vadda
.” Malcolm muttered. “Bach, right? Mother? Wait—did I fall I asleep?” He scratched his head. “Or was I sleepwalking because I had a crazy dream that I—what the hell did I do?”

“
I have freed all Thayns and Drones.” Bach crushed the talisman in his palm. “You are done here.”

His mother slapped him across the face, sending him careening across the room.
“You are like your useless father. I should have drowned you and your worthless brothers the moment you were ripped out of my womb. You have cost me my vengeance, and that will cost you everything.” Grabbing his neck with her hands, that had now turned red, she pulsed him with her red light.

H
e screamed.

“
Whoa Mother, calm down.” Malcolm rushed over to her and pulled her back. “Whatever is going on here, we can talk it out. Clearly, we have all been under the influence of some powerful white magic.”

“
She was the white magic,” Bach responded.

“
No, that would not make sense, right?” Malcolm shrieked as his mother pulsed him with her red light. He collapsed, unconscious or possibly dead.

This made her angrier.

“Did you ever care about me or did you just need someone who could control Wisteria?” Bach asked.

“
What do you want me to say?” Raising her hands, she pulsed Malcolm again. Her yellow eyes darkened to black.

Bach could feel
the room heat as his mother’s body began to charge with a red energy he’d never seen before.

“
Coia stop.” The door opened and Bach’s father appeared. “Sentinels are here and will take down those crazy people who think they were Dy’obeths. How did you get involved with those degenerates?”

“
You stupid, stupid man, they
were
Dy’obeths. You could touch them because they have been infected,” Coia scoffed. “I hope you enjoy watching your son die.”

“
Why the boy? Are you afraid to take on a real man?” he taunted. “If you are going to kill someone, then kill me. After all, it was my father who executed your Terran lover.”

“
Father, do not,” Bach shouted.

“
Oh Aleix, I was saving you for last.” She shot at him with daggers of pure red light.

His father duck
ed, but was too slow. Her pulse burned through his left arm completely disintegrating it.

“
I can open thresholds like my mate since our Mosroc exists and I need to send you the hell away.” Bach hadn’t a clue on how to make a threshold appear, but one appeared.

This wasn
’t a round dark like the one Wisteria tried to force his mother into. It was red and asymmetrical.

“
Ajana? You would send me there? Bach, you—?” Before his mother could finish, the threshold consumed her and closed.

“
Bach, thank you.” His father groaned clutching onto what was left of his upper left arm.

Wordlessly, Bach
approached the black threshold Wisteria had gone through. He could sense she hadn’t yet made it to the other side. Placing one hand on the edge, he peered in. Instantly, he felt himself being sucked in, but he didn’t let go of the edge.

“
Wisteria,” he yelled through the raging wind. He moved in further and the draw became even stronger. Struggling to see through the wind, he spotted her.

S
he’d dug her sword into the side of the wind tunnel and was clinging to it.

Stretching as far as he could,
he reached out to her. “Wisteria.”

“
Bach?” She looked up at him.

“
Take my hand.”

“
No, I have to do this. Things should change for you now. This should break Coia’s hold over you.”

“
It has. The darkness is gone. Coia is gone!”

“
Go back or you’ll get stuck.” She slipped further away. Jolting to a halt, she seemed to brace herself for the final descent. “Promise me, you will stop her.”

Knowing, she
’d vanish, if he didn’t get her now, he let go of the side and was sucked in. Tumbling through the tunnel of wind, he reached her and grabbed onto her sword.

She smiled weakly
and then she sobbed. “You’re never going to get out of here.”

“
We have to try.”

“
We’re not. This threshold goes one way. Why did you come down here?”

“
Why did you? Wisteria, you are my life, without you I have no purpose.” Bach held her with his other arm, pulling her close. “If anyone should be stuck in here, it should be me. Do you trust me?”

She
looked hesitant.

“
Touch me, I need you to sense the darkness is gone.”

She
placed her head on his chin and nodded.

“
I’m going to break your sword, so hold unto me,” he said.

Frowning, she
glanced into the abyss below.

“
Wisteria?”

Letting go of the sword, s
he climbed onto his back.

Grabbing
onto the blade of her sword with one hand and the handle with the other, he used the last of his Dy’obeth strength to break the blade in two.

T
he Ninth Metal cut his skin and its poison burning him. He drove half of the broken blade into the side of the tunnel. Prying out the half blade buried in the wall, he repeatedly dug it into the wall puling himself and Wisteria up. He kept going until he burst through the insane winds and Wisteria toppled out.

*****

Wisteria tumbled onto the floor. When she rolled off her back, she felt unsettled to see Sen Aleix slumped at the side of the balcony and Malcolm laying face down a few feet away.

Hurrying to get up
, her feet felt like jelly. “Bach?” Glancing back, she saw him struggling to break out of the shrinking threshold. Running over to him, she heaved him out as it shut behind him.

“
Peeka.” He landed on top of her. “I am so sorry. I will spend the rest of my life making this right.”

She hugged him as he kissed her neck.
“What happened to your mother?”

“
Gone, I sealed her away somewhere—I think Ajana.”

“
Oh.”

As he helped her up, she noticed his hands were black and bleeding.
“The Ninth Metal did this?”

“
It doesn’t hurt that much.” He forced a painful smile. “I will be fine once I have regenerated, but that will not happen until after the Dy’obeths are all gone.”

“
You mean dead? I wish there’d been another way to stop them.”

He didn
’t answer.

Glancing
over her shoulder, she saw Bach being sucked back through the threshold into the Deep.

“
Bach!” She sprinted over to him.

He vanished
before she could reach him.

Sen of the First Pillar

“No!” Wisteria yelled, but was drowned out by shouting outside.