Trial by Fae (Dragon's Gift The Dark Fae #1) - Linsey Hall Page 0,2

are.”

“Please,” I begged. I was only eleven, but boy, did I know how to beg. “Don’t tell. Please don’t tell.”

I couldn’t lose my sister.

“You’re evil, little Dragon Blood. Your blood is black and dirty. Now spill it and make some magic.”

Through teary eyes, I looked down at the dirty knife in my hand. My other hand lay on my knee, palm up, pale wrist exposed.

This was what my aunt wanted—if she even was my real aunt. My Dragon Blood gave me the ability to make magic. It was the rarest power in the world. The most valuable.

The more blood I spilled, the more powerful the new magic would be. If I lost enough blood—nearly all of it, nearly dying—I would create a new, permanent power. A magic that would change my own signature forever. Enough new magic, and it would become clear to the world what I really was. Every supernatural would be able to sense it. It might even make me as evil as my mother.

Then I’d have more to worry about than my aunt. More than the secret she held over my head like an ax. Every day of my life, she’d threatened me with it. The bogeyman in the dark.

“Do it, or your secret is no longer. Aeri will forsake you when she knows the truth about your dirty blood.”

“No!”

I wasn’t just a Dragon Blood like my sister. I was half something else…half something dark. Evil. I didn’t have pure, pearly Dragon Blood like Aeri did. Like our father did. Mine had been polluted by my mother.

Aeri didn’t realize what my oily, midnight blood meant, but I did.

It was proof that I was evil, like the mother I’d never met.

My aunt had made that clear, and worse, I could feel it inside me.

A darkness that threatened to rise up and take me.

It meant that I wasn’t my sister’s true sister. We’d never known our parents, and Aeri thought we shared both a mother and a father. We only shared a father.

My mother was an unknown species of evil supernatural with a magical signature of brimstone and putrid night lilies. It was all I knew about her. All I wanted to know.

I also knew that Aeri was the only thing I had in the world. The only person I loved. I couldn’t lose her. Aunt had promised I would lose her if she knew.

Part of me didn't believe it. I was eleven, and I wasn’t stupid. Aunt would do anything to get me to make more magic. She would use me and use my fear.

But still…

What if she were right?

The proof of my evil was in my black blood, even if Aeri didn’t realize it. She would when Aunt told her though. It was right there for anyone to see.

I dug the blade into my skin. Pain surged, and I liked it. I could focus on it, instead of my fears.

The blood welled, midnight black. It poured over my arm and onto the floor. I switched the blade to my newly weakened hand and clumsily carved into my other arm. More pain.

I smiled.

More blood.

It flowed to the stone around me, pooling warm at my knees. As it cooled, so did I.

“That’s it,” Aunt hissed.

I hated her. Hated her so much that I could have stabbed the dagger into her heart.

But she never gave me the chance.

These were the only chances she gave me—make magic, become a weapon, so I don’t take the only thing you love.

As my body cooled and my heart slowed, I imagined the power that I would create.

Aunt wanted me to create a mind power that would allow me to control others—she, of course, wore an amulet to protect herself. Well, I’d create that power. But in a way to save Aeri and me. I would learn to appear in other people’s minds…that’s what I would do. Then I would send a message to someone on the surface to come save us.

I squeezed my eyes shut and focused on the vision. My head spun as my life seeped out onto the ground. I swayed where I sat, my breathing shallow and my skin cold.

Almost there. Almost there.

I had to almost die for this magic to become permanent, or otherwise it would just be temporary. Creating permanent magic was the only way that aunt would keep my secret. This wasn’t the first time I’d done this, and it wouldn't be the last.

I fought unconsciousness as death threatened to take me. Once enough blood had flowed from