Mara sighed; sometimes it is almost impossible to understand men, and the closer she gets to them the harder it gets to understand them.
She stood and headed to the fireplace they built earlier and lighted the gathered wood, night was encroaching and she hated to have to face another wild animal searching for easy prey. Since she came to Agartha, every living thing in this place assumed humans to be at the bottom of the food chain. Things wanted to hunt them, eat them, and Darren even told her about some insects that would lay their eggs in the ears of people and the hatchlings would eat their way out through the eyes. She shivered as remembered how he described the passage of the growing larvae.
She didn’t mind the constant danger surrounding her, she knew that she could handle the usual predator and even the occasional mythical creature, but she was feeling enraged that Darren just left her and went into the darkening night.
She pulled one of the small cauldrons, filled it with water from the stream, and placed it on the fire. She took the leaves of the plant Darren gave her for her bellyache and placed them into the small cauldron, a huge headache was brewing in her head and she definitely didn’t want to have for a companion the entire night.
She stirred the leaves in the heating water and looked where Darren ran to, where was he?
***
Darren ran as fast as he could, and when he couldn’t force himself anymore, he shifted to wolf form, howled at the night, and bounded even faster as far as he could get.
Mara dug deep into his heart, plunging a hot searing knife when she talked to him earlier. She might have not even meant it or even felt the need to apologize for what she said, but the fact remained that it hurt Darren. How could she think that he would put anything or any person before her? How could she assume that he kept Richard despite her objections to the guy? He might have considered the trade of auras with Richard, but the price was too high, and he knew that such a price would completely alienate Mara away from him. The main reason Richard was still with them, was that he felt the guy knew something, something crucial to what was happening between the oranges and the purples. Darren felt that he almost could put his finger on what Richard hid from them, yet he couldn’t reach it.
The cold air of the night pushed against his face and head, drying his sweat as fast as he perspired, cooling him and calming his fried nerves. He eventually stopped around a mile away from the camp and sat by a huge black tree.
As he panted and groaned after the effort he made, he started to think about what possessed him to run the way he did. He left Mara alone, and they still had the purples, the minotaur, and who knows what hunting for their blood. He gnashed his teeth and cursed his stupidity, she could be in danger. He stood and started to run back to the camp, and all that was on his mind was that he could lose her, she could be dead by the time he arrived at the camp.
“What in the seven hells are you doing?” Black suddenly appeared by his right side as he raced through the forest.
Darren knew that if he talked, he would lose breath and he might not arrive as fast as he needed to, so he ignored Black altogether.
“That boy Richard is your salvation, you have to make friends with him and get closer under his skin.” Black hovered a few inches above the ground as he flew beside Darren. “Yet, it seems as if you are trying to push him away, you and that stupid surface worlder. May the fates decide her death sooner than later.”
Darren gnashed on his teeth and clenched his fists, yet he didn’t respond and just kept running. He knew that Black aimed to grate his nerves, he knew that the foul spirit was enraged that he kept Mara aware of everything that transpired between him and Black, and he also knew that Black wanted the deal to be fulfilled, even more than Darren did.
As he raced, he ignored Black’s prattle and took it as just background noise to the dark forest, just as the owls hooting and the mice squeaking away. Then he started to think on a different subject, why was Black so desperate to fulfill the deal? Why was he in such a hurry? Did it have anything to do with the prophecy Annias told them about? But that prophecy concerned Ethan, not him, or could it be that Black who claimed to be eternal knew more about that subject than he ever told him?
He saw the light of fire from afar, but this was not their fire, it was far bigger and stronger, besides it was erected to the west of their camp. Darren worried that this could be the camp of the purples, and this meant that the danger to Mara’s life suddenly grew by ten folds.
He shifted and put all of his energy, every last bit of it into his pumping leg muscles, he had to reach Mara, he had to be there, time was running against him. All he had was the run, so he did it with all of his existence, speed was all that mattered.
If you liked this story, check these as well: The Black Rose, Part one, The Black Rose, Part Two, The Sacred Scent, and The Black Rose, Part Three, The Masters.
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