“It was nice meeting you guys, we have to go.” I lower my eyes.
Really? Is that your plan?
He’s back again.
You’re the one who came to the forest, and you’re supposed to be saving me.
I step back again, my back pressed against something hard and stern. I turn around to see a buff elf staring down at me, his drool drops on my shirt. I step back once more, another push against me. I’m turned around slowly with sharp nails on the side of my jawline, tracing it. Her nails travel into my hair as she studies me.
“Leaving so soon? I wish I had hair like yours.”
“Y-yeah, I have to—we need to go.”
She tilts her head to the right.
“Why? You don’t want to learn more about who you are? Where you come from? Why your mother disappeared?”
I look away, but she forces me to look at her. A thorny strand of weed slithers up against my side and around my neck, as she controls it to tickle on my skin.
“You worry about losing yourself to corruption.”
I can feel her in my mind, she doesn’t lose focus as she reads me.
“You don’t want to stay with us? We’re part of your blood.”
I can hear the other elves breathing. I am in the woods so my senses are heightened, the elf part of me is intensified.
The dirt underneath me dissolves into mud as she flicks her fingers to keep me in place.
“You’re staying with us forever.”
“No, I’m not, let me go.” I stare back at her.
“Your fear went away that easily? I can still sense it within you. Let me touch your thoughts.”
I try to move my legs but I’m stuck, and the weeds sting against my every move. The thorns poke at me harder and harder with each move I make. She chuckles quietly, watching me try to escape. I turn to look for Jared, only to find that he isn’t here with me anymore. How could he leave me here alone with all of these elves to kill me? Fear is not inside me, anger develops quickly.
“I am irresistible, and you have something I want,” she whispers in my ear. The screeching sound makes me twitch inside, wanting to pull my insides out and die. I clench my teeth together, trying not to scream. She wants me to scream, but I will not fall for it.
“It’s your heart.”
“Just kill me already.”
“We like to play with our prey first.”
“I didn’t know you were a mermaid.” I spit at her.
The spit doesn’t bother her, instead, she plays with my hair and then suddenly grabs onto it hard, pulling me down. Forcing me to bow down, her hand then lifts my head back up.
“Mermaids are simply too nice,” she whispers.
With my hair in her hand, she yanks me out of the mud’s trap and throws me against a thick tree’s base. Scattered dirt that follows my fall sprays on my face. I cough up the dirt and then look at the surrounding elves that circle around me as I lay on the ground. Within the cracks I see Jared standing with his hands in his pockets, the same purple glint in his eyes.
“Elves just aren’t nice,” her voice scratches in my ears. “Let’s play tag.” She flips her glued hair to the side of her shoulders. “Such thick bars around the kennel of that pure heart.”
The mystics take the ankles of my feet. I dig my fingers in the dirt as they drag me.
“So much filth bubbling up under that self-control,” her voice tortures my ears as she continues to speak while I am pulled.
I scream for help, I scream for Jared. My body is bumped against the many sharp rocks and trees. The elves race up the tree. I see the ground growing smaller. I am being dragged up against the bark, the ground soon becomes only darkness.
“You cannot escape a loveless fate.”
The corrupt elf girl finally ends her torture with, “Shh, quiet my dear, enjoy the game.”
Chapter 7
The side of my stomach is bruised from the bark of the tree. My nails chip from clawing into the tree’s wood. The elves that hold my ankles burn my skin, our markings lighting up the dark forest. The mystics fling me onto a thick branch; my back slams against its thin twigs and rough leaves. I snap my neck to the right, watching cautiously for the next attack. The mystics have glowing dark green eyes, except for one—an elf with blond hair and silver eyes.
“You’re it,” he mouths.
Immediately the elves disappear in the many thousand twigs and thick branches, all with giggles that scream into my ears.
“Get up,” the main evil elf says. A vine slaps across my stomach and forces me up on my feet.
“Play or die.” The vine pushes me off the branch, but grabs me mid-air, landing me back on the main branch safely.
I wipe the scattered dirt from the top of my nose and shut my lips tight, recollecting myself slowly. I breathe in slowly. An elf leaps in front of me and kicks my gut. The impact forces me against a nearby tree. I fly in the air with my hands in front of my face, my eyes wide open, and my voice too afraid to scream; another vine grips my body and lands me on another branch.
Okay, I guess I’ll have to play.
I breathe in and out harshly from the near death kick.
I glance down at my skirt with its holes and dirtiness. My shirt has a hole gashed right beneath my collarbone. I snap a leaf’s stem from underneath me, they’re longer than the ones in the real world; this will make a great hairband for my hair. I close my eyes as I feel another force coming my way. I mute all the evil laughs and focus on one thing—staying alive. I sidestep calmly, swift wind stings my cheek. I open my eyes, the elves are standing, or hanging from branches waiting for me.
“Who’s first?” I say, slightly looking at them all. My eyes flicker to my right.
I twitch reluctantly, and my eyes freeze and burn.
I step on a slim broken branch, bending down to hold it in my hand.
This could make a great weapon.
