“Stop it!” Summit bellowed.
“Well?” Anya asked, applying more force.
“I said I stop it!” he thundered.
“I will not ask again! Kneel!”
You might as well sever my arm because he won’t— Rion saw something in his bloodshot eyes that clogged her throat. Aside from the trembling anger that made his dark lashes quiver, there was something else veiling those striking blue eyes. Anguish? No, she was mistaken. Summit would never even contemplate negotiating with this woman. He was a proud man. He carried himself with more pride than any man she ever met. He would not throw it away for his own life. He would not throw it away for a mere woman! Even for the woman he loved.
“What is more important to you? The girl or your pride?”
No, Summit, Rion silently begged. Large beads of sweat began to form on her forehead. Please don’t negotiate with this woman!
“Choose!” Anya screeched at him.
Hands clenched at his sides, Summit forced his knees to bend. Rion’s eyes widened when she realized what he was about to do. She closed her eyes, tears streaming down her face. A sour feeling of bitter jealousy rolled down from the tip of her tongue to the end of her guts. She never hated Amara more than she did that moment. She hated her so much that she wanted to kill the girl herself.
The room was filled with deathly silence when Summit got down on one knee. “Forgive me…” he forced the words from his throat.
She killed him, Rion cried inwardly. That girl killed my husband. I do not recognize the pathetic man standing before me.
“You’ve got to do better than that,” Anya taunted.
Summit glared up at her.
“I beg…” he gritted, “…for your forgiveness.”
Anya let out a bitter laugh. “Have you ever thought that there would be a day like this?”
“Return her to me,” Summit demanded.
Anya shook her head.
He pushed to his feet. “What more do you want?”
“I want you to suffer!” She barked at him, golden eyes glowing brightly. Her features became savaged. “I want you to be tormented by your every thought! I want your heart to bleed just as mine did! I want you to know what it feels like to lose the one closest to your heart… as I did.”
Rion gasped at the piercing pain in her abdomen. Her eyes sank and saw five long sharp claws impaling her belly from the back. It might as well end this way, Rion thought to herself as her vision floated to her husband at the base of the stairs. The expression on his face pained her more than the open wound. He was a fool for letting sentiment get the best of him. He made a complete fool of himself because of a woman. He should have dealt with Anya ruthlessly regardless of the consequences. Whatever lives loss in the process would only be the number of casualties. He should have mercilessly struck down those who trespassed against him. That was what he should have done if he were himself.
But he wasn’t himself. He wasn’t the Summit she knew and loved. He changed because of that woman, and not for the better. She turned him soft. She made him weak.
Tears of regret streamed down the curves of Rion’s cheeks. She wanted to go back to the Realm of The Dead. She wanted to live in the memories of the husband she once knew. His heart did not belong to her, but neither did it belong to another. She preferred it that way. At least then she didn’t have to share him with another woman. He was hers alone. Even if his eyes shunned her and his heart resented her, he was hers alone.
Rion closed her lids over eyes. Her heart slowed and then ceased to beat.
Chapter Nineteen
The white sheet was flapping against the mirror. Amara pressed her palms against the glass, watching in nervous anticipation. Her knuckles were bruised from trying to break free from the mirror.
Everything was happening too fast and too sudden.
The Lycan named Anya was standing on top of the stairs with her look-a-like. Her claws pierced through the poor woman. Amara bit into her lower lip as she watched the scene unfold. Anya pulled her hand back and then pushed the look-a-like down the stairs. Noctis shifted from his position and caught her in his arms. He wasted no time in summoning a crystal orb around the woman’s body. The time spell quickly reversed the damage Anya had done. The bleeding stopped. The wound healed. He gently tapped on her cheek to wake her. A moment passed, then another. There was no response.
“Amara!” he growled her name.
“I’m over here,” Amara answered, though she knew her voice couldn’t be heard from the other side. “If you would only look to your right…”
“Amara!” He violently shook the woman by her shoulders.
“I’m here…” Amara pressed tighter on the glass. Now she understood why he always despised her weaknesses. His love for her made them his own. “I’m here!”
Anya cackled over his frustration. “I do not care what you do to me now. My vengeance is complete.” She casually walked down the steps to meet him at the base of the stairs.
He was unresponsive at first. His blue eyes seemed to be staring into a distant place.
“Well?” she asked a moment later.
He stood. His hand slowly reached up to her neck and gripped firmly. His blue eyes slowly turned to her, looking even more menacing than usual. She grinned back at him. He lifted her off the floor, slowly choking the life out of her. At her final moment, he lit her entire body in a spectacle of white flame. Her youthful beauty withered into ashes. Only the cloak remained intact.
He bent down and gathered the woman at his feet. Silently, he carried her up the stairs.
Amara buried her face in the palms of her hands and mopped down to the floor. Everything had gone all wrong. Though, how it could have gone right was beyond her. There was just no happy ending to it when he was the apparent villain. She always knew his deeds would come back to bite him where it hurt, but she never really thought that it would involve her. After all, she was just as much of a victim as any of them.
But things are different now, Amara reminded herself. She was no longer his captive. She was his lover. That made all of the difference in the world.
