So the days she could keep worry at bay were her saving grace, those moments stolen in the maze, imagining Triaten.
It kept her sane. Kept her from slipping into the bizarrely coddling world Damen had created around her. From the food, to the wine, to the surroundings, to having every need or want met—Charlotte realized it was all carefully constructed to make her slip into a fairytale life where she lost her grip on reality. On the harsh truths of the world outside this mountain fortress.
Even the deliberate lack of communication was part of the mental warfare.
True to what Damen had said, not one soul had dared to speak to her in the weeks she was here. Even Clarice merely nodded when Charlotte spoke to her. The only person to speak to her was Damen. And every night, she was forced to take supper with him.
She had attempted several times to deny her presence at the table. Those nights had not gone well. Those nights she had been dragged, fighting, by his guards to the table. After the third time, she realized the futility and wasted energy of it.
She found out that Damen wasn’t exactly hate-able, even if he was both holding her against her will and a Malefic. A courteous captor, he inquired after her well-being and needs at every meal. Conversation was also a skill of his, well-read and travelled; he could chat about numerous topics, and managed to draw her into several intelligent debates on the impact of corruption in the poorest governments.
So she fell into docile agreement to Damen’s demand of her dining with him. It kept her fight where it needed to be—in her mind and heart. It was that focused fight, the care she took, that had kept her immune to the conclusion of every evening meal.
Every night, before she was allowed back to her room, Damen would stand and escort her to the door of the dining hall. There, he would pause, his hand a clamp on her arm, his breath on her neck.
His free hand would slide over her belly, fingers splaying, and he would repeat the wretched punishment designed to make her beg. Designed to make her cast aside everything she believed in, everything she loved. And as hard as Charlotte steeled herself against his power, his emoting of near orgasm into her core, she was useless against him.
When she would be gasping, his words would always be a seductive whisper. “Are you ready for me, Charlotte?”
“No.” Was always the simple answer Charlotte used—meant to be to the point and not give the slightest sliver of hope.
Some nights it would take longer than others to produce the answer.
They had played this scene out too many times. But Damen was undeterred. Night after night, the same question, the same answer. Charlotte began to wonder if a barren womb would be the only reason he would give up on her.
So when the old hag burst at her from the shadows of the room, talking, Charlotte was immediately on guard.
The hag shuffled across the room, long, stringy grey hair swinging. “You are the Charlotte? The strong womb.”
Charlotte forced herself not to take a step away from the hag. Her gut hardened. Anyone talking to her was out of the established parameters. Outside of Damen, the hag was the first person to actually speak to Charlotte in this place. And the hag knew she was a breeder.
“No answer is fine.” The hag waved her slight hand. “I can see it in your mind.”
Shit. And she could read minds. Did everyone have that blasted power around here? Charlotte locked down her mind, concentrating on the worn threads of the shapeless shift the hag wore. The hag was two heads shorter than Charlotte, one head if the stoop in the hag’s back disappeared and allowed her to stand straight.
“You are on guard. Good. I can go right to this.” The hag stood in front of Charlotte, and she reached out with both hands to grab each of Charlotte’s thighs through the folds of her dress.
The hag grunted, sending electrical volts into Charlotte’s legs, frying the muscles and nerve endings. Desperate to pull away, Charlotte shoved at the hag’s shoulders, but couldn’t pull from the iron grip. It wasn’t until Charlotte’s legs folded out from under her, completely useless, that the hag let go.
On the ground, curling from the pain, Charlotte watched the hag’s bare feet shuffle around her head. She looked up at the weathered face, and grey eyes bore down on her.
“You will show me what you are hiding. You will show me your weakness.”
Her legs nothing but dead weight, Charlotte pushed her torso upright, meeting the grey eyes. “I am hiding nothing.”
“Don’t patronize me, Panthenite. I see the box in your mind.”
