by Ginny Lynn
Kenrick wore a dark green button up cotton shirt with rolled up sleeves that flapped about his jeans pockets since it was untucked. The denim encasing his legs seemed heavier and a darker wash than we had in the modern time. It felt like an odd combination but he carried it off with confidence. Picking up a different plant, he carried it to the shelf that Aster used to use for her diary and potion making. There were only a couple of things there and none of them felt as if they were hers. This was Kenrick’s doing and he showed his control over this scene.
Looking at both of us, he made a gentle shrugging motion for us to come closer. We obliged but I wasn’t too sure where to stand in this situation, figuratively and literally. Staying in the back corner, by the still open door, I waited to see what this was all about. Aster, being bolder, walked along the three rows of plants to see what had been called forth. Gingerly, she touched a few and even stuck a fingertip in the soil of one plant to check the moisture of the potting mixture. Then she made her way to Kenrick, with a sway to her fuller hips under the almost transparent gauze of her white dress. If I didn’t dislike her so much, I would say that she was a seductive picture with the light pinpointing areas of her curved frame as she made her intentions known.
Once within reach of her target, she spoke, “You called and we are here.”
“Yes, I did.”
The next moment he had her wrapped in his arms in a hold more aggression than carnal. Her back was roughly against his chest with one of his sleeved arms just at her breastbone. I wasn’t sure if he meant to choke her or to simply hold her as he said what he needed to say. In no way would I help her as she remained the villain here, even if my natural instinct was to save a woman in possible danger.
“What shall I ever do with you my dear wicked witch?” he asked in a low enough voice that seemed to be more for the delicate ear just below his parted mouth.
“That would depend entirely on what you have in mind, sir,” she suggestively replied.
He turned to me. “I have a few ideas running around my head but I’m not sure how well they would be received by Renata?”
“You know how I feel, Kenrick, so there is nothing to discuss further on that matter,” I simply stated.
“Then I guess it’s up to me to make the next move on this chess board,” he said with a small sigh.
“Chess only has two players, my dear,” retorted Aster.
“That it does, dear witch. That it does.”
A scream of terror escaped me as I was tossed against the glass wall behind me and the door swung with a force that jolted me between the cold wall and the unwavering glass door. My arms were pinned to my sides between those two chilly surfaces and I barely had enough room to lift my fingers as I tried in vain to push it away from me. My small nose was pressed so close to the glass my heavy breathing fogged up the images in front of me. I began to panic. Could I hyperventilate in a dream? Did our combined power have enough strength to actually kill me, as old wives tales once deemed to be true?
Hearing distorted laughter, I knew with renewed dread that I had been betrayed. He may not have woken to make love to her in body but he had enough of the heinous potion in him to have him with her as they slept together in my bed. Railing against my dangerous cell, I almost forgot the chance that my struggles could shatter the materials embracing me. What would be worse? Seeing them as I made myself pass out? Making enough of a ruckus where I broke the walls around me, possibly causing myself dangerous injuries? Using what little amount of power I had stored to force myself out of this dream and into the gray mind of the woman who continued to possess my body?
As the fog began to dissipate, I saw something best left unseen. The embrace that had started as defensive notched up to a sexual heat as he had pulled Aster into a kiss too hot for any simple display of affection. This was the type of memory that lovers took pride creating when separated from each other for too long of a time. Not for a couple sworn to torment each other for a hundred years. Feeling my heart sink like a lead weight in the ocean, I saw how hands roved over each other’s bodies like they were memorizing the acute grooves in a marble statue. Roughly, she began to disconnect the buttons on his shirt and get his skin under her greedy hands. He made no move to stop her, the lecher. As a matter of fact, he had leaned away from her in an attempt to give her hands more room to maneuver.
His shirt flew to the ground in a fluttering heap and she began running her lips over the skin so nicely exposed to her. A warm chuckle trickled from his chest as her head moved around to take in as many inches as possible of his lightly sculpted torso. Even though I was smothered, I could make out the noise of panting and light moans coming from them. Disgusted, I closed my eyes when he bent down to pull the white cotton dress over her trim shoulders. More of her hated laughter rang into the metal rafters as I squeezed my eyes shut so tightly spots danced before my eyelids. A sexy groan assaulted my ears and I heard a thump as something heavy hit the floor and rattled the door. Opening my eyes to hopefully see her immobile on the ground, I gasped when I realized what was truly happening not a few feet from me.
There they were, both stark naked, and rolling around the debris-strewn wood below us. Bile rose in my constricted throat as I saw him pose above her. I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t fathom sitting here as they made love in front of me. It wasn’t just my more humble sensibilities but the moral wrongness of the situation which had me shoving against the now heated glass while I screamed to be released. It that moment they stopped and looked at me, with her face mid-gasp and his hovering above her breast.
“No!”
I launched my body and my force against the vibrating barrier and with a cry from my fractured heart, the glass hurtled away from me in a million pieces of rage. It showered them as it ripped across delicate skin. Coming away from the wall that had remained solid in my actions, I stalked over to the pair stuttering up at me.