Amara didn’t know whether to feel guilty about the dead women or to pity her. The two feelings were contesting one another to display on her face. Secretly, she was glad that she was still alive. Of course she would be. Like every normal healthy human being out there, she wanted to live. It would have been hypocritical, perhaps even theatrical, of her to say I should have been the one who was killed. However, it was a fact she couldn’t deny.
So in the end, guilt prevailed.
Eyes glued to the stairs, she waited for Noctis to walk down to discover that she was trapped inside the mirror. She kept on waiting. Sometime later, Dimitri staggered to the lobby looking like he had been mauled by wild animals. He didn’t notice the mirror at first and could have well missed her altogether if she didn’t wave her arms to catch his attention. The white sheet covering the mirror wasn’t completely opaque and Dimitri had always been known for his sharp observation of his surroundings. His brow lifted when he saw her. He looked around, behind, and then back at her. Slowly, he limped toward the mirror and pulled the white sheet off.
“What happened to you?” Amara asked.
Dimitri knitted his brows together. “What?”
“I said, what happened to you?”
“I can’t hear you,” he said. “You’re just moving your lips.”
“Damn it! I forgot,” she muttered and met with his confused expression.
“How did you get inside the mirror?” he asked curiously as he inspected the dimension of the mirror.
“Oh never mind that. Just tell Noctis to come down here.”
“I don’t know what you’re saying.”
Amara began to mouth each word. “Bring. Noctis. To. Me.”
Dimitri shook his head, clueless.
Amara fogged the mirror with her breath and then wrote the four words with the tip of her finger. He seemed to ha
ve some trouble reading what she wrote. It must have looked reversed on the other side.
“Bring… Noctis… to… me?”
She nodded.
“Alright,” he agreed to her request. He dragged his pitiful state away from the mirror and up the stairs. She waited anxiously. He came back ten minutes later, alone. His face had gone pale.
“Where is he?” Amara spread her arms out, palms facing up.
“He’s upstairs.”
“I know he’s upstairs. Why didn’t you bring him?” She lifted her palms higher.
“Are you a ghost?” Dimitri whispered.
Amara rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“But I saw…”
Amara shook her head again.
“Well, when I got up there, your deranged deity was standing by the bed. He was… staring at your corpse.”
She fogged the mirror again and wrote ‘not me’.
“He wasn’t even aware I was in the room. I tried talking to him but he was unresponsive. I don’t think he could hear me. His eyes were really strange. I mean, even stranger than usual. They were searching… rapidly searching for something. He seemed… lost.”
She wrote: ‘drag him down here’.
“I don’t think I’d want to touch him right now. What if he snapped at me and turned me to ashes?”
‘Bring me to him.’
“Amara… the mirror is cracked pretty badly. Do you think it’s wise for me to carry this bulky thing up the stairs? What if the mirror breaks altogether? How can we get you out then?”
‘I don’t care.’
“Well, I do. I’ll go upstairs and try one more time.”
She nodded.
Dimitri left and then returned the second time. He was shaking his head as he walked down the stairs. That was instant bad news.
‘Did you tell him I was alive?’
Her Lycan friend nodded. “Twice.”
‘How did he react?’
“Like I wasn’t even there. I can’t get through to him. I think… he has gone off the deep end. He just stood there, frozen like the dead.”
“Oh…” Amara groaned.
“We both know he’s not in the best of health up here.” Dimitri tapped at his head. “He thinks you’re really dead.”
“But he has gotten better,” Amara disagreed. “He has!”
“I can’t hear you,” Dimitri reminded her. “Write it down.”
She shook her head to dismiss it. ‘Find someone to free me.’
“I will,” Dimitri promised. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“As if I could.”
He gave her a half-smile because he understood that last part. “I’ll be back as soon as I can find help.”
‘Hurry’ she urged Dimitri. The sooner she could get out of this wretched mirror, the sooner she could fix whatever needed fixing to get things back to the way they were.
But what if things wouldn’t go back to the way they used to be? What if…
No. I mustn’t think about that.
She was worried about what was going on inside his head. Noctis may have been highly unstable when they first met, but his condition improved significantly. He used to have a short fuse and be temperamental, but he came so far since then. He became more patient and more even-tempered. Surely he wouldn’t revert back to that. Or worse.
Amara felt like a mess. She cursed at Noctis for what he was doing to her and then cursed at herself for what she was doing to him. They both would have been far better off not knowing each other.
At the stroke of midnight, the grandfather clock woke Amara. She forgot when she fell asleep. Sleeping on the floor didn’t feel as uncomfortable as it looked. She briefly opened her eyes and saw flames and smoke burning on nearly every surface. Her eyes snapped opened and abandoned all thought of going back to sleep when she realized that her home was being consumed by fire. Alarmed, she pushed to her feet.
My god! Why is the house on fire? Is anybody coming to help? White flames… Noctis… he didn’t!
Something even more terrifying startled her. The man with the silver eyes appeared at the base of the stairs. He came back to free her. Correction, Amara said to herself. He came to take her back to the Realm of The Dead.