I run down the thick branch and jump into the air. I can feel the elves’ movements as they all scatter. The wind brushes against me as I grab a nearby branch in the air.
My heart is racing, I’m breathing in cold harsh air, and the branch cuts the inside of my elbow. I hang from the branch while biting my bottom lip, swinging back and forth a couple of times and force myself up on the branch.
A silver haired elf is staring at me with a mischievous smirk on his face. I tumble toward the monster to drop kick him to my level; I whip his face with my branch.
He is shocked but then filled with anger. He kicks me off him. I try to grab something to break my fall. I’m too late. I fall down the tree, there’s another elf below me. I focus on the girl and furrow my eyebrows. She isn’t aware I am above her, falling. I stick out my branch in my hand to aim for her neck, she turns around to backhand my face.
The elf leaps on top of me. Her teeth look very sharp and she wants to tear my heart out. She scratches my face, I block her attempts.
Both of us grunt in distress. I pull on her hair and she grabs my neck. Her touch is burning me and I am losing control.
Jared appears behind the girl. He takes my branch out of my hand and stabs the girl in the back. Her eyes become white and she tumbles off me.
“She is not dead; you have ten seconds.”
He hands me back the branch and climbs up a tree.
I don’t know what’s going on with him. He saved me, so he wasn’t all bad. I won’t forget him standing there as they stole me away as their hostage.
Seven seconds—you’re not moving. You need to kill at least one, then I will get you out.
I look up at the many branches and tall trees around me, then down at the massive height difference. My eyes look for the girl Jared stabbed—she is gone. The time was up, and she was my only chance to get out of this torturous game.
The same blond elf I noticed before the game started lands not too far away from me. He has both of his hands up at me and his index finger moves back and forth, motioning me to come get him. He is mo
re focused, therefore he’s not smiling.
He walks backward slowly and doesn’t blink at all.
I grab my stick from the ground as I run after him, also determined and focused. His palms face out toward me. I’m the police and he bears no weapons for an attack. He stops at the edge, smirks at me, and falls backward. I rush over to the edge, he’s still staring at me as he falls.
“Instinct,” he mouths.
I turn around to get slapped by a large elf. He pushes me off the tree’s branch. I grab his arm, forcing him to fall with me. He grunts loudly. I place my hand around his neck, choking him and using his body as protection from the scattered branches we collide with.
His glowing blood gets on the side of my cheek from the sharp branches. He turns around in the air facing me, shows his teeth and aims to bite my neck. I bite my lip and choke him harder. I elbow his jaw. We’re approaching the ground faster and faster as we fall.
The speed increases. I notice the silver haired guy with beady eyes kneeling down on a branch. We pass him, and the ground comes closer. I dig my nails into his eyes as he growls.
I snatch a stick from a random branch while the wind numbs my face.
I can barely see properly from the pressure.
The branch feels sharp. I close my eyes and aim for his chest.
***
His body slams to the ground so hard that the branch scratches the insides of my hands, forcing me to bring it down, puncturing his beefy chest.
Glowing blood splatters up to my face. I can feel the branch dig into the dirt from his back.
My teeth clench and my eyes are freezing.
Anger fills me.
It’s difficult to keep her inside.
***
Thanks for letting me out, Rose. Now the fun really begins.
I look up with a smirk on my face. The main elf stands with her hands crossed in front of her chest.
“You did it, you caught one.”
“The game’s not over.” I watch her and the rest carefully.
I take the branch out of the elf I stabbed. He is twitching and his markings are fading in and out. I strut over to another sharp branch on the ground. I grip the bloody branch in my hands.
“The thing about killing a corrupt elf, it’s different than others. But similar to a fairy’s vanquishing,” I say, strutting over to the beefy elf while looking at them all puzzled.
I stop in front of the elf on the ground. I gash the bloody branch back into the hole I’ve created, he yells in pain.
“Aim for the heart,” I teach.
His eyes fade into white. I chuckle. I was lucky, it seems like I impaled right into his heart. “Twist twice left, makes a perfect death,” I hiss.
I take the branch in my hand and twist it to the left two times. I remove the branch as his blood gushes out in the air, and with the other branch I stab it right back in the hole.
“Twist twice right, so there’s nothing left to fight.”
This time, I twist the branch to the right two times. His body turns into green mist as he vanishes on the ground. Turning around, I splay out my fingers at the elves. Each and every branch holds them all hostage. The main elf watches me in shock.
“Your power, this must be the myth we foresaw coming.”
I claw my fingers, squeezing them all; I hear their painful screams.
“Please don’t kill us. We just want her, your myth, to come out.”
I strut slowly toward the elf as I size her up and down. My hair moves around in the air; I trace her jawline as a rash begins to develop.
“You wanted me out, now you’ve got it.”
“I wanted the truth about you. It’s an amazing thing, you’re one of us.” Slobber drips from her mouth. She frowns.
“You are afraid. Corrupt mystics aren’t supposed to be afraid of anything. Do you fear me?” My fingernail traces down to the middle of her neck. I tilt my neck to the right slowly and whisper into her ear, like she did to me.