The shaking limbs of the witch were riddled in glass fragments and blood welled from her many cuts and scrapes. I gazed upon my deceitful lover and was in a moment of shock as he pulled a small dagger of glass from the arm he had held up to protect his gorgeous face. Laying the glass at his hip, he surveyed the wound that needed stitches if inflicted upon real flesh. My mind had a hard time accepting it wasn’t actual blood flowing down to drip across the uncovered skin of Aster’s rounded belly. A pool of red had already collected in her small navel, looking macabre in its gleam across her chalky white complexion.
Blinking as he began to move under the assault of my eyes, he reached for his shirt, ripping a sleeve off to wrap around his lower arm as a makeshift bandage and tourniquet. Quickly the green turned to a mottled brown as the cotton drank in the red blood oozed from his wound. Again, it seemed so realistic that I had to remind myself of the fact we all were wrapped in this dream.
As my attention was drawn back to Aster, she had a wondrous gleam in her bedeviled eyes. How could she seem so satisfied when I had stopped her being ravaged by my betraying lover? She should be angry that I had not only stopped her plan of seduction but he had been left to bleed as he tried to keep his face from being damaged. Flicking my glance to Kenrick, my eyes begged the question as words were not available to me. His uninjured hand went from under Aster’s head to point at my right side.
That’s the moment I felt the searing pain as I took in the view of a large shard of jagged green glass embedded in my tender flesh. I hadn’t even known I was injured. Was it the dream world keeping me safe inside my own head or was it that my mind hadn’t accepted the damage I had done? If I survived this, I would know whether dreams had the ability to influence the flesh. Knowing you should never pull out an item impaling you, I painfully reached for his tattered shirt and yanked the remaining sleeve free from the shoulder seam. As quickly as possible I would pluck the shard from my upper hip and stuff the wad of cotton in the hole to use as a compression bandage.
Just when I gathered the strength to grasp the jagged edge, Aste
r was on her feet and in my personal space. Kenrick’s voice interrupted the tense air as I prepared to lunge away from her.
“Let me take care of this, my Aster,” he said strongly enough to grab both our attentions.
“Do you have the will to take care of it completely?”
Such an odd question for her to ask as dark red bloomed across my stomach.
He began to walk forward but she put a blood sprinkled hand up to stop him before reaching me.
“I demand an answer to my question, besotted one.”
She wanted to know if he could kill me. Shit!
With them decently distracted, I lurched to the left to escape both sets of hands, and the plans they had for me. Hearing a cry of frustration from Aster, I tried to move my legs faster as blood loss was becoming more evident with my stilted actions. A rush of wind ran across me as a large shadow quickly loomed over my retreating figure. I could see it like a harbinger of death as it swallowed up my shadow by the time I reached the broken door frame. It beat upon me before I could save myself. I was flung to the ground just outside the greenhouse, on the stone pathway leading me back to the house.
Using my hands to keep myself from falling flat on my face and impaling myself to dangerous degrees, the force had me in so much pain that I fought off fear I would vomit if I moved too quickly. But this was just a dream, right? Could I force my mind to conquer my imagination and the intent of a witch? Slowly getting to all fours, I was too late as I heard them slowly walk up behind me. Just as I put more effort into standing, although not as straight as before, Kenrick steadied me by holding my left elbow in his tight grip.
“Move away from her unless you have the balls to finish this,” Aster ground out.
“Back off, Aster. I know what I’m doing,” he said to her as he looked into my frightened eyes.
“I want the pleasure of running this little rabbit through.”
She sounded pleased with his phrasing in pursuing her fiendish plan. If he wasn’t going to do it then she would and neither one of them seemed to want it any other way.
“If you’re going to kill me then get it the fuck over with. I’m tired of this madness and you can have each other. Just let me go to heaven and be done with this,” I exclaimed with my slurring words of pain and bloodshed.
“Aww, the rabbit wants to be freed. We can take care of that little detail for you, Ms. Renata Barkely,” came Aster’s acidic voice.
My fatigue was overwhelming. My muscles didn’t want to hold me up for much longer. In this nightmare, I was bleeding to death while they bickered over who was going to cast the fatal blow. A hysterical chortle escaped my dry throat, and I clutched at Kenrick.
Aster popped her head up around the arms that held me. “Either way, there will be a death this evening, and we’re wasting valuable time, my love.”
“You’re right, Aster, this has gone on long enough,” came from the betraying lips of the man I loved.
Chapter Seventeen
His eyes flashed like flame to a new log and I remembered his eyes erupting with passion for me. It had been real, no matter what he may feel for Aster at the moment. I felt, more than saw, his lean fingers slide over the blood coated glass and pull it out with a deft motion that wrenched my insides. Surprise ran across me as I had somehow hoped he wouldn’t do such a thing after saying he wanted to court me.
I said the only words available to my fleeting mind, “No matter what happens, just know that I love you, Kenrick Giles.”
Aster roared with laughter at not only my words but at the fact that my words ended in symmetry to him ending my life.
“How quaint. Now drop the foolish woman and take me to bed, my long lost lover,” Aster said as she pushed me from his arms and to the ground.