He picked up the dark cloak amidst the fire and then walked to the mirror. Oddly, the cloak appeared undamaged. He reached into the mirror and offered his gloved hand. “Are you ready to come home?”
“This is my home,” she replied, grey eyes surveying the fire surrounding them. “Whatever is left of it...” She wasn’t sure if he could understand by reading her lips.
“Come with me, Amara.” It wasn’t an order, but a plea.
“Over my dead body.” Then, she added shakily, “Literally.”
He exhaled softly. “Your heart still lingers in this world.”
“I’m not ready to leave it yet,” she confessed to him. “If you keep insisting on taking me back to the Realm of The Dead, I would have no choice but try to escape… again.”
“A catastrophe like none you have ever seen will take place unless you come with me now. You will be a guest in my home.”
“Catastrophe?” Amara whispered and she looked all around her. “What can be more catastrophic than this?”
“I cannot reveal that to you.” he answered with a shake of his head. It was an obvious lie. He seemed to be hiding something from her. Something he didn’t want her to know. She decided not to pursue it. It had nothing to do with her even if it was about her.
“I’m not coming with you,” Amara clarified.
He seized her hand and pulled her out of the mirror. Afraid that he would take her back to the Realm of The Dead with him, she fought and struggled away from him. He effortlessly pulled her toward him, wrapped the cloak around her shoulders, and the pulled the hood over her head. He threw her over his left shoulder and then carried her out of the burning building while she protested with her fists against his back. The cloak protected her from the fire raining down from the ceiling.
When they were a safe distance away from her burning home, he let her down to her feet. She turned toward her home and groaned when it began to collapse. Ordinary fire would have taken hours to burn down the brick structure, but Noctis’ flames only needed minutes. Why would he burn down their home? This place held so many good memories – of them, of her friends.
Amara never thought she would cry over a building. But it was no ordinary building. It was more than a place where she ate and slept. It was her home. For three years, she kept the home in livable condition. She cleaned every window and mopped every inch of the place. To see it gone to rumble like this…
“Why would he…?” Amara bit into her lower lip to prevent a sob from escaping. She squinted when she thought she saw Noctis standing amidst the ferocious flames. She caught a glimpse of his profile before the collapsing structure blocked her view. Her only thought was of how to get to get to him.
The man with the silver eyes standing by her side caught her hand when her legs moved forward. She turned to face him. “I need to go to him,” she declared daringly. The tone of her voice lacked the usual shakiness whenever facing him. She was still very much afraid of this man, but fear no longer took priority. “He needs me and I must go to him.”
“It will not end well, Amara,” he foreshadowed. “Are you certain this is the path you want to walk?”
“I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.”
He must have seen the determination in her eyes, because he didn’t ask her a second time. Slowly, he released her hand. She shrugged off the cloak and gave it back to him.
“He is going after the other two females,” the silver-eyed man said to her. “There is only vengeance in his heart now.”
Amara ran around the burning mansion and scanned the surroundings. She spotted Noctis far off the property across the maze garden. He was heading into the nearby woods by himself. She called out his name as she ran after him, but he didn’t se
em to hear her.
The chase took her further and further into the dark woods. She attempted to navigate her way to him with only her instincts to guide her. Smoke began to swirl around her, suffocating her. Countless slips and falls later, she made it through to the other side of the woods before she collapsed from lack of oxygen. Wheezing and huffing, she turned back to look at the woods she just crawled out of. It was being consumed by fire at a devastating rate.
Amara discovered herself standing at the peak of a tall hill. Behind her was a sea of fire and in front of her was a million-dollar view of the city by night. Under the moonlight, she saw Noctis walking down the slope of the hill. He was heading for the city. She briefly glanced at the great fire behind her and then to the city in front of her. It was like looking at a before after photo of the exact same thing. He was burning down everything in his path.
She sprinted toward him and grabbed him by his arm. She thought that he would stop for her, but he kept on walking as though she wasn’t even there.
“It’s me!” She shook him, but that garnered no reaction from him. She swung herself in front of him. She seized him by his shirt collar, and yanked on the fabric to obtain his attention. Finally, his blue eyes met her grey ones. “Don’t you recognize me?”
He brought an arm between them and cleared her from his way. His strength sent her rolling down the slope of the hill. She was able to slow down the momentum by turning her body vertical to the slope. The fall hurt so damn much, she didn’t even want to get up. She could barely breathe, but she couldn’t afford the luxury of catching her breath. If she let him walk away now, she would lose him. That was more literal than she intended.
She had just lost her home. She didn’t want to lose him too.
“The Amara you saw… wasn’t me! It was Rion! Are you listening to me? I said it was Rion!” Her cry fell on deaf ears.
When she made an attempt to get up, her knees almost gave out on her. Her vision blurred out of focus and then back again. There was a little voice inside her head telling her to give up. If he couldn’t recognize her in the first or second attempt, there was very little chance of that happening on the third. His condition was a long time coming… perhaps even passed due. There was never any future for the both of them to begin with. Only a fool would fight a losing battle. She should have cut her losses and let him go.
The Dark God's Bride (Book 3) Page 16