I laugh as she screams in pain. “Eliza, it’s enough, we’re good to go now.”
I turn around, irritated by the interruption. I see a guy with white hair.
“I’m your brother. I can show you a place way better than these elves.”
“Brother?”
He nods at me. I am skeptical, but also curious about the place he speaks of. I turn back around to the elf I tortured. She looks up at me in pain.
“Please, my queen, I am your most loyal servant.”
“You can stay in these woods with the rest of your pathetic clan, trapped forever.”
I shut my hands into a fist. The branches squeeze the elves tightly and lift them back up in the air. I don’t know why my hair was tied up. I snatch off the stem hairband. Turning around, the guy punches me in my face. I crash to the ground, unable to keep my focus, but feeling my finger being lifted. It’s then when the realization creeps up my spine that the ring has been placed back on my finger.
Chapter 8
Someone is carrying me. I don’t want to open my eyes because I am afraid of the unknown. These arms are warm, so for once, I do not feel like I am freezing. I feel calm and warm; that’s it.
The boots’ buckles beneath me clang together, the sound entering my ears reminds me of the screaming elf in the forest. There is not an intense burning scent in my nostrils, the air is not thick. We must’ve passed a garden because the scent of fresh roses fill the air. That alone tells me I am no longer in Ravamere. I need to wake up and leave, I need to get back to my father’s home. I must force him to tell me all the things I’ve wondered.
“Rose.”
That voice, the only voice I know so well tingles inside my ears. The raspy deep tone I hated but loved at the same time spoke to me. The one person who only calls me Rose was carrying me. “Why do you always have to run away from me?”
I still act like I’m asleep—he continues to talk to me. Donovan is not stupid, I am very sure he knows I’m acting this out. He sniffs the air, and then a droplet of wetness hits my cheek. Was Donovan crying?
“Why put yourself in continuous danger?” He sniffs again, clearing his throat.
I turn my face around to open my eyes at the sky’s lightning dart above us. I’m shocked by the sudden boom that follows right after the blinding light. The sky then proceeds to cry, not Donovan. I purse my lips together and hold on to his black leather jacket.
“I thought you were crying,” I mutter.
“My nose is acting up from all these flowers.”
I look at our surroundings. Donovan’s walking in the middle of a field with thousands of different flowers. I fix my gaze at the shore nearby. The waves are raging. The dark gray clouds hover over the angry ocean. I feel my eyes flick up to lightning sprinting across the sky.
I remembered Dawn floating in the air in Ravamere. Did Donovan leave her there? And what about Jared—where is he? How did I even get out of Ravamere? These thoughts race through my mind as I become filled with worry and fear.
“Calm down, your eyebrows always tend to become a unibrow when you’re flustered.”
“Where’s Jared and Dawn?”
“If you’re wondering how you escaped Ravamere safely, it was all part of Jared’s plan. You needed to become myth first to get the full block off you so you could enter the portal.”
“Okay? That’s not what I asked.”
“Jared is still in Ravamere with Dawn,” he sighs.
“Let me go, Donovan.”
“You’re not going anywhere. If you go back into Ravamere, you’ll need to kill another two mystics. And now, since Marcus knows you’ve escaped, it won’t be as easy as it was the first time, not to mention Christian is missing.”
He bit his bottom lip, he’s said too much for his own good. Christian’s missing? Where on earth could he be? My heart drops, hoping he isn’t coming for me, with his twisted yet charming ways he’s acted in his play to turn me into his evil queen, the queen I did not want to become.
> “I’m sorry, but this time you can’t leave me again, Rose.” His voice is assertive.
“Since when have I ever listened to you?”
“You not listening to me caused Faevil and Ellevil to be destroyed and become corrupt.”
“Well yeah, but those weren’t necessarily my fault.”
I force myself out of his grip and walk on my own. Tiny thin droplets of water fall from the sky onto our skin, lighting up our markings. My elf markings don’t freeze me, but my witch ones proceed to burn. I catch Donovan looking at me, this look is different. Worry covers his face. He isn’t much his jackass self lately and I kind of miss that. He lends me his hand. We hold hands in the drizzle. Thunder sounds above us, we don’t flinch, but continue to stare at one another.
“I need to talk to you,” he says.
I nod my head and lower my eyes as I let him guide me through the field of flowers. Donovan leads me to the large rabbit hole, with its cave-like entrance. The drizzle turns into ferocious rain. I guess we made it to safety in time. I rub my thumb on the top of his hand and trace his markings on his wrist. He clears his throat and nudges me against the wall from behind me. I look up at him, curious, his lips are tightly pressed and rain drops from the tips of his black hair onto my freckled nose.
I wipe off the tiny droplet; it would annoy the crap out of me if I left it there.
“The Verel,” he starts, and then looks down to his side. “Do you know who they are?” He looks at the ground, kicking his boots into the moist dirt.
“Male witches who use female witches and pure mystics to aid Ravamere.”
He glanced up at me slowly. “Do you think I’m using you?”
“Using me?”
“To get what I want…” his words are trailing off.
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