“You are right. I am hiding my weakness. But I will never let you in there.” Charlotte’s hand snaked out to grab the hag’s ankle. She was rewarded with another electrical shock on her arm, stunning that appendage. Charlotte fell onto her back, spasms overtaking her body.
The hag kicked her, garnering Charlotte’s attention through the pain.
“I think you will tell me.”
“Prepare to be disappointed.” Through gritted teeth, Charlotte battled for breath. “Give it your best, hag.”
Through her hood of grey hair, Charlotte saw the vile smile on the hag’s face as she bent over. Both of the hag’s hands capped Charlotte’s head.
Volts exploded into Charlotte’s skull. It fried her brain, sending her body into horrid, uncontrollable seizures.
But through the jolting fog of torture, Charlotte held on. Held guard on that box in her mind, where she kept everything precious to her. The hag would not breach it.
Deep in her mind, the hag appeared, tearing, pounding away at the walls of the box. Charlotte fought it. The walls started to flicker, started to corrode. Charlotte could feel her grip slipping.
“Oriane—no.”
Charlotte thought she heard those words through the popping in her ears, but her eyes had long since rolled into her head, and she could see nothing.
Then, the excruciating electrical impulses eased. Her body still convulsing, she managed to control her eyes enough to see the hag against the stone wall by the fireplace, crumpled into a ball on the floor. Charlotte didn’t have enough sense in her mind to wonder how the hag got there.
“Fool. I had her.” The hag got to her feet. “I was almost there.”
The body between Charlotte and the hag bent over, striking the hag, silencing her. Then he grabbed her hair, dragging her out of Charlotte’s view.
Charlotte convulsed, collapsing her eyes as her back arched against the continued virus of pain in her nerves. That the sudden touch of a hand on her face managed to cut through the spasms surprised Charlotte. She struggled to open her eyes.
Damen was above her. Even in her state, she recognized the true concern on his face—though it was something she had never seen in him. His mouth moved, he said something to her, but she couldn’t hear him.
Charlotte suddenly had the sensation of floating. It took her a moment to realize she was being carried. And just when she thought the pain would never subside, she passed out.
~~~
“You let the witch loose on her?”
“Oriane is not a witch.” Damen sighed as he poured amber liquid into two etched glasses. “She can be misguided in her approach at times.”
“Misguided?”
“Really, Shiv. You do not understand her usefulness.” Damen walked to the window where Shiv stood, looking out. “She’s enlightened beyond either of our understanding.”
Shiv took the glass Damen offered her with a raised eyebrow. “Do you really believe that? Or does she believe it enough for the both of you?”
Without answer, Damen turned from her pointedly, gaze locking on the red cloak moving through the snow.
“This is good.” Shiv took another sip from her glass.
“Japanese whiskey.”
“Japanese? Huh, who knew.”
“There is a whole world you must learn to partake in, Shiv.”
“So you’ve told me once or twice.”
Her eyes followed Damen’s out the window, and then she
looked at him. “This is different.”
“What?”
“Usually this place is crawling with females. At least it always has been since Evan dumped me here. And now there’s not a one—correction,” she tapped the window with her finger, “there’s that one, and that one alone. Who is she?”
“The latest breed.”
“She must be pretty important to be the only one here and for you to have the witch on her.”
“She is,” Damen said. “I was hoping Oriane could tell me something in her mind. I can’t break her.”
“Really? The witch didn’t find anything in her?” Shiv clinked the whiskey glass on her front teeth as she watched the figure move along the grounds in front of the maze. “Hmm, so interesting. What’s her name?”
“Charlotte.”
Shiv startled. “Charlotte?”
“Yes, do you know her?”
“No.” Her eyes squinted at the figure in red. The hood of the cloak was pulled up, so Shiv could not even see her hair. “You know I know very few Malefics, and I only met a couple Panthenites, save my sister, before my rebirth,” she mumbled as an afterthought.
“That’s not jealousy I see, my pet?” Damen stared at her. “I’ve never seen a stray thought of that kind in you before. And you’ve watched plenty of the breeds come and go.”
