Jewel of Darkness

Prologue “I can still feel her, though I can’t see her. I can still hear her voice, though she is far from me. I can still feel her skin beneath my lips, though her flesh is nowhere near me. The bond is still firmly intact and that is the only thing keeping me from burning the world to the ground and allowing myself to be engulfed in the flames.” ~Dalton Black Under different circumstances, Jewel might have liked waking up to the sight of a dozen half-naked men. As it was, however, the sight was more than a little disturbing since they were the men that Volcan intended to use for his twisted witch breeding program—the program that Jewell would be a broodmare for. She was beginning to think that her bright idea of letting Volcan capture her in order to save the other healers was about as bright as the captain of the cheerleading squad. How bright is that you ask? Jill Sawyer, said captain, was so bright that she thought a civil war was one in which the two opposing parties fought in a manner that didn’t involve killing or violence of any kind, because it was, you know, civil. Insert annoying preppy voice. When Jewel decided to let Volcan capture her, she hadn’t considered the thought that he might try passing her around to different men in order to build a witch army through the offspring of those couplings. Mostly, she just thought she would be fending off his advances and learning about magic. She mentally knocked some points off her IQ for her stupidity. She also hadn’t considered just how hard it would be to walk away from Dalton Black. She definitely deserved to be knocked out of the genius category for that choice. Seriously, she thought, who walks away from a man like that—a man who had said things to her that most women dreamed of hearing. “Genius, apparently,” she said answering her own question. Jewel squeezed her eyes closed as the thoughts of Dalton flooded her mind. Their time together had been so short. Most of it had been spent with her unconscious and him talking to her and sitting by her side. She had only spent a few precious minutes with him while not in a coma, and yet those were the most amazing moments of her eighteen years. But even more vivid, than the good times with him, was the memory of the look on his face when Volcan had taken her. The usually stoic, always-in-control Dalton had shown a myriad of emotions across his masculine face. They ranged from anger to fear, desperation, love, need, and still others that Jewel wasn’t sure she could even interpret. She felt the deep seed of guilt plant itself in her gut. She’d left him after he’d claimed her and she him. She imagined that this was supposed to be done under much different circumstances and include emotions that didn’t involve all the ones that had made an appearance on Dalton’s face. She had forever tainted something that she knew had to be sacred to his race. Essentially, she’d accepted his claim, his affection, and thrown it back in his face. Jewel hadn’t trusted him to protect her, provide for her, or even given him the chance to prove himself. From what she understood of Alpha males, that amounted to pretty much-repeated kicks to his man parts. If she made it through this in one piece, how would she face him again? How could she even expect him to want her? Perhaps, it would be easier to just accept her fate rather than return to a man she’d so thoroughly neutered. For so long she’d dreamed of something as amazing as the love stories in the books she read and it had finally been within her grasp. She’d been accepted, even liked, for who she was. Jewel had seen adoration, desire, respect, and love in the eyes of another and those emotions were aimed at her. “You deserve whatever that power-hungry psycho plans to put you through,” she muttered to herself under her breath as she sat up and directed her attention to the door and away from the men. She squared her shoulders and raised her chin, ready to face her captor. The door opened and Volcan stepped in. “Honey, we’re all home.” He motioned to the males. Jewel nearly rolled her eyes. Great, psycho is also a comedian. The only hope she had at that moment came in the form of her clumsiness. Perhaps, she would trip over her own feet, fall, c***k her skull, and die. She could only imagine what the epitaph on the tombstone would be: Here lies Jewel Stone, the dumbest genius on earth.