by Casey Herzog
We were bonded by a blood oath, he took half of the fight out of my hands concerning the evil staining my soul.
“The rest of the shrouds need the same help I gave the one. He hasn’t exactly been forthcoming with any answers. I don’t think I could’ve gone through with it except I knew you would always be there to help me regardless of the danger. I expect a lot, but you always come through.”
My friendship with Damien had made it impossible to break it without hurting both of us.
“I’ve been thinking about that, and it might be best to refrain from giving them the same freedom. I sense the one inside of you is the only sane one amongst them. I would have liked to be there when they came to the consensus. Why was he given the doorway out of purgatory?”
Damien was only saying what I wanted to, but was afraid to without the voice finding a reason to rise up in retaliation.
“I know you’re right. It most likely would be a huge mistake on our part to allow them to run amok. I’m just going to have to try to convince the voice.”
I didn’t think it was going to take much out of him to speak through me, but he has been neutered like some kind of animal. Not even my best friend knew of the position I put Damien in, and we had agreed this would be our secret to tell. William was unaware, and I didn’t know how I would be able to keep this from him.
“Your mother might be right about Penelope and Tabitha, but asking too much of them would most likely break them. You’ve been thinking the same thing, and it shouldn’t surprise you to see them working together. They are the strongest. You need to be very careful about how you allow them to develop.”
This was the same advice my father had used to help Damien find his way.
“My father won’t stop until he finds a way to release me from the voice. I can’t say his efforts are in vain, but it’s going to take something quite special and strong to break me from what was my decision in the first place.”
The voice was safely inside the warmth of my embrace, and I felt like I was responsible for what happened to him.
“Your father has always been stubborn, and there’s very little we can do to stop him.” Damien was strong, and I could feel it inside him courtesy of the darker arts. Nobody else knew how we were connected, and they wouldn’t find out from either of us unless we agreed to it before hand. “I want you to take a chance on letting me be instrumental in helping Tabitha and Penelope to find their true potential.” He was asking a lot, but I trusted him more than anybody, including my own family.
“I will consider your request, but I can’t promise anything, especially when giving you any kind of responsibility will lead to my father looking at you more closely. If we could somehow limit your exposure to those girls, then we might be able to make it work.”
The girls were strong, but they were stronger together than apart. This was something they had learned. Having each other to fuel peer pressure was only asking for trouble.
“I understand your reasoning for keeping me at a distance when it comes to the girls. I think I can help them, but we should do whatever we can to keep our suspicions about their power to ourselves.”
I couldn’t have agreed more. Damien was the reason I put myself at risk to bring back the cure. It was getting harder every day to keep the evil from taking over my life. I breathed a sigh of relief when Damien opened up his eyes. I think he understood the solemn vow we had taken together.
“I owe everything to you, Damien. The darkness isn’t hard to deny when somebody like you is there to reach out and take me into the light. I don’t want to make you feel indispensable, but to me, you are,” I said, looking at him and feeling the tears welling up inside for an emotional outburst to embarrass him.
“I don’t want you to think becoming your second benefits only you. I can also be corrupted, but your influence in my life prevents me from going down that road. We hold each other’s hands, and we’re there when we need to fight off something nobody else would understand.”
Damien instilled guilty feelings, but I understood joining together was best for everybody concerned.
“It makes me feel better to hear you express how you feel without me putting words in your mouth. I will always protect you from your worst fears come to life by your own hand.”
We had been testing his limitations, and he didn’t seem to have any, as far as I could see, which would’ve sent shock waves amongst the locals.
“I’m just trying to be truthful. I never had this kind of deep connection with anybody. It makes me feel good not to be alone and to have somebody there to listen to my problems. I just hope things will be the same when you marry William, but I would never do anything to ruin what is obviously the best thing for you,” Damien said, letting me know not even my marriage to William was going to pull us apart unless it was by our own hands.
“Nobody will understand, but we are family and it doesn’t matter if we are blood or not. You have become something of a staple in my life, and I never want to lose you for anything. It pained me severely to see you incapacitated after what I did.
“You have to know our bond, and joining together before that happened helped me to find my way back to sanity. It wasn’t just you, but without you, it wouldn’t have happened no matter how much my family begged me not to become a maniacal tyrant.”
It broke my heart to know how close I came to destroying everything with a single thought. It would’ve been so easy, and the love of my family and my bond with Damien gave me the strength to push through to the other side.
“I regret nothing; what happened to me wasn’t your fault.”
I heard somebody clearing their throat and I looked up to see William standing there with his arms stretched wide.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything, but the monks in their infinite wisdom decided to give me time off for good behavior. I’ve worked very hard, and they recognized how much I have put in.” Damien excused himself from the room, leaving us to reunite with a loving embrace and a hot passionate kiss.
“I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately, and I feel sometimes I’m nothing without you.”
I had my hands wrapped around his waist and was looking into his eyes; I could see the love shining through like a beacon of hope.
“If this is the greeting I get, then I can only imagine what the wedding night will entail. I’m getting ahead of myself though. I have missed you so much. I hope you know I was with you in spirit. I had no idea you were going to find your mother. I imagine it was quite a shock to the system, and the voices didn’t exactly make anything easier on you,” William said, his hands on my shoulders and a wide smile on his face to indicate his happiness was right there for everybody to see.
“I’ve gone through a lot, but being separated from you was the worst of it all. I know you still have your doubts about what I did, but I felt I had no choice,” I said, as he stood silent letting me wonder what his response was going to be.
He didn’t get a chance to say anything because there was some kind of commotion outside. My main concern was if Penelope or Tabitha were in the center of the chaos. We went down the stairs quickly and out onto the street to meet aa chorus of excitement and people gravitating towards the edge of the village.
We looked at each other, not quite knowing what was going on, but feeling compelled to follow the masses. We pushed through the crowd, and I found myself staring at the one person I had hoped to never see again. They were holding him, and he was struggling. I could understand their reaction to him showing up after all this time.
“You have some nerve coming back here after what you’ve done.”
I was the only one willing to say what was on my mind, and I didn’t care what anybody else thought of it.
“You obviously know me, and you have me at a disadvantage. I have no idea who you are. Come to think of it, I don’t even know who I am or why I was pushed to come here.”
If this were anybody else, I could give them the ben
efit of the doubt, but standing before me was the unmistakable image of Jasper. Everything was coming around full circle.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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Table of Contents
Other Books By Casey Herzog
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
Magic Eyes
Bonus Book 1
Magic Alive
Bonus Book 2