A lusty smile broke on Shiv’s face as she turned to Damen, her finger tucking into the waistband of his trousers and pulling herself closer. “I never mind the breeds, as long as you can still perform for me.”
“But clearly there is something with that one.” Damen pointed out the window as Charlotte disappeared into the hedges.
“No. It’s nothing.” Shiv removed her finger from his waistband and took a sip of whiskey. “It’s just the name. I knew—actually, I didn’t know her, just knew of her—a Charlotte. She was a Panthenite, had to have been. So it’s of no matter.”
“Did you dislike this Charlotte?”
Her head tilted in suspicion as she looked at him. “Why the questions?”
Damen shrugged. “Mere conversation, my pet.”
“Because we do that so often? Our time is usually best spent in your bedroom.”
“Let’s just say I get very few intelligent breeds to talk to around here. So you’re a pleasant change of pace. Tell me of this Charlotte you once knew of.”
A flush spread up Shiv’s neck. “Really Damen, she was no one. She had the heart of a Panthenite I used to screw—at least I’m assuming he was a Panthenite—I certainly didn’t know at the time.”
She took a step away from Damen and finished her drink in one long swallow. “But that was back when I used to care about hearts.”
Waving her hand, Shiv dismissed both the topic and the memories. “Come. My time away from here was annoying on so many levels, and I need a release.”
Damen turned back to the window and paused, shaking his head and still staring at the labyrinth. “I just need to break this one, and I’m running out of time. The only thing that I know of her that has been unguarded, is that she says “try” in her sleep, whatever that means.”
Glass shattered on the floor at Damen’s words. He looked back at Shiv, who stood frozen. She rushed forward, pushing Damen aside and searching frantically through the window for the red cloak to appear.
“What is going on with you?” Damen asked.
Haltingly, Shiv tore her eyes off the window to look up at him. “She says ‘try’ in her sleep, and her name is Charlotte?”
“Yes.”
Shiv smirked, slow and wicked. “Not ‘try’—Tri—Triaten. It’s them.”
“You know her?”
“Oh yes, I’ve never met her, but I know of her. More importantly, I know of him. Triaten. He is the only thing you need to break her.”
“Their bond is strong?”
Shiv’s eyes turned dark. “I couldn’t dent it, for whatever that’s worth.”
Damen smiled and his hand went to Shiv’s shoulder, fingers curling onto her neck. “Then let us visit the bedroom first, for you deserve a reward. And then you must tell me more.”
{ Chapter 12 }
Aiden leaned back on the wall of rock behind him. He sat on a narrow ledge up from the camp, legs dangling down a sheer cliff face. Space. There was a lot of it here. Space in front of him. Space from Skye and Leander.
Leander demanded it, much as he had done for the last month. There were every-other-day bouts of training when Aiden kept Skye’s skills sharp. But the majority of the time, Leander wanted Skye to himself.
It had taken weeks for Aiden to trust the situation enough to not be five short steps away from Skye at all times. But as wacky as Leander was, he was handling Skye with a patience and skill Aiden knew he himself could never have done.
It bruised his pride that he couldn’t help Skye like Leander, but Aiden was eternally grateful that Skye was crawling along, gaining control of her body little bit, by little bit.
They weren’t handed a magic cure, but Leander had been right about the measured cuts, about the weaning. That, layered with an insane amount of time in meditation, and balls-out anger-draining rounds with Aiden, and the concoction was producing larger fragments of the rational Skye again.
Leander had also been right about Aiden’s addiction to Skye needing him. So Aiden was doing his own weaning. He left them alone per Leander’s request, not only because Skye needed it, but Aiden needed it as well if he was to begin quelling his own addiction.
But all the high-altitude downtime had eaten away at Aiden. He was used to moving, to doing. He hadn’t been prepared to face his own thoughts, his own demons. Demons that were still not ready to forgive.