They just stood over me, watching the sea of red wrapping itself around me like wet silk. I wanted his eyes to be the last thing I saw, but just as I willed them to shut forever, he did something else to surprise us all. Taking the glass still in his grip, he turned and thrust it into the breast of the witch at his side.
An inhuman bellow emitted from her parted lips and my ears rang with the force of it. Kenrick slammed down beside me as curls of black smoke shot out of the hole in the witch’s naked chest. Red flames sparked and licked at her feet, and Kenrick scooped me up and away before they caught onto my blood-soaked clothing. Sadly, the black enveloped us before he could get me safely away from my would-be murderer.
****
Popping my eyes open, I saw sage green and cream designs across the walls of my bedroom. Then Kenrick’s face came into view and I swallowed the scream that crawled up from my lungs. Trying to edge further from him, a pain shot through me and took my breath away from me.
“Be still, the wound needs to be packed,” said the man with the eyes of burning topaz stone.
“Oh my God, the fucking wound is real. You son of a bitch!”
“I’m sorry this had to happen but it was the only way,” he said as he yanked a pillow from the floor and struggled to get the cotton casing off. He shook so badly he had too tight of a grip on the pillow to properly get the fabric off, but he wasn’t going to drop it and get more debris on it. He was dressed in the jeans and shirt from his dream including the stained remnant around his arm.
“Why?” I managed to squeeze out from clenched teeth as I prepared myself for the coming procedure.
“I’ve seen the book and there were only a few things possible to dispel her from you. Most were more dangerous than this and I panicked. I knew she was going to kill you in the dream. I couldn’t let that happen. The initial wound was extreme enough but your falling made everything worse.”
As he packed the wad into my gaping wound, I let the hysteria seep out of me with a scream which sounded like the wounded animal I was.
“So, this is my fault?” bubbled out of me in an angry sob.
He paused for a moment before looking at me with a smirk on his face.
“Yes, all of this is your doing as you are too delicious a meal for us old fogeys.”
If I’d had the strength then I would have laughed or smacked him. Both were still up for debate.
“We have to stop the blood flow as we try to get out of here,” he said to me as he got a majority of the wound filled with cloth.
“You and I both know she’s not going to just let us go. That witch is too vain to be ignored, and she’s going to take us out if she can’t have her way with us,” I said around gasps while he worked at staunching the blood.
I had to ask, to know, even if he lied through his straight teeth. “Why are you trying to save me when you were just seducing her? You had said you wanted to court me and then you went with her. Was it the drugs and if so, how did you overcome them? If you were trying to get close to her then you went way overboard with your acting, man.”
“You’re right but I was pushing off the remnants of what I had ingested while remaining in control of the dream we were spinning. I had held as much as I could in my mouth without swallowing it but some of it got down my throat when she covered my face. I fought not to gag as I knew she would have a tiny bit of control over me, even if I didn’t fall in love with her. Maybe my curse deflected the potion. Whatever it was, thank the gods.”
“I personally would have thrown up, and I don’t see how you laid there so peacefully while she did that to you. But then again, you ended up naked and writhing against her well enough. If I’m to trust you then how do I know what is make-believe from real feelings? I can’t just turn to blind faith after the stunt you just pulled, potion or not.”
“All I can say is that I’m sorry for hurting you. It wasn’t my intention, and there was no way I would have intercourse with that creature. Don’t even waste the energy on it. But I had to make it look real to fool her. You saw it with your own eyes and believed it.”
“You were leaving me to bleed to death!” I choked out as a wave of pain at his last adjustment had my spine bowing.
&nbs
p; “It was the only way to force her out of you. I swear. And I plan on making this up to you, if you’ll let me.”
“I seriously can’t see you being trustworthy anymore.”
He looked defeated as the heated words sank into him. Wiping his hands on a cloth, he wouldn’t meet my eyes. Why did I have to feel guilty after the stunt he had pulled on me? This was insane!
Before I could stop the words, I said, “If we get out of this alive, then I’ll let you explain how you think you can make me trust you again.”
“When. Not if. And you have yourself a deal, Miss Barkley.”
I took a few deep breaths as I forced myself to sit up.
“We need to find her diary and burn the damned thing to ashes. Do you think you can come with me? I’m afraid to leave you alone and vulnerable in case she can somehow get back into you in your weakened condition.”
“If waiting for her to assault me is the option then I’d rather be running with you,” I stated honestly. I knew that I had lost too much blood but there was no way in hell I would just lay around and wait for her to go back to wherever she flew in from.
“It’s a start,” he replied as he held his hand out for me to take.
Hesitating for a fraction of a minute, I gripped his hand as he pulled me to the hallway and then down the stairs to the front foyer.
“We both have a link to her, so we need to think of where the book might be hidden. The real one wasn’t in her dream, just a manufactured one. I’d bet she doesn’t need the book to make the potion since she’s had almost a century to memorize the damned thing while she grew stronger.”
“If I had to guess, I’d say the attic, the library, the greenhouse, or the cemetery.”
They were the only plausible places in this maddening scenario.
“What do you think, Kenrick?”
“I agree with the attic and the library but not the other two. Those last two would involve her burying them in the ground and that leather isn’t going to handle soil very well, or the old pages inside of it.”