Benjamin’s POV
It was risky for me to try to take someone’s mate and deal with the black magic that came it. Yet, I have found myself gambling it all on Diana. She wasn’t my mate but I wanted her to be mine. This selfishness was going to get me killed if I wasn’t careful.
As I looked at her I knew I would rather die than not be able to call her mine. It was the price I was willing to pay. She was the only one that understood what it felt like to deal with darkness inside of you wanting to consume you. Not to mention she was a beauty that made me feel the closest to ever having a mate. You could say I was jealous that I couldn’t have a chance with her in the beginning.
That is what drove me to figured out how to do a love spell on her. For that kind of love spell, you need a piece of hair so I crawled into her bed and enjoyed when she automatically wrapped those arms around me. The warm feeling of her touch reminded me of home, warm and inviting.
Making her feel the same sensations like that of a werewolf’s unique mate bond came with a price. But, I didn’t hesitate on the chance since I have not laid eyes on another woman like her in years. She was my dream woman with those delicate facial features and innocence big brown eyes framed with thick eyelashes. Her glowing tanned skin looked angelic with a pair of plumped muted rosy lips. Was it so bad to chase your dreams? Fight against all odds just to have a chance with her.
Life isn’t fair and Angelo needs to realize I’m not going to be.
I never had anyone to call my own. Always felt so alone in No Man’s Land, where life was always rough for me. It wasn’t easy creating a community out of exiled werewolves. Perhaps it was all the stories James told me about her that sparked my interest. Whatever caused it didn’t matter now because I was going to try to win her over from Angelo. After all of this was done, I had a fair chance since they hadn’t finished the mating bond. I did everything at the right time to prevent them from completing it. In the human world, it means marriage when two are tied together forever. In the werewolf world, it means sex. They would disconnect from previous homes and leave if needed to follow their mate and start a life together.
Sooner or later Diana would eventually have to choose between us.
I just don’t know how to tell her that we aren’t really mates. How do I explain that I was interfering because I liked her enough to fight for her? No matter what the black magic brings?
“Give me the gem,” Angelo ordered with an outreached hand towards Diana. I had forgotten she still had it since she was not affected. That gem could find your weakness and exploit it to get a certain result from you. If you weren’t careful it clouded your judgment so you couldn’t rationally think things through.
Diana hesitated but reached down into her pocket to grab it. “How are you not affected to it like Jason?” I asked since I was pretty sure whoever touched this was fucked. Or at least that’s what I heard from my men when they tried to take it away from Jason. It didn’t end well, it left a lot of casualties.
“I don’t know,” Diana muttered looking down at the gem. “I got a sneak peek of her abilities as an entity. Since she was brought up with negative intentions she instills those same feelings into her vessel and makes you believe you can gain from it.” Shaking her head confused I watched as Angelo grabbed the Gem. All eyes were now on him, waiting for something to occur. When nothing did he tossed me the gem saying, “I don’t feel any magic Vudu from it.”
Rolling my eyes at him I caught it and immediately felt my body freeze upon on contact as a bad sign. Looking down I saw the gem glowing red as it had done earlier. The negative feelings it was built on began to weigh on my shoulders like Diana had pointed out. But as I stared into it I found something darker lurking inside and noticed a shadowy figure of a woman.
She quickly got a hold of my body by simply looking into my eyes since after all, in the magic world the eyes were a gateway to the soul. As long as I was holding onto the gem she had complete control of everything I did. A tremble of fear wanted to take over my body as a way to cope with this kind of control.
She stirred up the dark magic inside me like a switch using it to control me, posses me, and use me as a vessel. I couldn’t help but watch as I attacked Angelo with my crystal knife. My body was completely alienated from my mind. Angelo dodged it but it caught him off guard so it nicked his cheek. The knife was tied to black magic and all it needed was a tiny cut to infect your body and soul. His skin around the cut started to turn black as it quickly spread like vines on his skin.
“What the fuck?” Angelo asked feeling the sting as it started to get stronger. Diana quickly went to his side looking at the cut noticing that the knife was connected to a poison spell.
“Drop the knife, Benjamin,” Diana ordered with a voice laced with authority, but my body wasn’t listening to my mind. I wanted so bad to tell her it wasn’t me. This entity had great control over me and everything I was trying to do and escape from her magical hold was not working.
Not even my lips were responding to my commands as they stayed completely closed. I could only watch through my very two own eyes as I attacked Angelo again causing him to shield Diana since she was in the way. He put himself in harm's way instead of her. I was secretly glad he didn’t let me hurt her, it would have been too much for me to see her in pain without being able to help.
I didn’t want to look down when I felt the knife stab Angelo in the side since he was not in the best condition to react in time. He grunted in pain but managed to punch me in the face knocking me back so I let the knife be stuck inside of him. I came back up onto my feet as Angelo pulled the knife out of him. Instead of bleeding red, he began to bleed black blood, meaning the poison was doing its job. I regretted carrying that knife around with me if this was going to happen. Diana gasped out her eyes watering at the sight of Angelo suffering at the hands of black magic. Her beautiful brown could no longer hold back tears from streaming down her cheeks and lips. Angelo stumbled with his balance as it was now taking his soul. I was positive it was affecting him deeply by now. It only needed a few minutes to enter his bloodstream and couple more to eat your soul.
I moved around slowly and noticed this entity had dropped the gem on purpose, placing it right on Diana’s feet when it stumbled on the ground towards her. Don’t pick it up! I tried to tell her with my mind, but she saw it gleaming and slowly totally transfixed she bent to pick it up.
Words let my mouth but it was not me who was saying it. “Diana, give me the gem.” Even I could notice something was off with my voice but Diana was not in the best mindset to notice this. Especially when Angelo was seconds from death.
Feeling weak in the hands of a powerful entity was the worst. I would have never attacked Angelo out of the blue like that but this black magic was portraying me as the bad guy. Angelo believed I was all along by attacking him when he least expected it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was doing the same to Diana.
My heart shattered when her gaze went back up to mine my eyes, her emotions that of utter disgust and anger were evidently there. “You’ve been playing with my feelings all this time. Making me believe you were my mate like Angelo was. Kidnapping me so you can get to Jason and get your hands on this gem so you can kill Angelo off.”
Those were never my intentions!
I could not speak my truth because my mouth felt like it was tied up with wires, preventing me from even opening it. All I wanted was a chance to be with her, possibly take her on a date and show her how special she was to me. Have the chance against all odds and show her that I could treat her like a queen if only she chose me over Angelo. I could have respected her wish if she did not want me and only a friend even if it pained me. I would never get this low.
This felt like one of my nightmares that came to life again. A situation where I was labeled at the bad guy when I’ve tried to help Diana through everything I could. I felt like I was suffocating in deep water as Diana looked at me harshly. Her anger was rising as the entity knew it would. Along with her anger came closely behind her black magic.
A pain in my heart erupted as the overwhelming feeling of being useless took hold of me.
I know it does not look good for me, I hadn’t expected it to. I expected her to get angry at my deception but perhaps, possibly, in the end, Diana would consider forgiving me after everything I've done to help. Instead, something dark clouded her mind swimming around polluting her thoughts against me. She could no longer think rationally.
I banged against the inner walls of my mental state in frustration fearing Diana would not see more than what she was telling her. That evil entity would say and do anything to get what she wanted. Overall she wanted to be part of Diana’s black magic.
Not listening to my own reasoning of not touching the gem I fell right into her spider web trap. She saw into each our heads before making her moves on Diana. Right now she was currently wrapping her webbing around her but she could not feel it as it was silk thin.