His eyes trailed down the adjacent mountainside, into the canyon below, watching the Griffin Vultures circling, riding the drafts. At least they were enjoying the space. Aiden shook his head, forcing his thoughts away from sins of the past, to Skye and Leander’s progress, wondering how long he and Skye would be on this mountain.
Leander was not one to share, and rarely had sane moments, sane snippets of conversation. So it startled Aiden when Leander plopped down next to him on the ledge. Plopped, and then almost toppled off the edge, chuckling. Aiden grabbed his shoulder; he wasn’t going to let Skye’s saving grace fall into rocky oblivion.
“Where is she?”
Leander waved his hand, looking offended Aiden would need to ask. “She sleeps. Hard meditation this morning. She is trying to stretch out cut times.”
“This will be the longest she has gone,” Aiden said.
Leander slapped Aiden’s knee. “I know. Exciting stuff, this beauty.”
Aiden hated that Leander liked to call Skye, “beauty,” but he had to let it slide. Not that Skye wasn’t beautiful, but she was his beautiful, not Leander's. He had to let a lot of things slide around here.
“It will be one-hundred-and-twenty hours—five days,” Leander continued, excitement crowding his words. “I didn’t think it could be done so quickly. She is splendid. She slips, but then she’s back. Just splendid.”
Aiden nodded. “She is. And strong. And constantly amazing me.”
“She naturally wants to choose the good. In the mix of her soul, that is what shines brightest. I see it in her aura.”
“You see her aura?” Eyebrow arched, Aiden looked at him. He expected to see Leander’s eye twitching, as usual when Leander was overly-excited, but it was still.
“You look at me like I’m crazy—but you already know that, don’t you?” He laughed his hiccupping chuckle. “So don’t look surprised. Yes, her aura. I see it. I see the good. She just has to stay on this path. She can’t veer. She has to want to choose the good. And that’s near impossible, sometimes.”
“Oftentimes,” Aiden interjected.
Leander grabbed his beard with his pinky, twirling, eyes beating into Aiden. “Ahhh, I see you’ve been pondering good and evil.”
Aiden shrugged. “A bit.”
“That is fine. I
t is a fine way to spend time.” He laughed again. “See, high on the mountain, good and evil—you’ll be seeing auras in no time. Tell me, where do you fall in the good-evil continuum?”
“It’s subjective.”
“To?”
“To whom you ask—those I’ve helped, or those I’ve hurt.”
Leander’s hand flew up. “Hold up—I have a better question—where do your intentions fall in the good-evil continuum?”
“Do intentions matter more than results?”
“Hmmm. Good question. I will think.”
To Aiden’s surprise, Leander did. He sat there, half-perched to fall into the deep canyon, pondering.
He made Aiden jump when he finally spoke. His words barked, echoing into the canyon.
“This is the interesting thing about good. It is no coincidence that people hold the good path, and those that choose it, in such high esteem. It is easy to be lazy. Good is too hard. It is easy to rationalize out why you don’t have the time for good. The energy. The smarts. The strength. When the truth is, everyone has those things in them. They just need to show up.”
Leander’s pinky twirled fast on his beard. “Most choose to ignore their own ability for good. They stuff that little voice down—the voice that says this is going to be hard, but I’m still going to do it because it’s the right thing. They stuff it down, day after day, until the lazy path becomes the status quo. And then they lose all their intentions for good.
“So you ask if it is the intention or the action—it must be the action. Intentions are for the lazy. It is the lazy, the status quo that take societies down. Mankind, Panthenites, Malefics—it takes them all down. It has for thousands of years. Do you think it happenstance that I am as far removed from all of them as I am? I may be crazy. But living out there,” he pointed off into the distance, “is its own kind of crazy. It’s just a crazy you’re used to.”
Aiden tilted his head, staring at the old half-breed. Somewhat jumbled, but those were the longest sentences Leander had strung together in their time there. “That was intelligent, and somewhat profound.”
Flux Flame (A Flame Moon Novel Page 12