Taming Darkness
Chapter 18

~Aleera~

My eyes sweep over my surroundings, my heart racing a mile a minute. This could not be what it looks like. She must be using my memories against me. I am desperate to replace a weak spot or vulnerability in what could only be an illusion, to think one step ahead of her evil grand plan. Though, the harder I look at it, the more I get the sense that it truly is my home that had been destroyed by fire. It almost seems as if it was plucked out of time itself and given back to me. It doesn't feel like a projection or illusion; it feels real. There is no way I will give in to my curiosity and trust what my eyes show me. I glance over at her army, who follow her in perfect obedience. There has to be some weakness I can exploit.

"You can look all you want, but you won't replace a way back. You'll never escape me again," she taunts.

I keep my eyes low, avoiding hers, and try to look like I am scared and shaken about where I've ended up. Think, Aleera.

I turn my head and watch my mother stroll forward, taking in my surroundings. She is correct. There is nothing out there. I can't even see the road leading into this place anymore because it's so overgrown with grass it no longer exists; there is no gap between the trees showing the way out. Instead, it leads into a dead-end street among the trees. The brown, dry grass is overgrown, and a once comforting space now gives way to an unshakable, eerie feeling. Even the sky looks off as if we are in some sort of matrix. It appears to ripple and morph, like looking through a bubble. Everything glitters oddly. Turning my attention back to my mother, I watch as she speaks with some of the power hunters standing guard around this place.

I wonder briefly if the power hunters are aware she is just using them. However, by the devoted looks they give her, it's as if she is their deity or an altar on which they worship.

My mother smiles and converses in a tone that sets me on edge, one I realize was reserved for me as a child. I haven't heard that voice in what feels like a lifetime. She speaks to them like some loving mother, and I watch as she caresses the guard's cheek, manipulating him with soft words and gentle touches before he rushes off to do as she asks.

The man goes in the direction of the surrounding forest and suddenly disappears. This makes me notice the dome-like protection surrounding this place as the shield ripples. No wonder my mates couldn't replace her.

They'd sifted through so many clues and witnesses, only to hit one dead end after another. They'd even gone as far as hiring snitches and paying them off, those most likely to know exactly where this special corner of hell was, but the results were always the same. The men I can see here are brainwashed, the power hunters indeed worshiped the ground she stood on as we approached the huge building that was once my family home. All speaking and touching her while sneering at me as I trudged behind her. Every forward step of progress my mates made over the years, toward replaceing the real location, only ended in shoving them three steps back. They'd been betrayed countless times, while my mother's hunters had lured them further and further away from the truth. All of them had been desperate to unearth the place where the root of all evil lay. Where it hid, right under our noses, concealed from everyone outside their little members-only organization.

After all the time passed, it boggles my mind that she never left. Never would I have considered the possibility, even if someone had sought me out and explained in extensive detail, that she was hiding in our home under concealment. Not even that would have led me to believe the truth. But seeing it now, it was the perfect cover, a place no one would suspect.

And yet, here we are. Me and the bitch of a woman who brought me into this hellish world. Never once in all this time had I ever dreamed of meeting her, this woman who thought she had captured me and was bringing me closer to my end to fuel her tyrannical reign.

Unbeknownst to her, I'm not the one that stumbled into a trap, she did. The reason escapes me as to why she would so easily fall for it in the first place, was it because she had been in hiding for so long, or did she just completely underestimate me? Either way, she never considered other people's plans. Her oversight works to my advantage, and I plan to reap the benefits of her underestimating me and my abilities.

She walks down a path leading me to the house. Even along the path, the gardens look the same as we walk through the small track leading to the front porch. I used to play in these gardens, which are now overgrown. The grass in the garden beds strangles the plants, plants that look like they were from another planet, not this one. I wonder how I never noticed their oddities as a child.

"Is it how you remember?" my mother asks, motioning around me. True, it is the same but also different, maybe because I'm no longer looking through the lenses of a child's eyes.

"A little different," I admit, and she smiles softly. For a second, I almost see the woman I remember from my childhood, until her lips purse and the glint in her eyes turns sinister. "Your father hated this place when we first moved here; however, I am glad I managed to convince him." Her words irritate me because I realize that even my father was just another victim in all this, she was the true mastermind. Yet growing up, they seemed so devoted and loving toward each other. It makes me wonder how much of my childhood was

a ruse.

She may have given birth to me long ago, but she was no longer my mother, simply a dangerous stranger. She didn't know anything about me or the lengths I would go to for those I loved. So I know nothing can prepare her for what I am willing to do to protect my mates and strip her of her position and the power she is working so hard to protect.